These contaminant types include:

• Microbial contaminants, such as viruses and bacteria, which may come from sewage treatment plants, septic systems, agricultural livestock operations, and wildlife.
• Inorganic contaminants, such as salts and metals, which can occur naturally or result from urban stormwater runoff, industrial or domestic wastewater discharges, oil and gas production, mining, or farming.
• Pesticides and herbicides, which may come from a variety of sources such as agriculture, stormwater runoff, and residential areas.
• Organic chemical contaminants, including synthetic and volatile organic chemicals, which are by-products of industrial processes and petroleum production, and can also come from gas stations, urban stormwater runoff, and septic systems.
• Radioactive contaminants, which can be naturally occurring or be the result of oil and gas production and mining activities.

If the water system is doing their job properly, and is staying in compliance with state and federal rules and regulation, treatment will remove these contaminants. However, protecting the drinking water supply provides a secondary layer of protection.

Bioterrosim: The Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 requires every community water system that serves a population of greater than 3,300 persons to conduct a vulnerability assessment which will be incorporated into their emergency response plan. The process is to be completed by December 31, 2004. While there is no requirement at this time, both EPA and Kentucky Division of Water strongly recommend that community water systems that serve fewer than 3,301 customers also develop vulnerability assessments. According to EPA, the vulnerability assessments will help water systems evaluate susceptibility to potential threats and identify corrective actions that can reduce or mitigate the risk of serious consequences from adversarial actions, such as vandalism, insider sabotage and terrorist attack.

But what about my drinking water?

• Regular monitoring:
  • Compliance monitoring: Your public water system can provide you with information on the compliance record for the water you drink. All public water systems must treat  drinking water to meet  standards; failure to do so can result in volitions andfines. The status of your drinking treatment system is available through the water system or in a consumer confidence report that the water system must mail to customers each year.
  • Ambient monitoring: The Division of Water and other state and federal agencies routinely monitor the quality of the Waters of the Commonwealth. These rivers, streams, lakes, and groundwater aquifers are the raw water supply for the drinking water,  that the public water system must treat to deliver a safe product to the consumer. In assessing the suitability of a water supply for drinking water use, the state uses biological and water chemistry data and compares these to water quality standards. Whether or not a water body is suitable for fishing, swimming, or a drinking water supply is reported in the Report to Congress on Water Quality (or 305(b) Report) every two years. This report provides a good summary of all the waters that have been assessed.
• Susceptibility Analysis: Is your drinking water supply at risk? Find out how.