Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Science Team
The Team Studies Toxicants and Pathogens in Drinking Water
To understand if and when humans are exposed
The Team Studies Toxicants and Pathogens in Streams
To understand if and when wildlife are exposed
The Team Studies Toxicant and Pathogen Sources and Movement
The Team Develops Tools to Understand Health Effects
The team studies toxicants and pathogens in water resources from their sources, through watersheds, aquifers, and infrastructure to human and wildlife exposures. That information is used to develop decision tools that protect human and wildlife health.
Americans rely on treatment of drinking water and wastewater, and the maintenance of water distribution infrastructure to assure safe water supplies for the public and wildlife. New chemicals are manufactured and used every day. Populations grow and demographics shift. Treatment, conveyance and plumbing infrastructure ages, and new technologies are developed to detect contaminants (toxicants and pathogens) at low levels. Consequently, questions arise about the health effects of exposure to contaminants indivually or in complex mixtures.
The US Geological Survey’s Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Science Team provides information on processes that affect contaminants as they move from naturally occurring and human-caused sources through aquifers, aquatic environments, and infrastructure. This comprehensive understanding of contaminant profiles from source to exposure is used to develop decision tools to economically, effectively, and efficiently reduce wildlife or human exposure and associated health risks.
The Team prioritizes science in underserved urban and rural agricultural communities and in tribal nations, which are disproportionally impacted by geologic and climatic events, by drinking-water source limitations and resultant dependence on water-reuse and unregulated/unmonitored private-wells.
More Information
Date Visualization: "Drop by Drop" and "PFAS Interactive Tool"
GeoHEALTH–USGS Newsletter-Special Issue on Drinking Water
Questions That the Team Answers:
- Is treated wastewater effluent a source of contaminants to streams that serve as source water for publicly and self-supplied drinking water supplies?
- What contaminants are in tap waters from publicly and self-supplied drinking water sources?
- What factors influence the types of contaminants that are present in tap water?
- Are there hazards to fish and wildlife associated with exposure to low-levels of contaminants in streams that receive wastewater?
- What mitigation actions are the most efficient and cost effective at reducing exposure at the tap for humans? Or in water resources for wildlife?
- Can decision tools be established to to define, prioritize and mitigate human and wildlife health risks?
USGS featured science articles related to this science team’s activities.
Improvements in Wastewater Treatment Reduces Endocrine Disruption in Fish
Evidence of Endocrine Disruption Unexpectedly Found in Minnesota Lakes
USGS data releases associated with this science team.
MODFLOW-2005 and MODPATH models used to simulate hydraulic tomography pumping tests and identify a fracture network, former Naval Air Warfare Center, West Trenton, NJ
Pumping Rate, Drawdown, and Atmospheric Pressure Data from Hydraulic Tomography Experiment at the Former Naval Air Warfare Center, West Trenton, NJ, 2015-2016
Lithostratigrapic, Geophysical, and Hydrogeologic Observations from a Deep Boring in Glacial Sediments on Davis Neck near Nantucket Sound, East Falmouth, Western Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Data Release for Lake Shadow Seepage Calculations from Ashumet Pond, Cape Cod, MA, 2016 - 2018
Natural gradient, lakebed tracer tests using nitrite in a nitrate-contaminated groundwater discharge zone in Ashumet Pond, Massachusetts
Electrical geophysical data collected in the shallow sediments of Snake Pond, Cape Cod, USA
Concentrations of Pesticides, Pharmaceuticals, Organic Waste Indicators, and Volatile Organic Chemical Contaminants and Their Predicted Effects Potential in Wadeable Southeastern USA Streams
Occurrence and Concentrations of Trace Elements in Discrete Tapwater Samples Collected in Chicago, Illinois and East Chicago, Indiana, 2017
Target-Chemical Concentrations, Exposure Activity Ratios, and Bioassay Results for Assessment of Mixed-Organic/Inorganic-Chemical Exposure in USA Tapwater, 2016
Organic and total carbon analyses of rock core collected from boreholes 83BR, 84BR, 85BR, 86BR, 87BR, 88BR, and 89BR in the mudstone underlying the former Naval Air Warfare Center, West Trenton, New Jersey
Geochemical data supporting analysis of geochemical conditions and nitrogen transport in nearshore groundwater and the subterranean estuary at a Cape Cod embayment, East Falmouth, Massachusetts
Occurrence data for organic compounds and bioactive chemicals in water, sediment and tissue from Rocky Mountain National Park, 2012-13
USGS publications associated with this science team.
Public and private tapwater: Comparative analysis of contaminant exposure and potential risk, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA
Machine learning models of arsenic in private wells throughout the conterminous United States as a tool for exposure assessment in human health studies
Inclusion of pesticide transformation products is key to estimating pesticide exposures and effects in small U.S. streams
Feral swine as sources of fecal contamination in recreational waters
Syntrophotalea acetylenivorans sp. nov., a diazotrophic, acetylenotrophic anaerobe isolated from intertidal sediments
Multi-region assessment of chemical mixture exposures and predicted cumulative effects in USA wadeable urban/agriculture-gradient streams
Chemical-contaminant mixtures are widely reported in large stream reaches in urban/agriculture-developed watersheds, but mixture compositions and aggregate biological effects are less well understood in corresponding smaller headwaters, which comprise most of stream length, riparian connectivity, and spatial biodiversity. During 2014–2017, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) measured 389 unique orga
Acetylene-fueled trichloroethene reductive dechlorination in a groundwater enrichment culture
Modeling estrogenic activity in streams throughout the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay watersheds
In vitro effects-based method and water quality screening model for use in pre- and post-distribution treated waters
Assessing the impact of drought on arsenic exposure from private domestic wells in the conterminous United States
Evaluating the effects of replacing septic systems with municipal sewers on groundwater quality in a densely developed coastal neighborhood, Falmouth, Massachusetts, 2016–19
Differences in neonicotinoid and metabolite sorption to activated carbon are driven by alterations to the insecticidal pharmacophore
The team studies toxicants and pathogens in water resources from their sources, through watersheds, aquifers, and infrastructure to human and wildlife exposures. That information is used to develop decision tools that protect human and wildlife health.
Americans rely on treatment of drinking water and wastewater, and the maintenance of water distribution infrastructure to assure safe water supplies for the public and wildlife. New chemicals are manufactured and used every day. Populations grow and demographics shift. Treatment, conveyance and plumbing infrastructure ages, and new technologies are developed to detect contaminants (toxicants and pathogens) at low levels. Consequently, questions arise about the health effects of exposure to contaminants indivually or in complex mixtures.
The US Geological Survey’s Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Science Team provides information on processes that affect contaminants as they move from naturally occurring and human-caused sources through aquifers, aquatic environments, and infrastructure. This comprehensive understanding of contaminant profiles from source to exposure is used to develop decision tools to economically, effectively, and efficiently reduce wildlife or human exposure and associated health risks.
The Team prioritizes science in underserved urban and rural agricultural communities and in tribal nations, which are disproportionally impacted by geologic and climatic events, by drinking-water source limitations and resultant dependence on water-reuse and unregulated/unmonitored private-wells.
More Information
Date Visualization: "Drop by Drop" and "PFAS Interactive Tool"
GeoHEALTH–USGS Newsletter-Special Issue on Drinking Water
Questions That the Team Answers:
- Is treated wastewater effluent a source of contaminants to streams that serve as source water for publicly and self-supplied drinking water supplies?
- What contaminants are in tap waters from publicly and self-supplied drinking water sources?
- What factors influence the types of contaminants that are present in tap water?
- Are there hazards to fish and wildlife associated with exposure to low-levels of contaminants in streams that receive wastewater?
- What mitigation actions are the most efficient and cost effective at reducing exposure at the tap for humans? Or in water resources for wildlife?
- Can decision tools be established to to define, prioritize and mitigate human and wildlife health risks?
USGS featured science articles related to this science team’s activities.
Improvements in Wastewater Treatment Reduces Endocrine Disruption in Fish
Evidence of Endocrine Disruption Unexpectedly Found in Minnesota Lakes
USGS data releases associated with this science team.
MODFLOW-2005 and MODPATH models used to simulate hydraulic tomography pumping tests and identify a fracture network, former Naval Air Warfare Center, West Trenton, NJ
Pumping Rate, Drawdown, and Atmospheric Pressure Data from Hydraulic Tomography Experiment at the Former Naval Air Warfare Center, West Trenton, NJ, 2015-2016
Lithostratigrapic, Geophysical, and Hydrogeologic Observations from a Deep Boring in Glacial Sediments on Davis Neck near Nantucket Sound, East Falmouth, Western Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Data Release for Lake Shadow Seepage Calculations from Ashumet Pond, Cape Cod, MA, 2016 - 2018
Natural gradient, lakebed tracer tests using nitrite in a nitrate-contaminated groundwater discharge zone in Ashumet Pond, Massachusetts
Electrical geophysical data collected in the shallow sediments of Snake Pond, Cape Cod, USA
Concentrations of Pesticides, Pharmaceuticals, Organic Waste Indicators, and Volatile Organic Chemical Contaminants and Their Predicted Effects Potential in Wadeable Southeastern USA Streams
Occurrence and Concentrations of Trace Elements in Discrete Tapwater Samples Collected in Chicago, Illinois and East Chicago, Indiana, 2017
Target-Chemical Concentrations, Exposure Activity Ratios, and Bioassay Results for Assessment of Mixed-Organic/Inorganic-Chemical Exposure in USA Tapwater, 2016
Organic and total carbon analyses of rock core collected from boreholes 83BR, 84BR, 85BR, 86BR, 87BR, 88BR, and 89BR in the mudstone underlying the former Naval Air Warfare Center, West Trenton, New Jersey
Geochemical data supporting analysis of geochemical conditions and nitrogen transport in nearshore groundwater and the subterranean estuary at a Cape Cod embayment, East Falmouth, Massachusetts
Occurrence data for organic compounds and bioactive chemicals in water, sediment and tissue from Rocky Mountain National Park, 2012-13
USGS publications associated with this science team.
Public and private tapwater: Comparative analysis of contaminant exposure and potential risk, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA
Machine learning models of arsenic in private wells throughout the conterminous United States as a tool for exposure assessment in human health studies
Inclusion of pesticide transformation products is key to estimating pesticide exposures and effects in small U.S. streams
Feral swine as sources of fecal contamination in recreational waters
Syntrophotalea acetylenivorans sp. nov., a diazotrophic, acetylenotrophic anaerobe isolated from intertidal sediments
Multi-region assessment of chemical mixture exposures and predicted cumulative effects in USA wadeable urban/agriculture-gradient streams
Chemical-contaminant mixtures are widely reported in large stream reaches in urban/agriculture-developed watersheds, but mixture compositions and aggregate biological effects are less well understood in corresponding smaller headwaters, which comprise most of stream length, riparian connectivity, and spatial biodiversity. During 2014–2017, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) measured 389 unique orga