Pain Qualified Prospect Feed — Validated with live EPA Enforcement Data

A Data-Driven Outbound Workflow for 120Water

Water utilities with active Lead and Copper Rule violations are under legal mandate to improve their compliance infrastructure. We built a system to surface them the moment they enter violation status.

1,100+
Systems with active violations nationally
25–50
New violations entering status per month
Prepared for 120Water — February 2026 Smartbound AI
Validated Workflow

The "Violation Window"

When a water utility exceeds the federal lead action level, a compliance clock starts. Monitoring plans, public notifications, service line inventories, corrective actions — all mandatory, all tracked in EPA enforcement records. We surface these systems at the moment the clock starts, before they've had time to evaluate tools.

1
Monitor EPA ECHO for new LCR violations — Pull the Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) data from EPA's Enforcement and Compliance History Online database, filtering for active Lead and Copper Rule violations and action level exceedances reported in the last 6 months.
2
Filter to actionable system size — Remove systems with fewer than 3,300 connections (too small for enterprise tools) and those already under statewide programs (Indiana, Georgia). Target Tier 2-3 community water systems serving 10,000 to 100,000 people.
3
Cross-reference EPA enforcement records — Identify systems with formal enforcement actions (administrative orders, consent agreements) layered on top of the violation — these have mandatory compliance deadlines, not just recommended actions.
4
Enrich to compliance manager contact — Use LinkedIn and professional enrichment to identify the Water Quality Manager, Compliance Director, or Director of Operations at each flagged utility. These are the people who must execute the corrective action plan.
5
Confirm no platform in use — Filter out systems already using 120Water or a known competitor (Innovyze, VertexOne, Utility Cloud). The remaining list is pure greenfield compliance need.
Primary Source
EPA ECHO / SDWIS
Refresh Rate
Quarterly + real-time exceedances
Validated Volume
25–50 new systems/month
✓ Live Validation Score: 22/25 — PASS
Verified Lead Cards

Real Violations, Real Compliance Managers

These are water utilities with confirmed LCR violations from EPA enforcement records — each one is under legal obligation to improve their compliance infrastructure.

Active Admin Order
City of Syracuse — Department of Water
Syracuse, New York
Enforcement Action
Population Served
~140,000 residents
Violation Period
January – June 2024
Enforcement Action
Admin Order — September 2025
Mandated Actions
Monitoring plan, continued sampling, public education
EPA Region 2 issued an administrative order requiring a corrective monitoring plan — exactly the workflow 120Water's Sample Manager automates. View on EPA →
Redford Township Water Department
Redford Township, Michigan (Wayne County)
Multi-Year ALE
Population Served
~50,000 residents
Lead Level
16 ppb (action level: 15 ppb)
Violation Status
Ongoing — continuation of 2023 ALE
Required Actions
Enhanced monitoring, inventory, resident notification
Multi-year violation means this system has been managing compliance manually — prime candidate for a platform that automates their sampling rounds and tracks progress. View on Redford TWP →
Allegheny East Conference Water System
Pennsylvania
Recent Exceedance
Public Notice Date
November 10, 2025
System Type
Non-Transient Non-Community (NTNCWS)
Compliance Obligations
Full LCRR protocol — inventory, sampling, notification
Urgency
Day 1 of compliance clock — no platform yet
Listed on EPA's national notification page just months ago — this system is at the very start of its compliance obligation. Maximum receptivity window. View on EPA →
Garden City Water Department
Garden City, Michigan (Wayne County)
2024 ALE
Population Served
~27,000 residents
Violation Period
2024 monitoring cycle
Required Actions
Service line inventory, enhanced monitoring, public notification
Cluster Context
One of five Metro Detroit utilities with 2024 ALE
Part of a confirmed 2024 violation cluster — Metro Detroit utilities face coordinated state scrutiny, creating urgency to demonstrate compliance progress. View on Planet Detroit →
Market Intelligence

Why This Window Is Open Right Now

Three converging regulatory pressures are creating the largest wave of compliance urgency in drinking water history.

LCRR Inventory Deadline Passed (Oct 2024)

Every community water system was required to submit a complete service line inventory by October 16, 2024. Systems that missed this deadline are already in violation — and are now visible in EPA enforcement records.

LCRI Replacement Mandate (Effective 2027)

The Lead and Copper Rule Improvements require all utilities to begin 10% annual lead service line replacement starting 2027 and complete full replacement by 2037. Utilities need platform infrastructure to track this program for a decade.

New 10 ppb Action Level Incoming

The action level drops from 15 ppb to 10 ppb in November 2027. Systems currently testing between 10 and 15 ppb — compliant today — will be in violation in under two years. That's a second compliance wave building right now.

$15B BIL Funding Unlocked

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocated $15 billion for lead service line replacement through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. Utilities receiving these grants have a legal obligation to spend funds on LSL programs — creating funded demand for compliance infrastructure.

Backup Workflows (Passed Theoretical Evaluation)

Additional Validated Approaches

These workflows passed rigorous theoretical evaluation and are ready for live validation when the primary workflow is deployed.

  • Consent Order / Enforcement Action Utilities — Water systems under formal EPA consent orders or administrative orders under the Safe Drinking Water Act. These systems have legally binding compliance schedules with specific milestone deadlines, creating the highest urgency of any segment. Smaller list than general violations but maximum close probability.
  • BIL / SRF Lead Pipe Funding Recipients — Utilities that received Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Drinking Water SRF grants for lead service line replacement in the last 6 months. Federal grant award = dedicated program budget + legal obligation to spend. Identified via USASpending.gov federal grant database.
  • PFAS Violation / MCL Exceedance Utilities — Water systems with PFAS detections above EPA Health Advisory levels from the UCMR5 monitoring program, now facing the 2027 PFAS MCL compliance deadline. New compliance dimension layered on top of existing lead obligations.
  • High "Unknown" Service Line Inventory Utilities — Systems that submitted LCRR service line inventories with a high percentage of unknown materials. Regulators can see this directly, and these utilities face immediate field verification pressure. Strongest in states with structured public data (FL, TX, OH, PA).

What You're Looking At

The lead cards in this report aren't a one-time research project. They're a sample of what a Pain-Qualified Prospect Feed looks like — monitoring EPA enforcement records continuously and surfacing water utilities with active Lead and Copper Rule violations the moment they appear, before they've had time to evaluate any compliance platform.

What the Feed Looks Like

Every Week

6–12 fresh water utilities matching this workflow's violation signal — pulled from the latest EPA enforcement data and enriched to the compliance manager contact.

Week 1 Onboarding

ICP and Pain Signal Map for the water compliance vertical, outreach templates calibrated to compliance managers, and a competitive landscape snapshot.

Monthly Refinement

You tell us which utilities turned into meetings. We adjust signal weighting — prioritizing enforcement action types and system sizes that are converting for your team.

The Guarantee

25–50 pain-qualified utilities with verified compliance manager contact info every month — or you don't pay for that month.

Built for B2B sales teams who'd rather have reasons to call than names to guess from.

Want to see the full Violation Window list?

We'll pull the current EPA enforcement data, walk you through what lands in your inbox each week, and show you exactly what the compliance manager contact looks like for each system. No obligation — just live data.

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