What we do
Federal drinking-water data is public, but it lives in bulk downloads and code tables that are hard to use if you just want to know about your own tap. We load that data, compute one consistent Tap Grade for every active community water system, and present it alongside the underlying EPA records — so the grade is a starting point, not the whole story.
How it’s built
- Public federal data. Every figure comes from EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Act and UCMR5 datasets, plus US Census and GeoNames geography for ZIP lookups. See data sources for the full list and licenses.
- A transparent, reproducible method. The Tap Grade is computed by one published rubric — the same deductions, caps, and thresholds for every system. It’s written out in full, with a worked example, on the methodology page, so anyone can reproduce a score from the source data.
- No pay-to-play. A grade is never influenced by whether a utility, brand, or advertiser is involved. Grades are a function of the data, nothing else.
Who we are
TapGraded is a small, independent publication — researched, built, and maintained by Max, a software engineer with 20 years of professional experience building data-driven systems and websites. Max designed and runs the entire pipeline behind this site: the loaders that ingest EPA’s SDWIS, ECHO, and UCMR5 releases, the database they land in, the code that computes every Tap Grade, and the pages you’re reading. Max holds a Bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering and a Master of Arts in Linguistics.
We are not a laboratory, a government agency, or a water-treatment company, and we don’t test water ourselves — we analyze and explain the data the EPA and public water systems already publish. What we do have is direct access to the underlying datasets: every figure on the site is computed from the original federal releases rather than from third-party summaries, by the one published rubric linked above, so any grade can be checked against its sources by anyone.
Editorial & correction policy
- Sourced claims. Statements about regulations (such as MCL values, the lead action level, or PFAS rule status) are checked against EPA primary sources and cited on the page where they appear.
- No alarmism. We describe what the data shows. Absence of reported data is stated as a finding — "no reported violations in the period" — never as a clean bill of health, and we don’t attach blame-laden adjectives to operators.
- Corrections. If something is wrong, we fix it and note it. Because grades are reproducible from public data, a disputed figure can be re-checked against its source.
- Not health advice. TapGraded presents public data for information only. For decisions about your health or your water, consult your water utility’s Consumer Confidence Report and a qualified professional.
Contact
Questions, corrections, or data disputes: contact@tapgraded.com. For corrections, include the water system’s name or PWSID and what looks wrong.