Kentucky’s Annual Safe Drinking Water Act Compliance Report Demonstrates Continued Excellence in Quality and Reliability
FRANKFORT, Ky. (June 9, 2026) – Kentucky’s 2025 Drinking Water Compliance Report shows that public water systems across the state continue to produce high-quality drinking water for the public and have a high rate of compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) requirements. This annual report, required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), summarizes compliance data and monitoring results for Kentucky’s public water systems (Figure 1).
“Kentucky’s public water systems continue to demonstrate a strong commitment to providing safe, reliable drinking water to communities across the Commonwealth,” said Kentucky Division of Water (DOW) Director Sarah Marshall. “The high rate of compliance reflected in this report is a testament to the hard work of water system operators, local utilities, and community leaders, who work every day to protect public health and maintain confidence in Kentucky’s drinking water. Kentuckians can rest assured knowing their tap water remains safe and closely monitored by the Division of Water to ensure it meets drinking water standards.”
The SDWA rules require water systems to routinely test for bacterial and chemical contaminants and report them to DOW. A water system will receive a violation if it does not complete required testing, incorrectly reports testing, fails to submit results on time, doesn’t provide proper treatment or exceeds established limits for these contaminants. In 2025, a total of 249 violations were issued to 62 different public water systems across the state. Out of the 249 violations, 190 were “monitoring/reporting” violations and were administrative in nature. These violations do not directly pose a risk to public health, and water systems can often resolve them quickly by completing the necessary monitoring or submitting required documents to DOW.
The remaining 59 violations were “health-based” violations and include maximum contaminant level (MCL) violations as well as treatment technique violations that may pose a risk to the consumer. In 2025, only 36 water systems (9% of total active systems) across the state were issued one or more health-based violations. Health-based violations require public notification to customers within either 24 hours or 30 days, depending on the level of risk to customers. A comparison of health-based and monitoring/reporting violation trends for the last five (5) years are summarized in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Health-based vs. monitoring/reporting violation trends over the last five years.
2025 was the end of the most recent three-year monitoring period established by the EPA, marking the deadline for water systems to complete monitoring for certain groups of chemical contaminants, such as Volatile and Synthetic Organic Compounds (VOCs and SOCs). A VOC or SOC sample is tested for dozens of contaminant compounds, and failing to collect one of these samples leads to monitoring/reporting violations for every contaminant. This is the reason for the noticeable increases in monitoring/reporting violations in 2025 and 2022. DOW increased monitoring reminder emails and phone calls to water systems which can be attributed to the reduction in violations in 2025 compared to the end of the last 3-year monitoring period in 2022.
An overwhelming majority of the health-based violations (42 of 59 violations) were violations of the Stage 2 Disinfection Byproducts (DBP) Rule. DBPs are formed when natural organic matter in raw water reacts with disinfectants, such as chlorine. DBPs do not pose an acute or immediate risk to human health. Instead, DBPs have been determined to be a risk to the public when they occur in drinking water above the established MCLs over long periods of time. DBPs often form in drinking water during the warmest months of the year and can be very challenging for water systems to address. In addition to warm weather, other climatic events, like high precipitation resulting in floods, may directly contribute to the formation of DBPs by increasing organic matter in raw water. Aging water infrastructure (water plants, lines, and treatment equipment) may also cause an uptick in DBP violations. A full breakdown of health-based violations by SDWA rule is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Health-based violation types by SDWA rule for 2025.
Many violations can be resolved as soon as the water system is aware of the problem. By the end of 2025, 70 of the 249 violations had been resolved. It should be noted that water system compliance does not always reflect the efforts of water system operators and management. Some violations may be attributed to aging infrastructure, or the need to optimize current treatment processes to meet changes in population, source water quality, impacts from climate events or other variables outside the control of the water system. Infrastructure upgrades are costly and acquiring the necessary funding can be challenging and take years to implement. The DOW continues to work in collaboration with the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority to put funding to use where it is most needed for upgrading and optimizing water treatment infrastructure and technology.
DOW staff are committed to providing support to water systems through technical assistance, developing and providing resources to ease administrative burdens, and work with external partners to provide compliance training, to reduce violations, and, ultimately, protect public health.
The SDWA requires all community water systems to complete and distribute a Consumer Confidence Report (CCR) to their customers by July 1 every year. If you would like more information about drinking water testing, violations, source water, or other related information, contact your public water system to ask for a copy of the latest CCR.
Completed data for the Kentucky Annual Drinking Water Compliance Report is online:
For more information about the report, contact Ethan Givan (ethan.givan@ky.gov).
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