Sources

In the United States:

• approximately 16% of the population obtains its water for domestic use from private sources (mostly in rural and some suburan areas)
  • of this group, 99% of the water is from groundwater-supplied wells
  • less than 1% comes from surface water supplies(1)
• the rest of the population (84%), in other suburban areas and urban areas, is supplied with water by municipal water works

Though the bureaucratic arrangement varies from locality to locality, municipal water is usually managed by a town or city agency and piped to individual homes. Customers of this municipal agency then pay a fee for the amount of water used. These public water supplies can serve a variable amount of people, from 25 people in a small community to millions of people in a large city.

Example: Rhode Island

• 400 different water suppliers
• 56% are restaurants or other food establishments
• 31 water suppliers large enough to be regulated by the Water Resources Board (2)