Case Studies

EPA's Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water is compiling examples of good local source water protection programs. As these case studies are collected and reviewed for accuracy and completeness, they will be posted on this site. They represent a variety of approaches to protecting sources of drinking water supplies for a diverse group of communities that differ in size, geography, economic and social characteristics, and type of source water used (surface water, ground water, or both). What they have in common is a fairly comprehensive approach to source water protection that reflects a strong commitment to safeguarding the public's health. We offer them here so that other communities interested in moving to source water protection can use them as references in designing their own programs.

EPA source water protection case study search engine

Protecting Sources of Drinking Water: Case studies in Watershed Management (PDF 41 pp, 721 K) - This document presents case studies for 17 drinking water utilities that are incorporating watershed management and protection as an integral part of their business of providing safe drinking water to their customers (EPA 816-R-98-019).

Section 319 Non-point Source Success Stories - These 40 + stories described innovative strategies used to reduce non-point source pollution and achieved documented water quality improvements in impaired water bodies.

The case studies are listed by in alphabetical order by state, but you can use where you live to identify case studies for your state. You can also search the case studies by type, scope, lead, source, and topic. These case studies are undoubtedly an incomplete sample of the comprehensive local source water protection programs in existence. If you know of other communities with good programs, please contact Marjorie Copeland (Copeland.marjorie@epa.gov) at OGWDW.