EPA SDWIS/ECHO
Drinking Water by Utility
Search a US public water system by name and get its own violation record and score — the same per-system detail the ZIP score tool computes, without a ZIP code in between.
1 result
NEW YORK CITY SYSTEM
Richmond County, NY; Queens County, NY; New York County, NY; Kings County, NY; Bronx County, NY · 8,271,000 served
In plain terms: No violations of any kind on record for this system in the last five years.
- Unresolved health-based
- 0
- Resolved health-based
- 0
- Monitoring / reporting
- 0
- Archived (pre-window)
- 6
Currently: an unresolved health-based violation costs 25 points.
Informational only, not professional advice. This tool summarises public EPA compliance records. It is not a health assessment, a water test, or a substitute for testing the water at a specific address.
How this is calculated
The same water formula as the Air & Water Score by ZIP Code tool, applied to one system instead of averaged across every system serving a county. The full derivation, every source, and the stated coverage limits live on that page; this section summarises.
penalty = 25×(open health-based)
+ 8×(resolved health-based)
+ 4×(open monitoring/reporting)
+ 1×(resolved monitoring/reporting)
capped at 100
score = 100 − penaltyFrom EPA SDWIS/ECHO (2026Q2), violations counted over the last 5 years. These four coefficients are our judgement, not EPA's, which is why they're adjustable above — change them and every visible result recalculates from the same unchanged violation counts.
Searching by name
Matches the system's legal PWS_NAME as filed with EPA. The search fetches one shard of the index keyed to the first letter you type, then filters within it — the same one-fetch-per-lookup approach as the ZIP score tool, applied to a name index of 49,378 active community water systems instead of a ZIP code table. Results are capped at 25 and sorted by population served, largest first.
Sources
Last reviewed: September 2026 · Data in use: SDWIS 2026Q2 · Dataset built 2026-09-02
Frequently asked questions
Why can't I find my water utility?
Search matches the system's legal name as filed with EPA (SDWIS/ECHO), which can differ from the name printed on your bill or your utility's public-facing brand. Try a shorter piece of the name, or the city or county it serves. Only active community water systems that EPA's records resolve to a county are indexed — a private well has no system to look up.
What does 'resolved' mean for a violation?
EPA's own status field on each violation record: 'resolved' means the system has since returned to compliance or the state has closed the enforcement action. 'Unresolved' (open) means it has not. A system with resolved violations and none currently open still shows those violations in its record — a clean current status is not the same as a clean history.
Why does one utility show more than one county?
Some public water systems serve customers across a county line. The score and violation counts are for the system as a whole, not split per county — EPA's SDWIS/ECHO records don't break usage down that finely.
Does a high score mean my tap water is safe?
No. It means the system has reported few or no violations of federal drinking water standards in the last five years — a compliance record, not a measurement of the water at your tap. It cannot see lead service lines on the customer's side of the meter or anything not sampled under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Related tools
Every US state and territory with an active public water system, ranked worst-first by a pooled drinking-water compliance score built from EPA SDWIS/ECHO violation records, drilling down to the counties behind each rank.
Open tool →Cleanest Drinking Water by StateEvery US state and territory with an active public water system, ranked best-first by the same pooled drinking-water compliance score as the worst-water ranking.
Open tool →Air & Water Score by ZIP CodeA composite score for outdoor air quality and drinking-water compliance in any US ZIP code, built from EPA AirData and SDWIS/ECHO records.
Open tool →Compare Two ZIP CodesSide-by-side air quality and drinking water score for any two US ZIP codes, from the same EPA data as the ZIP score tool.
Open tool →Cleanest Air by StateEvery US state and territory with an EPA air monitor, ranked by a population-weighted air score, drilling down to the monitored counties behind each rank.
Open tool →Best & Worst Counties for Air and Water QualityEvery US county with both an EPA air monitor and an active water system, ranked by composite score — the top 100 best and worst in the country, each with a representative ZIP.
Open tool →