Understanding 飲料水などに使う上水道で導入される


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> 宮城県の水道事業の運営主体が4月1日から民間企業に切り替わった。特に飲料水などに使う上水道で導入されるのは全国初の試みだ。水質悪化や災害復旧の遅れなどを不安視する声が根強いが、県は「対応は今後も変わらない」と強調する。

I'm not sure how to understand the part 飲料水などに使う上水道で導入される. Particularly, I'm
not sure how to understand the に and で in it.

My understanding is "(?) is introduced with upper water channel used for tap
water". But this doesn't make much sense.




I suspect that your difficulty may come from confusion with に導入される =
introduced to.

Here what exactly is the subject of 導入される is a bit hard to tell, but it should
be the whole situation described in the previous sentence: switch to the
private sector.

The phrase parses as ((飲料水などに使う) 上水道で)導入される = introduced in water supply used
for drinking water etc. The に is _for_ , the で is _in/at (location)_.

In this case で can be replaced by に (上水道に), but possibly で was used so that に
does not appear too often. As an example, うちの会社 **で** 新システムが導入された = うちの会社
**に** 新システムが導入された: _A new system was introduced in/to our company_.

Note 上水道 is the system of water supply, used in contrast to 下水道 = sewerage. So
the first sentence says the water-related infrastructure in Miyagi Pref. is
run by a private company, replacing the local government. And the next
sentence means, in particular, it is the first case where 上水道 is run by a
private company (= Sewerage is managed by private sector in some other
prefectures).

