A Recent Survey Casts New Light On America's Racial And Water Divide
Feb 28, 2021,11:49pm EST|
Daphne Ewing-ChowSenior Contributor
Analysis of the 44 million Americans being served by water systems with recent health-based Safe Drinking Water Act violations, reveals overwhelming evidence of a clear racial divide in the provision of clean tap water in the United States.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data from 2016-2019 reveals that public water systems that constantly violate the Safe Drinking Water Act are 40 per cent more likely to serve people of color, and take longer to come back into compliance among communities of color. Not surprisingly, a new survey published by SOURCE Global PBC reveals a significant racial disparity in Americans’ trust in the quality of their domestic water supply.
According to the SOURCE Global PBC survey, 43 per cent of white Americans say that they are “very confident” in their tap water, while only 24 per cent of Black Americans, and 19 per cent of Hispanic Americans indicate the same degree of confidence. At the opposite extreme, only 10 per cent of white Americans say that they are “not confident at all” in the quality of their tap water.
“It’s clear that our nation’s water issues pose an immediate and quickly worsening health risk, and that’s especially true for BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, People of Color] communities, who are also dealing with an outsized impact from COVID-19,” says Cody Friesen, founder and CEO, SOURCE Global, who commissioned the survey.
For millions of people living in poor and neglected communities, bottled water is a necessity because of the lack of availability of clean drinking water. During the pandemic, the consumption of bottled water increased across all groups, with sales of bottled water recording an increase of 57 per cent during the month of March 2020— but no where was this trend more prevalent than among people of color.
More:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daphneewingchow/2021/02/28/a-recent-survey-casts-new-light-on-americas-racial-and-water-divide/?sh=72a51c1b21a6
