Field Notes

Occasional writing on US drinking water, from the hydrogeologist who built WaterScore.

America's water: a nationwide drinking water dataset

June 18, 2026·5 min

Drinking water data in the US is collected by 51 separate jurisdictions, in dozens of incompatible formats. WaterScore normalizes it into one comparable dataset: ~48,000 community water systems, ~200 contaminants, 1.35 million measurements. Here's what it shows.


Nobody mentions the tap water.

April 17, 2026·5 min

If a hydrogeologist can't tell from a water quality report that the water is dangerous during pregnancy, what chance does anyone else have?