{"id":17086,"date":"2024-01-20T14:22:19","date_gmt":"2024-01-20T19:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/?page_id=17086"},"modified":"2026-07-02T13:50:46","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T17:50:46","slug":"forgotten-waters","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/in-print\/volume-111\/volume-111-issue-4-april-2023\/forgotten-waters\/","title":{"rendered":"Forgotten Waters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p2\"><em><span id=\"page1865R_mcid2\" class=\"markedContent\"><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">Over 43 million Americans, approximately 15% of the population, rely <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">on private wells for drinking water. These Americans do not have access t<\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">o public water systems and are not protected by the Safe Drinking Water <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">Act. These individuals are instead left with a set of widely differing state <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">laws regulating their drinking water wells. Most of these states do not <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">have any standards related to drinking water quality. Well owners are <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">instead responsible for monitoring and maintaining the safety of their<\/span><br role=\"presentation\" \/><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">water. <\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><em><span id=\"page1865R_mcid12\" class=\"markedContent\"><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">This problem is often characterized as a rural issue: hard to solve <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">because<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">of<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">the<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">large<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">distance<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">to<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">treated<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">water<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">infrastructure.<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">This <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">assumption is wrong. Many homes are located in peri-urban<\/span><\/span><span id=\"page1865R_mcid13\" class=\"markedContent\"> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">commun<\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">ities,<\/span><\/span><span id=\"page1865R_mcid28\" class=\"markedContent\"> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">close to public water systems. These systems often have been <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">excluded from public water systems due to racial and ethnic<\/span><\/span><span id=\"page1865R_mcid17\" class=\"markedContent\"> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">discrimina<\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">tion<\/span><\/span><span id=\"page1865R_mcid29\" class=\"markedContent\"> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">and<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">poverty.<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">Using<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">the<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">example<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">of<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">communities<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">surrounding <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">Mebane, North Carolina, this Article argues that approaches to<\/span><\/span><span id=\"page1865R_mcid21\" class=\"markedContent\"> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">address<\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">ing<\/span><\/span><span id=\"page1865R_mcid30\" class=\"markedContent\"> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">access to safe drinking water must account for this legacy of<\/span><\/span><span id=\"page1865R_mcid25\" class=\"markedContent\"> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">discrim<\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">ination<\/span><\/span><span id=\"page1865R_mcid31\" class=\"markedContent\"> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">and discusses why the Rural Electrification Act provides a <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">promising model to<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">provide safe drinking water to<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">well dependent <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">populations<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Continue Reading <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2023\/06\/GT-GGLJ230013.pdf\">Forgotten Waters<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-pdfemb-pdf-embedder-viewer\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2023\/06\/GT-GGLJ230013.pdf\" class=\"pdfemb-viewer\" style=\"\" data-width=\"max\" data-height=\"max\" data-toolbar=\"bottom\" data-toolbar-fixed=\"off\">GT-GGLJ230013<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over 43 million Americans, approximately 15% of the population, rely on private wells for drinking water. These Americans do not have access to public water systems and are not protected by the Safe Drinking Water Act. These individuals are instead left with a set of widely differing state laws regulating their drinking water wells. Most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10024,"featured_media":0,"parent":17071,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-17086","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10024"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17086"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24669,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17086\/revisions\/24669"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}