Communicating With The Public

A Look at Consumer Confidence Reports

Americans drink more than one billion glasses of tap water every day. This water is channeled through 55,000 water systems and is tested for 103 contaminants. The results of these tests are now made available to the public through Consumer Confidence Reports (CCRs) – a product of the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments that requires all community water systems to provide customers with an annual report on the quality of their drinking water.

The first annual reports, covering data collected throughout the 1998 calendar year, have now been completed and distributed. CCRs have been lauded for providing the American people with better information about the quality of their tap water than they have ever had access to before.

Successful communication

With the latest CCRs in circulation, now is an excellent time to reflect on the components that create successful communication between water utilities and their customers. The Safe Drinking Water Act requires all CCRs to contain information about quality of source water, definitions of terms related to contaminant levels and disclosure of all regulated contaminants that are detected in the water. Where there are significant populations of non-English speaking residents, the report must be provided in those additional languages.

Since CCRs are designed to increase the exchange of information about water quality, they should also include information about public forums and the phone number for the U.S. EPA’s Safe Drinking Water hotline.

Much of the required information for these reports can be highly technical and therefore difficult for consumers to fully understand. Therefore, it is important to use easy-to-understand language to engage readers, thereby promoting a better awareness of water quality issues.

Utilities provide additional services

Many utilities have made valuable additions to the typical CCR format. Common enhancements include detailed descriptions of the treatment process, maps detailing water sources, tips for what consumers can do to prevent water contamination within their home or office, and discussions of hot topics such as home water treatment devices, source water protection programs and new construction plans. The Internet presents many opportunities to streamline the CCR development process and enrich the exchange of information about water quality. Nearly 500 utilities have posted their CCRs and additional water quality information on the Internet. Some have created online forums to discuss questions and issues that have arisen from the reports. By taking these steps, utilities are building stronger, more trusting relationships with their customers.

CCRs have been the source of many discussions about water quality. In many communities, utilities and local stakeholders such as the homeowner’s associations, chambers of commerce, real estate associations, environmental groups and public health officials have created working groups to ensure that their community’s CCR contains the information that local customers want and need. This dialogue has afforded the public and their utilities the opportunity to enhance community information about water quality issues.

Bottled water reporting

With the proven effectiveness of CCRs in providing tap water quality information to customers, the Food and Drug Administration drafted a report on the feasibility of informing customers about the contents of bottled water. The report, released in February 2000, examines different methods for displaying such information on the labels of all bottled water. The American Water Works Association (AWWA) has advocated that the requirements for bottled water should be consistent with the water utility CCR requirements. This is likely to be a focus of debate and discussion in the months and years ahead.

The EPA’s Consumer Confi-dence Report Final Rule can be found at www.epa.gov/safewater/ccr/ccrfact.html. The AWWA features a CCR section on their web site at http://www.awwa.org/default_consumers.cfm.