Water industry witnesses recently told the Senate Environment Committee that although the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments have been a success in the past two years, some tough challenges lie ahead.
Chairman John Chafee (R-R.I.), said, "I am extremely pleased to say that EPA has not missed one statutory requirement included in the 1996 amendments. One of our biggest challenges will be ensuring that future regulations are based on sound and reliable science."
Charles Fox, the assistant administrator who heads EPAs water office, said, "The biggest single challenge over the next four or five years for the drinking water community as a whole, including EPA, is simply the cumulative number and size of the tasks we face.
"The regulatory products required of EPA over the next four to five years will need not only to continue to address the intent of their respective provisions in the law and the fundamental concerns of stakeholders, but also they will need to be supported by a growing base of research and data that will be costly for EPA and demanding of stakeholders.
"States, water systems, and other stakeholders will not only continue their active participation in helping EPA develop these new regulatory products, they will also have the burdens of implementing the new regulations and programs already developed since 1996. EPA, in turn, will have the added responsibilities of assisting with, and overseeing, this implementation as the law specifies."
Fox said EPA also faces the challenge of balancing its drinking water research needs over the next several years to support its regulatory decisions.
"A third challenge is the issue of data quality. We have made great progress in making our information about drinking water quality available to the public. We have also found in doing so that the old adage applies: namely, that if you make data widely available, you must be exacting about the quality of that data, and you may need to improve it.
"We have recently had that experience with drinking water violations data in our Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS). As we made SDWIS data available on the Internet, water systems pointed out errors in the information."
Associations Respond
Gerry Berstine, with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, testified for the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators.
Associations Respond
He observed that all states now have drinking water state revolving loan programs in place, and so far 354 loans have been made totaling about $850 million.
Associations Respond
He said 52 states and territories met the Feb. 6 deadline to submit source water assessment and delineation programs for EPA for final review and approval.
Associations Respond
Berstine said, "States are concerned about funding and staff resources, state input into the regulatory development process, the timing of the various new programs, identifying priorities among all of the new requirements, and the establishment of artificial barriers that may significantly hinder implementation."
Associations Respond
Gurnie Gunter, director of the Kansas City, Mo., Water Services Department, testified for the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies.
Associations Respond
He said, "As regulatory development under the 1996 amendments begins on new contaminants, research needs escalate quickly" and a funding shortfall of $10 to $20 million per year is in prospect.
Associations Respond
Gunter said, "The onus is on EPA to request appropriate funds from Congress, and on Congress to satisfy EPAs requests."
Other Concerns
Merril Bingham, of the Provo, Utah, water department, spoke for the American Water Works Association.
Other Concerns
He said AWWA believes funding for the EPA drinking water research program is inadequate to provide the science needed to support new contaminant regulations. "We need to break the cycle of drinking water research lagging behind the regulatory needs."
Other Concerns
Bingham said the microbal, disinfectant, and disinfection by-products cluster of rules is the most significant, and potentially the most costly, of all drinking water regulations required by the 1996 SDWA amendments.
Other Concerns
It includes disinfectant/disinfection by-product rules, enhanced surface water treatment rules, a filter backwash rule, and a groundwater rule.
Other Concerns
"The regulations in this cluster require substantial research, all of which will not be completed by the time indicated in the SDWA."
Other Concerns
He also said it is unlikely that EPA will complete the needed research for developing its revised arsenic regulation.
Other Concerns
Andrew Chapman, president of the Elizabeth Town Water Co., Elizabeth Town, N.J., raised concerns about a new kind of lawsuit.
Other Concerns
Representing the National Association of Water Companies, Chapman said in California, 11 lawsuits have been filed against community water systems (both public and private) for allegedly delivering contaminated water, although the companies claimed to have been in full compliance with state and federal requirements.
Other Concerns
Chapman said if these lawsuits "conclude that the national standards are inadequate to protect public health, water systems across the country will need to consider whether to comply with uniform national standards or the new standards set by the litigation.
Other Concerns
"Furthermore, the costs of defending these lawsuits will place upward pressure on water prices. Ultimately, the substantial judgments that could result from these lawsuits could threaten the financial stability of water systems across the country."
Other Concerns
Chapman added, "Given the widely-acknowledged success of the SDWA since its enactment 25 years ago, we believe that it would be most unfortunate, if not potentially disastrous, if the heart of the act -uniformly enforced national drinking water standards-were to be eroded or destroyed by civil litigation."
