Thousands of small water systems are not in compliance with the Surface Water Treatment Rule (SWTR) for one or more reasons. The governing authorities in these small communities are expected to conserve the limited funds of the community and at the same time provide the residents with safe drinking water. In many cases the solution has been to gain extensions of compliance deadlines and to hope that residents do not get sick in the interim. This paper will describe how two small communities solved their problems of compliance with the SWTR, using diatomaceous earth (D.E.) filtration. D.E. filtration is a proven and approved method that offers the following advantages: low initial installation and ongoing cost; simplicity of operation; no coagulation or flocculation required; minimum space requirements; removal of solids down to one micron, including giardia and cryptosporidium removal; no backwashing; and can be used in conjunction with a pretreatment, such as activated carbon or ozone, for special cases requiring color, odor or trihalomethane reduction.