Opportunity knocks for water treatment entities to provide their input on new regulations about to be rolled out by EPA that could either boost or harm their businesses. The Regulatory Flexibility Act requires EPA to establish a panel, including small businesses that may be economically impacted before any revisions to regulations become effective. But beware, the deadline only provides one week to apply.
The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a review every six years covering the existing national primary drinking water regulations (NPDWRs) to determine which, if any, are appropriate for revision. The purpose of the Six Year Review is to evaluate available information for regulated contaminants to determine if there exists a basis to support a regulatory revision that could improve public health protection.
On August 9, EPA announced its commencement of its current Sixth Year Review by inviting Small Entity Representatives (SERs) to weigh in on proposed regulations that will impact their business models to provide advice and recommendations to the EPA Panel. SERs are owners or operators of small businesses, small organization officials, or small government officials of potentially regulated small entities. Other representatives, such as trade associations that exclusively or at least primarily represent potentially regulated small entities, also may serve as SERs. However, unlike SERs, these “other” representatives will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis for their eligibility in participating in the panel.
EPA’s potential revisions this year will focus on reducing exposure in drinking water to microbial pathogens including Cryptosporidium, Giardia lamblia, Legionella, and viruses in drinking water, which have been linked to diseases, including Legionnaire’s Disease, while balancing the risks between microbes and disinfection by-products (DBPs).
The areas for proposed revisions that EPA is considering include:
- Setting a numeric disinfection residual
- Evaluating precursor control enhancements
- Improving water quality for consecutive systems
- Evaluating potential improvement to monitoring and reporting requirements
- Addressing finished water storage tank inspection and cleaning vulnerabilities as necessary
EPA is currently accepting self-nominations received by August 23, 2024, from the small entities that may be subject to these proposed rules.
