Health-based violations
1,513,732
14.3% of total
Public dataset · EPA SDWIS + UCMR5
According to EPA SDWIS and UCMR5 public records (data vintage 2026-05-15), this site aggregates every Safe Drinking Water Act violation and PFAS test result for 143,076 U.S. public water systems, searchable by system, county, and state.
The national picture
Of 143,076 U.S. public water systems, 126,455 carry at least one EPA violation, and 34% of the 10,252 systems tested for PFAS came back positive.
SDWIS violation counts use the full public-water-system inventory; the PFAS percentage uses only the UCMR5-tested subset (generally systems serving 3,300+). Those denominators are not interchangeable - see methodology. Counts include health-based and the far more common monitoring/reporting violations.
Browse water systems, violations, and PFAS data for each state.
Water systems with the highest number of recorded violations.
Water systems where PFAS "forever chemicals" were found.
Top 10 jurisdictions by total EPA SDWIS violations in the current release.
Pennsylvania
1,159,868 violations
Texas
746,210 violations
New York
552,003 violations
North Carolina
524,053 violations
Mississippi
499,292 violations
Illinois
355,322 violations
Indiana
352,710 violations
Oklahoma
336,706 violations
Washington
314,648 violations
Montana
297,270 violations
What this shows Pennsylvania currently leads this list. These totals include the far more common monitoring and reporting failures, not only health-based exceedances.
A sample of 30 states spanning the full range of tracked population, plotted against the share of systems with at least one recorded violation. Crosshair marks the median of this sample: 7,692,328 people, 92.8% of systems with a violation.
Top 5 public water systems by total EPA SDWIS violations on record.
Seven Estates
11,570 violations
Pinnacle Water Association
11,356 violations
Coal Mountain Water
10,707 violations
Congregation Ohr Menachem
9,908 violations
Lake Forest Park Water District
9,527 violations
What this shows Seven Estates sits at the top of the current violation leaderboard. Use the full system profile to separate health-based exceedances from the much larger monitoring and reporting count.
Health-based violations
1,513,732
14.3% of total
Systems tested for PFAS
10,252
3,528 with detections
126,455 of 143,076 public water systems
PlainWater provides free access to drinking water quality data from the EPA's Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) and the Fifth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR5) program. Our database covers 143,076 public water systems serving over 347 million Americans, with 10,559,500 recorded violations and 10,252 systems tested for PFAS "forever chemicals."
Download the SDWIS/UCMR5 state landscape snapshot: sdwis-state-landscape.csv (same CSV as /statistics, CC0).
Learn how EPA monitors drinking water quality, what PFAS contamination means, and how to check your local water system.
What EPA SDWIS tracks, how violations are classified, and what Maximum Contaminant Levels mean.
What “forever chemicals” are, how UCMR5 monitoring works, and what EPA’s 2024 standards mean for your water system.
Step-by-step: find your system, read violation reports, check PFAS results, and know what action to take.
How to evaluate your tap water: find your system, read violations, check contaminants, and decide on filtration.
Which states have the most PFAS detections from UCMR5, why contamination clusters, and the 2024 EPA limits.
What to do with this data
Use EPA violation and PFAS records as a starting filter, not a final verdict on 143,076 systems.
EPA SDWIS and UCMR5 figures are informational only, not a substitute for a certified lab test of your own tap water.
About this data
PlainWater presents EPA drinking water quality data for public water systems across the United States, merging Safe Drinking Water Act violation history with UCMR5 PFAS ('forever chemical') testing results.
The PlainWater is independent and is not affiliated with the EPA or any state drinking-water program. Found an error or a stale figure? Get in touch via the contact page. See our methodology for full source attribution and known limitations (e.g. UCMR5 only covers systems serving 3,300+ people).
PlainWater provides EPA drinking water quality data for 143,076 public water systems, 10,559,500 recorded Safe Drinking Water Act violations, and 10,252 systems tested for PFAS under UCMR5, across the United States.
PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are synthetic chemicals found in many water systems. The EPA has set new health-based standards, and PlainWater shows UCMR5 testing results for your area.
Data comes from two EPA sources: the Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) for violations and the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR5) for PFAS results.
Explore EPA SDWIS and UCMR5 PFAS data by county, state, or contaminant, every page derived directly from the current dataset.
Drinking-water-system violations and PFAS detections for every US county with EPA SDWIS coverage.
BrowseState-level rankings of health-based violations and PFAS occurrence rates from EPA SDWIS.
BrowseEPA SDWIS leaderboards of US drinking-water systems by violation history, updated from each published snapshot.