Another Injustice? Socio-Spatial Disparity of Drinking Water Information Dissemination Rule Violation in the United States

While a growing number of environmental justice (EJ) studies demonstrate that contaminated drinking water disproportionately affects low-income communities and poor communities across the United States, little attention has been paid to inequalities in drinking water quality information dissemination compliance. The information dissemination rule violation does not fulfill water governor’s responsibility for securing water safety, and also not meet the right-to-know provision as a fundamental element for human rights. This study examines patterns of the Confidence Customer Reports (CCR) rule violation at a county-level. Within the EJ perspective, we conducted spatial analysis of the CCR rule violation, and examined vulnerability factors that may be related to the violation likelihood. This study collected the CCR rule violation from 2016 to 2018 through the Safe Drinking Water Information System. Our study’s findings indicated that there are 150 counties as the geographical hot spots of CCR rule violations, which are concentrated in some parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana in South region. The regression analysis showed that the ethnic minority and the county’s poverty rate are significant predictors of the CCR rule violation. The results suggest that information access to the report about drinking water quality is not equally disseminated across the nation. The information asymmetry may exist particularly in poor communities of color, reflecting the main framing of environmental injustice in the United States.