Two's a company, three's a cloud: Explaining the effect of natural disasters on health‐based violations in drinking water

Abstract

Identifying violations is at the heart of environmental compliance, especially detecting contaminants that endanger human health and safety. A review of state drinking water compliance programs demonstrates that the rate and frequency of identifying health‐based violations varies significantly across the states. Previous scholarship has attributed much of this variation to anthropogenic causes. Less studied is the role of natural disasters and other natural events, which may also influence compliance outcomes. To address this gap, we build and utilize a novel data set of state‐reported health‐based violations reported under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) from 1993 to 2016. We are particularly interested in the role that events, such as severe storms, hurricanes, floods, and fires, have on the patterns of health‐based violations. Results indicate that not all focusing events are created equally and that severe storms and hurricanes are associated with state agencies identifying a flurry of violations as compared to fires and flooding.