The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed the Ground Water Rule (GWR) which specifies the appropriate use of disinfection in ground water and addresses other components of ground water systems to assure public health protection. Affecting over 157,000 U.S. public water systems, including houses, apartment buildings, schools and campgrounds, the new GWR will prevent over 115,000 cases of illness and as many as 10 deaths a year.

In Quebec, the sale of drinking water treatment devices has been restricted through legislation to only those devices tested by a Standards Council of Canada approved organization such as the mandated ANSI standard certification. Within Canada there are only two ANSI-approved labs: NSF International and Underwriters Laboratories. The legislation requires that all drinking water treatment devices conform to ANSI/NSF Standards 44, 53, 55, 58 and 62. In addition, the testing lab must be ANSI accredited.

In Ontario, due to the Walkerton crisis, regulations were passed under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) which extends the application of Ontario Regulation 459/00 and Ontario Regulation 505/01 to other drinking water systems including smaller residential systems, commercial and institutional systems. The regulations also contain performance based criteria, that enables owners of non-municipal systems and specified municipal systems to choose the technology that meet the required performance.