The Water Data Prize, 2020-2021

The Water Data Prize was a pair of design competitions run by the Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), a nonprofit based in Washington, DC. The first, in 2020, asked how a drinking water quality report could be redesigned so that an ordinary customer can understand it. The second, in 2021, asked for tools and ideas to replace lead water pipes faster and more fairly. Each one ended with a public list of winners.

Why the reports matter

Every community water system in the United States must send its customers a Consumer Confidence Report each year. It covers water quality, regulated contaminants such as lead or arsenic, and any violations. The requirement dates to 1998, and about 50,000 water systems now issue the reports.

For most utilities it is the only communication with customers that the government requires outside a crisis. Yet a sample report on EPA’s own website read at about an 11th-grade level, while the average customer likely reads at a seventh- or eighth-grade level. Reports were also rarely offered in any language but English. A report no one can follow does little to build trust in tap water.

The 2020 prize: readable water reports

EPIC launched the competition in September 2020. Anyone aged 18 or older could enter, alone or on a team, as long as at least one team member was based in the United States. The entry window ran until December 1, and winners were due in January.

More than 30 organizations and individuals entered. A panel of 14 judges scored the entries on how easily an average person could understand the contaminant data, how well the entry handled accessibility and multiple languages, whether the design invited customers to explore, and whether it used technology in a fresh way. The judges came from federal and state agencies, water utilities, trade associations, community groups and universities. Alan Roberson of the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators and Katie Henderson of the US Water Alliance were among them.

The five winners were announced on January 19, 2021:

• Raftelis, a consultancy based in Charlotte, North Carolina, which took first place and $6,000
• Water Smart
• Tip Top Tap
• the Philadelphia Water Department, the only utility among the five
• Water Data Lab

Raftelis rewrote a sample report so that it read at a ninth-grade level, and offered both a website version and a simple PowerPoint version for smaller utilities. Philadelphia showed four years of lead test results against the legal action level. Tip Top Tap used an animated water drop to guide visitors and added a tool to compare tap water with bottled water.

EPIC’s report on the entries drew out a few plain lessons: write at about an eighth-grade level, offer translation, make local concerns such as lead easy to see, keep the simple answer up front with detail a click or two away, and turn numbers into graphics.

The 2021 prize: lead pipes

EPIC launched a second prize in 2021, this time on lead service lines. Entries fell into four categories: inventory, mapping, equity and communications. More than 50 organizations and individuals entered, and 14 judges reviewed them. The panel included people from Xylem, Clean Water Action, the Water Research Foundation, We the People of Detroit and Greater Cincinnati Waterworks.

The winners were announced in March 2022. CDM Smith and the City of Newark, New Jersey, took the overall prize of $50,000. Each category winner received $10,000:

• Inventory: 120Water
• Mapping: KETOS
• Equity: Jersey Water Works and New Jersey Future
• Communications: Raftelis
• Wildcard: Center for Neighborhood Technology

Newark had replaced more than 23,000 lead service lines in under three years. Its entry described working with nonprofit groups and reaching residents by social media, print and radio, in more than one language. The county improvement authority agreed to bond $120 million to speed the work. Newark said its prize money would go into other water projects.

What happened next

EPIC held a workshop for more than 75 people to turn the 2020 ideas into action. In late 2021 it asked for quotes, up to $20,000, for a free report template. Raftelis won the work and produced two versions, one in Microsoft Word and one on Squarespace, with an instruction manual. Both are free to utilities.

The federal rule was moving at the same time. Congress told EPA in 2018 to revise the Consumer Confidence Report rule. EPA proposed changes on March 28, 2023, and announced the final rule on May 15, 2024. Reports delivered from 2027 must follow it. Each report must open with a summary, contaminant data must be presented clearly but need not be in a table, communities with many limited-English speakers must have translation help, and systems serving 10,000 people or more must send two reports a year. EPIC had said it meant to use the 2020 entries to influence those changes.