Davidson County Water Report

Davidson County earns an A grade for drinking water quality, scoring 86.0 out of 100. EPA's Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) records zero health-based violations over the past five years — a strong compliance signal for a large county.

Under the Clean Water Act §303(d), EPA ATTAINS tracks whether waterways meet quality standards for drinking, recreation, and aquatic life (reporting cycle: 2022). A substantial 53.3% of assessed waterways are impaired (72 of 135 water bodies) across Davidson County's watersheds. The leading impairment causes are escherichia coli (e. coli) and sedimentation/siltation. Impairment does not mean tap water is unsafe — it measures ambient waterway conditions upstream of treatment, not finished drinking water.

USGS NWIS gauge data (as of 2026-05-14T13:30:00.000-05:00) puts CUMBERLAND RIVER at 10.9k cfs — well below its long-term average at 46% of mean — low-flow conditions worth noting for water-dependent ecosystems. Streamflow is a leading indicator of drought stress, sediment load, and dilution capacity: low flows concentrate pollutants and warm water temperatures, stressing aquatic life and, in surface-water-dependent systems, the source water quality for treatment plants.

EPA's Water Quality Portal (WQP) aggregates monitoring data from federal, state, and tribal agencies. Davidson County has extensive coverage with 132 active monitoring sites with 24,264 recent measurements on record. Predominant monitoring categories include physical and nutrient. More monitoring sites generally indicate greater scientific attention to local water conditions — and provide the baseline data that regulators use to set future impairment listings.