This database provides information on Public Water Systems (PWS) and facilitates access to Source Water Protection Program reports that are referred to as Source Water Delineation and Assessment Reports (SWDARs). A public water system is a system that serves 25 or more people or has 15 or more service connections and operates at least 60 days per year. The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) regulates all types of PWSs in Montana with the exception of those owned and operated by the Native American nations. There are currently over 2,000 PWSs in Montana and between 75 and 100 are added each year.
There are three general classes of PWSs. Community (C) PWSs serves a community of year-round residents; towns and subdivisions for example. Non-Community Non-Transient PWSs (NCNT) do not serve communities but they do provide water to the same people for at least six months of a year; schools, hospitals, and businesses where people are employed but do not reside are examples. Schools and some private systems in this class are designated with a P instead of the NCNT indicating they are Public or Private water systems. Transient (T) PWSs do not serve communities and do not regularly serve the same people; campgrounds, parks, rural motels, and cafes are examples. Some of these water systems are designated with a NC (Non-Community) class code. Some water system serve a multi-family subdivision that does not have sufficient population or service connections to be formally classified as a PWS. These systems are assigned a class codes of NP for Non-Public water system. In addition, some systems are assigned a class of CC indicating Consecutive Connection which means the system purchases water from another PWS.
The 1996 Amendments to the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act required all PWSs in the nation to have SWDARs completed and updated every 5 years. DEQ is responsible for providing SWDARs for all non-tribal PWSs in Montana. As of January 2008, the Source Water Protection Program (SWPP) completed SWDARs for about 96% of the active PWSs, or about 1,950 reports. As these reports are completed they are published to the SWPP Query System hosted by the State Library. In addition to providing access to the SWDARs, the SWPP Query System provides the ability to view the PWS locations and to view potential contaminant sources located within 1,000 feet to 3 miles of a PWS.
PWS information comes from a current database of regulated public water systems maintained by DEQ. Copies of the SWDARs are also maintained at DEQ. The DEQ Source Water Protection Program provided an updated copy of the database on October 17, 2011. Updates are used to provide new records (75 to 100 per year) and to correct errors in existing records when necessary.
