In Data News, 2025-10-13
New maps showing domestic well use for drinking water! The quality and safety of water from domestic wells are not regulated by the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act or, in most cases, by state laws. Instead, individual homeowners are responsible for maintaining their domestic well systems and for monitoring water quality. Well use data is modeled by the EPA using the 1990 decennial census and records from drillers in the time since to determine the estimated number of wells in use in a given area. The 1990 long-form version of the Census was the last time a comprehensive national survey was taken on where people were obtaining household domestic water. The current uses are estimated using a machine learning algorithm in conjunction with this survey data and drilling records to estimate the percent of housing units using wells at the edges of public water systems.
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