Public water supply is municipal, not federal. Prior to the creation of municipal water systems, people relied on wells, cisterns, springs, rivers, lakes, as they have throughout time. The first public water supply in the present U.S. was established in Boston in 1652, and the first modern-type public water supply was in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1754. By 1800, seventeen cities and towns in the United States had "at least experimented" with water-supply systems. This from Merritt Ierley's "Open House - a Guided Tour of the American Home, 1737 - present," which I happen to be reading. An excellent book if you like social history.
I did research papers on municipal sewage treatment in college, and the effect of the Clean Water Act on municipal sewage treatment in law school, so I know that the regulation of water quality coming out of the pipe into your house is done at both the state and local level, the standards usually being state standards, but the compliance with them at the local level. However, now the Clean Water Act, a 1968 federal law, regulates the quality of effluent water coming out of municipal sewage treatment plants and going into the rivers, with compliance at the local level, and oversight either at the federal level but usually delegated to the states. |
