The Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. has announced that it will now be forcing airlines to constantly check, disinfect and change their on-board drinking water. The change in regulations has taken the EPA five years to implement and will now be enforceable across 63 airlines.

In 2004 airline regulators released reports that some of the carriers were not adequately maintaining their drinking water systems. The EPA was then not able to enforce the airlines to comply with general clean water standards as there were no rules covering the level of water quality on-board the aircraft.

It is estimated that compliance with the new rules will cost the U.S. airline industry in the region of $7 million per year. The EPA has told airlines that they will have to ensure that steps have been taken to guarantee the purity of on-board drinking water over the next 18 months and that by the end of this period all facilities comply with the new EPA standards.

The changes by the EPA will now replace existing measures that were being used to check water for potentially harmful bacteria that could jeopardize passenger health. The new system will reflect the level of regulations in place elsewhere to monitor the quality of water supplied to the public.