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
![Cutaway illustration of contaminant sources and exposure pathways](https://d9-wret.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/palladium/production/s3fs-public/styles/full_width/public/thumbnails/image/water_diagram_v3.6.png?itok=Xi0B46jP)
![faucet](https://d9-wret.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/palladium/production/s3fs-public/styles/half_width/public/thumbnails/image/bathroom-black-and-white-blur-615326_0.jpg?itok=6pExmJ5B)
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.
USGS data releases associated with this science team.
USGS publications associated with this science team.
Potential toxicity of complex mixtures in surface waters from a nationwide survey of United States streams: Identifying in vitro bioactivities and causative chemicals
Chlorinated byproducts of neonicotinoids and their metabolites: An unrecognized human exposure potential?
Mixed-chemical exposure and predicted effects potential in wadeable southeastern USA streams
A diverse suite of pharmaceuticals contaminates stream and riparian food webs
Hydrogeochemical controls on brook trout spawning habitats in a coastal stream
Contaminants of emerging concern in the environment: Where we have been and what does the future hold?
Reconnaissance of mixed organic and inorganic chemicals in private and public supply tapwaters at selected residential and workplace sites in the United States
Safe drinking water at the point-of-use (tapwater, TW) is a United States public health priority. Multiple lines of evidence were used to evaluate potential human health concerns of 482 organics and 19 inorganics in TW from 13 (7 public supply, 6 private well self-supply) home and 12 (public supply) workplace locations in 11 states. Only uranium (61.9 μg L–1, private well) exceeded a National Prim
Concentrations of lead and other inorganic constituents in samples of raw intake and treated drinking water from the municipal water filtration plant and residential tapwater in Chicago, Illinois, and East Chicago, Indiana, July–December 2017
Methods used for the collection and analysis of chemical and biological data for the Tapwater Exposure Study, United States, 2016–17
Variability of organic carbon content and the retention and release of trichloroethene in the rock matrix of a mudstone aquifer
Performance assessments of a novel well design for reducing exposure to bedrock‐derived arsenic
Geochemical conditions and nitrogen transport in nearshore groundwater and the subterranean estuary at a Cape Cod embayment, East Falmouth, Massachusetts, 2013–14
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
![Cutaway illustration of contaminant sources and exposure pathways](https://d9-wret.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/palladium/production/s3fs-public/styles/full_width/public/thumbnails/image/water_diagram_v3.6.png?itok=Xi0B46jP)
![faucet](https://d9-wret.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/palladium/production/s3fs-public/styles/half_width/public/thumbnails/image/bathroom-black-and-white-blur-615326_0.jpg?itok=6pExmJ5B)
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.
USGS data releases associated with this science team.
USGS publications associated with this science team.
Potential toxicity of complex mixtures in surface waters from a nationwide survey of United States streams: Identifying in vitro bioactivities and causative chemicals
Chlorinated byproducts of neonicotinoids and their metabolites: An unrecognized human exposure potential?
Mixed-chemical exposure and predicted effects potential in wadeable southeastern USA streams
A diverse suite of pharmaceuticals contaminates stream and riparian food webs
Hydrogeochemical controls on brook trout spawning habitats in a coastal stream
Contaminants of emerging concern in the environment: Where we have been and what does the future hold?
Reconnaissance of mixed organic and inorganic chemicals in private and public supply tapwaters at selected residential and workplace sites in the United States
Safe drinking water at the point-of-use (tapwater, TW) is a United States public health priority. Multiple lines of evidence were used to evaluate potential human health concerns of 482 organics and 19 inorganics in TW from 13 (7 public supply, 6 private well self-supply) home and 12 (public supply) workplace locations in 11 states. Only uranium (61.9 μg L–1, private well) exceeded a National Prim