U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin introduced The Healthy Drinking Water Affordability Act, or The Healthy H2O Act.
This provides grants for water testing and treatment technology directly to individuals, nonprofits and local governments in rural communities, reported the Senator’s press release.
The Healthy H2O Act would provide grants for water quality testing and the purchase and installation of point-of-use or point-of-entry systems, according to the Senator’s press release.
The grants would be provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) directly to individuals and to non-profits or local governments. This will allow for easy testing and ease of finding and installing a water treatment product for various water quality issues.
Additionally, the legislation must:
- Deploy effective solutions to challenging water problems;
- Water filtration products funded through the program must perform reliably as certified by a certification body accredited by the American National Standards Institute and address the risks faced by the applicant;
- Require that the USDA publish public annual reports on the technologies available and purchased by eligible grant recipients, trends on steps taken to ensure safe drinking water in communities and households, and recommendations on increasing utilization of treatment when appropriate; and
- Drive positive public health benefits for millions of rural and underserved communities, including communities with persistent water challenges that lack near-term solutions to contamination.
“Every Wisconsin community deserves access to clean drinking water and an environment free of toxic chemicals. Across our state, communities are struggling to identify and treat known and emerging chemicals that endanger our health, especially for children,” said Senator Baldwin in the news release regarding the legislation. “My legislation will cut costs and expand access to water testing and treatment for families in rural communities so that when we turn on the faucet, we can be confident our drinking water is safe.”
The full text of this legislation is available here. A one-page paper on this legislation is available here.
