{"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":"2025-05-12T11:12:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:12:55","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<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>\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 [&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,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-17086","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_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":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23243,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17086\/revisions\/23243"}],"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}]}}