A perfect violation record is the gold standard for drinking water quality. Counties with zero health-based violations have water systems that consistently meet or exceed all federal standards without a single compliance lapse. Using EPA SDWIS data, we identified all counties with zero recorded health violations.
Of all US counties with water quality data, 860 have zero health-based violations on record. These counties represent the most reliable water systems in America.
Counties with Zero Health Violations (860 total)
The following table shows the 50 highest-scoring counties with zero health violations:
Where Zero-Violation Counties Are Located
Zero-violation counties are found across the country, but certain states have more than others. Georgia (95 counties), Iowa (69 counties), Kentucky (63 counties), Tennessee (63 counties), Minnesota (49 counties) lead the rankings. Many of these counties benefit from protected water sources, modern infrastructure, and effective oversight.
Methodology
Counties are identified as having zero health violations when their aggregated healthViolationCount from EPA SDWIS data equals exactly zero. Counties are ranked by water quality score within the zero-violation group. All data comes from the EPA ECHO API.
Data source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) Federal Reporting Services, accessed via ECHO API. All figures are estimates based on publicly available compliance data and may differ from other published analyses due to methodology differences.