EPA Reports on Groundwater Risks
In a report to Congress on the 25th anniversary of the passage of the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency said the quality of U.S. groundwater is generally good, but at risk from serious contamination threats in many areas.
?The U.S. enjoys some of the safest drinking water in the world due to a strong regulatory and enforcement program implemented through partnerships formed by many public and private groups including EPA, states, tribes, local governments, water suppliers, public interest groups, and the general public,? EPA said.
Groundwater is the source of drinking water for about half of U.S. consumers, and the major source for rural water users. While groundwater quality is better than that of surface water, it is threatened by agricultural, industrial, commercial, and waste disposal practices, EPA reported.
Because no single federal, state, or local government has authority to manage all those threats, EPA said better agency coordination is needed to achieve a more comprehensive management approach.
It said although most states have not coordinated their groundwater management efforts, 47 do have wellhead protection programs.
Groundwater protection often is not a high priority program for funding, and EPA urged more federal funding for such programs under the SDWA Section 1429 grant program. The law permits grants of up to $15 million per year, but Congress has yet to appropriate any money.
EPA Issues Revised Lead & Copper Rule
Water suppliers recently gained a key victory with the adoption by EPA of revisions to the Lead and Copper Rule that require systems subject to lead-service-line replacement requirements to replace only the portion they own, a position pressed by the American Water Works Association in a legal challenge to the 1991 LCR requirement to replace sections they ?control.?
EPA has retained the requirement for suppliers to offer to replace privately owned portions of lead service lines (LSLs) at the owner?s expense and adds two related requirements: 1) systems replacing partial LSLs must give residents 45-day advance notice and risk-control guidance and 2) conduct one follow-up lead test within 72 hours for each partial-LSL replacement and disclose the results within three days.
Signed Dec. 20 and effective 90 days after Federal Register publication, the LCR Minor Revisions regulation excludes transient-noncommunity systems from LCR requirements.
While retaining current lead and copper standards and action levels and basic requirements to optimize corrosion control, the LCRMR also alters or deletes a host of monitoring, reporting and public notice/education requirements to simplify implementation. It clarifies that all systems must maintain and monitor for optimal corrosion control, adding that systems deemed to be optimized must monitor tap water for lead and copper every three years.
EPA Sets Dioxin Levels For Land-Applied Biosolids
EPA is proposing to set a limit of 300 part per trillion (ppt) toxic equivalents (TEQ) for dioxins in biosolids that are land applied. The proposed rule would require facilities which prepare biosolids for land application to test for dioxins, and to perform periodic monitoring.
Treatment plants treating less than 1 million gallons per day of wastewater, and (2) small businesses which prepare less than 290 dry metric tons of sewage sludge annually would be exempt from the rule.
The proposed rule would require facilities finding levels of dioxins between 30 and 300 ppt in their biosolids to monitor annually for dioxins, while facilities that find less than 30 ppt of dioxins would be required to monitor once every five years.