WASHINGTON - In a speech today at the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) yearly conference in Washington, D.C., U.S. E.P.A. Administrator Lisa P. Jackson announced the agency is developing a broad new set of strategies to strengthen public health protection from contaminants in drinking water. The aim is to find solutions that meet the health and economic needs of communities across the country more effectively than the current approach. E.P.A. is also announcing a decision to revise the existing drinking water requirements for 4 contaminants that can cause cancer.
"To confront emerging health threats, strained budgets and increased needs -- today's and tomorrow's drinking water challenges -- we must use the law more effectively and promote new technologies," said E.P.A. Administrator Jackson. "That means fostering innovation that can increase cost-effective protection. It means finding win-win-win solutions for our health our environment and our economy. And it means broad collaboration. To make our drinking water systems work harder, we have to work smarter."
The new vision is meant to streamline decision-making and expand protection under existing law and promote cost-effective new technologies to meet the needs of rural, urban and other water-stressed communities. Specifically, this shift in drinking water strategy is organized around 4 key principles:
· Address contaminants as a group rather than one at a time so that enhancement of drinking water protection can be achieved cost-effectively.
· Foster development of new drinking water treatment technologies to address health risks posed by a broad array of contaminants.
· Use the authority of multiple statutes to help protect drinking water.
· Partner with states to share more complete data from monitoring at public water systems.
EPA's current approach to drinking water protection is focused on a detailed assessment of each individual contaminant of concern and can take many years. This approach not only results in slow progress in addressing unregulated contaminants but also fails to take advantage of strategies for enhancing health protection cost-effectively, including advanced treatment technologies that address several contaminants at once. The outlined vision looks for to use existing authorities to achieve greater protection more quickly and cost-effectively.
Stricter Requirements Appropriate for 4 Contaminants
While exploring this shift in strategy, E.P.A. continues to look for opportunities to increase protection using traditional approaches. In the newly finalized review of existing drinking water standards, E.P.A. determined that scientific advances allow for stricter regulations for the carcinogenic compounds tetrachloroethylene, trichloroethylene, acrylamide and epichlorohydrin. Tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene are used in industrial and/or textile processing and can be introduced into drinking water from contaminated ground or surface water sources. Acrylamide and epichlorohydrin are impurities that can be introduced into drinking water during the water treatment process. Within the next year, E.P.A. will initiate rulemaking efforts to revise the tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene Requirements using the strategy's framework. Revision of epichlorohydrin and acrylamide Requirements will follow later. As E.P.A. looks at its new approach to addressing groups, the agency will consider whether revisions to these Requirements fit into that approach.
Ongoing Regulatory Actions
There are ongoing efforts on 14 other drinking water standards. For example, E.P.A. is considering further revisions to the lead and copper rule in order to better address risks to children. E.P.A. also has ongoing health risk assessments or information gathering for chromium, fluoride, arsenic, and atrazine. E.P.A. continues to consider whether to regulate perchlorate. When these efforts are complete, should additional action be required, E.P.A. will move ahead to address any risks in an expedited manner.
E.P.A. believes it is critical to enhance drinking water protection to address the growing number of contaminants. By pursuing these sets of goals outlined above, E.P.A. looks for to provide more robust public health protection in an open and transparent manner, identify cost and energy efficient treatment technologies and to collaborate more broadly with states, the drinking water industry, public health professionals, technology developers and manufacturers and the public to address this challenge.
More information on the strategy:
http://www.epa.gov/safewater/sdwa/dwstrategy.html
More information on the six-year review: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/review.html
