Meniscus: Know what's in your water.

Our Mission

Everyone deserves to know what's in their water.

Every American has the right to know what's in their tap water. The data exists, in federal databases, state agencies, utility compliance reports, and Superfund records. It's scattered across a dozen systems written for engineers, regulators, and lawyers. Not for the people actually drinking the water.

Meniscus pulls it together, address by address, and translates it into what actually matters for your home. What's legal. What's safe by current science. What to do about the gap between them.

No fear-mongering. No "buy this filter for peace of mind." Just the data, honestly presented, so you can make the call that's right for your family.

It's time to make every tap honest.

How it works

Three layers. One address. No guessing.

Most water data exists. It's just scattered across federal systems, state agencies, and utility filings written for engineers. We pull it together, translate it, and hand it back to the person drinking the water.

01

We identify your water

Your water system, your location, and the contaminants that matter to you.

We match your address to its utility, pull the system profile from EPA SDWIS, and overlay the risk factors specific to where you live: Superfund proximity, lead service line likelihood, premise-plumbing age based on when your home was built. Then we ask what matters most. A family with young kids cares about different things than a renter looking for the cheapest path to clean drinking water.

02

We analyze the data

We aggregate and interpret water quality data from multiple sources. So you don't have to.

EPA SDWIS for violations and source water. UCMR5 for the latest PFAS monitoring. ECHO for enforcement history. State disclosure reports, utility Consumer Confidence Reports, and SEMS Superfund tracking. We translate the raw regulatory data into the real question: is this water safe for my family, legal to drink, and honestly reported?

03

You get your report

Your water explained. In plain English, with clear next steps.

An honest snapshot of your tap water. Contaminants worth knowing about. Testing recommendations if your profile warrants them. Filter technology that actually addresses what's in your water. No fear-mongering, no "buy this filter for peace of mind." Just the data, honestly presented, so you can make the call that's right for your family.

Coverage

Built city by city.

Every US address gets a report. How complete it is depends on whether we've finished indexing your utility — we tell you which you're getting before you search.

Covered metros

Full address-level reports

Contaminants, disinfectant, lead and PFAS status. Filter recommendations tailored to your specific water profile.

Live today across Texas, Massachusetts, and Ohio — 13 utilities serving roughly 9 million people. Every address we cover gets layered data: EPA SDWIS violations, UCMR5 PFAS monitoring, LCRR lead service line inventories, Superfund proximity, and premise-plumbing age from Census ACS.

Everywhere else

A lighter report, honestly scoped

If your address is outside our covered metros, you still get a useful report. We're clear about what we don't have indexed, and what to do about it.

We confirm your utility against EPA's SDWIS database, link you directly to your utility's annual Consumer Confidence Report, and recommend targeted home test kits for your water profile. Curated test-kit picks coming soon, once our toxicologist review is complete.

Next on the roadmap: California (LADWP, SFPUC) and New York metro (NYC DEP, ~8M served). We're also adding address-level lead service line lookups for Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit under the 2024 LCRR inventory requirement.

The science

Grounded in public data and peer-reviewed research.

Every number in your report comes from a source you can verify independently. Here's what we look at and why.

EPA legal limits

The legal maximums for contaminants in your tap water. Utilities have to stay below these. But "legal" doesn't always mean "safe by current science" — most of these limits were last updated 20+ years ago.

Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) are enforceable ceilings under the Safe Drinking Water Act. MCLGs are non-enforceable health goals. EPA sets these after cost-benefit analysis, not pure health risk.

Arsenic was last revised in 2001. Disinfection byproducts in 2006. Chromium-6 has no federal MCL at all. "Meets EPA standards" and "safe by modern toxicology" are two different things.

40 CFR Part 141

For small rural utilities with under 3,300 people served, UCMR5 doesn't require PFAS testing, so the absence of PFAS data in our report doesn't mean it's not there. When data is incomplete, we say so and recommend follow-up testing. Transparency about uncertainty is part of the science.

About Meniscus Water

Legal doesn't always mean safe.

The legal standards for US tap water were mostly set 20+ years ago. The science has moved on. The rules haven't.

28%

of US public water systems had at least one Safe Drinking Water Act violation in 2023

~4M

lead service lines still connect American homes to their utilities

22M

Americans consumed water with at least one health-based violation in FY2022

92%

of community systems serve under 10,000 people — and have the hardest time meeting compliance

Why "Meniscus"?

The precise line where data becomes clarity.

In chemistry, the meniscus is the exact point you read on a measuring cylinder to get the truth. Look above it, you misread. Look below it, you misread. Only at the meniscus do you see the precise answer.

Water data exists in EPA databases, state filings, utility reports — scattered, technical, and rarely written for the people drinking it. Meniscus is the precise line where that raw data becomes a clear, honest answer about your tap water.

Built by insiders. For you.

Regulatory fluency from inside the industry. Translated for every household.

Know what's really in your water.