A Notice From Your Water Utility: What Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 Mean

Three tiers, three clocks

The Public Notification Rule applies to every public water system in the country and assigns each violation to a tier by how quickly it could affect health. The tier sets the deadline and the delivery method.12

Tier 1 is twenty four hours. These can make people sick right away: E. coli in the distribution system, a nitrate or nitrite exceedance, a lead action level exceedance, a waterborne disease outbreak. Because the risk is immediate, the utility must use fast methods, including radio, television, hand delivery, or posting in public places.13

Tier 2 is thirty days. This covers most other exceedances of a contaminant level or treatment technique, the kind that matters over years rather than overnight. Notice can come by mail, which is why it often shows up folded into a utility bill, and it repeats at least every three months while the situation lasts.13

Tier 3 is one year. These are administrative: a sample not taken on time, operation under a variance, or a special notice announcing unregulated monitoring results. Utilities may fold them into the annual water quality report.13

What a Tier 1 notice looked like

Kalamazoo got an E. coli positive result on September 18 from a routine distribution sample. One E. coli positive routine sample followed by a repeat positive for total coliform is a maximum contaminant level violation, and that triggers a Tier 1 notice inside twenty four hours. The advisory went out the next morning across nineteen of the city's neighborhoods.4

The instruction was physical: bottled water, or a rolling boil for at least two minutes before drinking, making ice, cooking, brushing teeth, or washing dishes. Bathing was not restricted. Weekend sampling came back clean, the advisory lifted September 21, and the city told residents to flush plumbing and replace filter cartridges.4

What a Tier 2 notice looked like

Pewaukee is the other shape. A July sample from one city well came back with PFAS above state limits, and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources required a Tier 2 notice. The city reported this was not yet a maximum contaminant level violation, since the standard is judged on a running annual average. Residents were advised to consider other drinking water sources.56

Nothing in it asked anyone to stop using the tap tonight. That is the point of the thirty day window: the concern is long term exposure, so the rule trades speed for reach and repetition. Pewaukee includes its PFAS notices in quarterly bills until the wells are back in compliance.5

What every notice has to tell you

Tier does not change the required contents. Whatever the deadline, a notice must describe the situation and when it happened, state potential health effects, identify who is at risk, say whether alternative water should be used and what you should do, explain what the utility is doing and when it expects to resolve it, and give a number to call.3

If a notice leaves you unsure whether to drink, the answer is in a section you skimmed.1

Tier 3 notices and recent violations also land in the annual Consumer Confidence Report, which your utility publishes free every year. That is the context one notice cannot give you.7

Find your water quality report ↗

For background before a notice ever arrives, Epic's What's in Your Water lookup shows what has been reported near you. It is not a test of your own tap.

Where a filter fits, and where it does not

The tier is also a rough guide to whether a filter is part of the answer.

A Tier 1 bacteria notice is not a filter problem.

A carbon pitcher is not designed or tested to remove bacteria or viruses, and pouring advisory water through one does not make it safe. Follow the advisory. Kalamazoo's guidance after the lift was to flush the plumbing and replace filter cartridges, which is the right order.4

A Tier 2 chemical notice is where filtration enters the conversation.

Pewaukee pointed residents toward granular activated carbon filters meeting NSF/ANSI Standard 53, or reverse osmosis with a carbon component, and noted plainly that boiling does not remove PFAS. Boiling concentrates it.5

Read certification and reduction testing as two separate things. Epic's Pure XP and Nano XP are listed by NSF under Standard 42 for material safety and NSF/ANSI/CAN 372 for lead content. Reduction is documented separately by independent testing, including PFOA and PFOS under the NSF P473 protocol. Those are test results, not certified reduction claims.8910

Match documented performance to the contaminant your notice named. A filter is not a general purpose answer, and never a reason to ignore a notice.

Read Epic's testing documents ↗

If a pitcher or dispenser fits the finding in your notice, explore Epic's pitchers, dispensers, and bundles. Check the documentation for the exact filter before you rely on any single number.