Most people associate fluoride with the practice of intentionally adding fluoride to public drinking water supplies for the prevention of tooth decay. However, fluoride can also enter public water systems from natural sources, including runoff from the weathering of fluoride-containing rocks and soils and leaching from soil into groundwater. Fluoride pollution from various industrial emissions can also contaminate water supplies. In a few areas of the United States fluoride concentrations in water are much higher than normal, mostly from natural sources. Fluoride is one of the drinking water contaminants regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) because it can occur at these toxic levels. In 1986, the EPA established a maximum allowable concentration for fluoride in drinking water of 4 milligrams per liter, a guideline designed to prevent the public from being exposed to harmful levels of fluoride. Fluoride in Drinking Water reviews research on various health effects from exposure to fluoride, including studies conducted in the last 10 years.

The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) is the key federal law for protecting public water supplies from harmful contaminants. First enacted in 1974 and substantially amended in 1986 and 1996, the act is administered through programs that establish standards and treatment requirements for public water supplies, control underground injection of wastes, finance infrastructure projects, and protect sources of drinking water. This report summarizes the SDWA and its major programs and regulatory requirements. It includes summaries of the principal environmental statutes administered by the EPA. Also includes the drinking water security provisions added to the SDWA in 2002. Charts and tables. This is a print on demand publication.

New York City's municipal water supply system provides about 1 billion gallons of drinking water a day to over 8.5 million people in New York City and about 1 million people living in nearby Westchester, Putnam, Ulster, and Orange counties. The combined water supply system includes 19 reservoirs and three controlled lakes with a total storage capacity of approximately 580 billion gallons. The city's Watershed Protection Program is intended to maintain and enhance the high quality of these surface water sources. Review of the New York City Watershed Protection Program assesses the efficacy and future of New York City's watershed management activities. The report identifies program areas that may require future change or action, including continued efforts to address turbidity and responding to changes in reservoir water quality as a result of climate change.

Comprehensive Water Quality and Purification, Four Volume Set provides a rich source of methods for analyzing water to assure its safety from natural and deliberate contaminants, including those that are added because of carelessness of human endeavors. Human development has great impact on water quality, and new contaminants are emerging every day. The issues of sampling for water analysis, regulatory considerations, and forensics in water quality and purity investigations are covered in detail. Microbial as well as chemical contaminations from inorganic compounds, radionuclides, volatile and semivolatile compounds, disinfectants, herbicides, and pharmaceuticals, including endocrine disruptors, are treated extensively. Researchers must be aware of all sources of contamination and know how to prescribe techniques for removing them from our water supply. Unlike other works published to date that concentrate on issues of water supply, water resource management, hydrology, and water use by industry, this work is more tightly focused on the monitoring and improvement of the quality of existing water supplies and the recovery of wastewater via new and standard separation techniques Using analytical chemistry methods, offers remediation advice on pollutants and contaminants in addition to providing the critical identification perspective The players in the global boom of water purification are numerous and varied. Having worked extensively in academia and industry, the Editor-in-Chief has been careful about constructing a work for a shared audience and cause