95-4598. Notice of Public Meetings on Drinking Water Issues

[Federal Register Volume 60, Number 37 (Friday, February 24, 1995)]
[Notices]
[Pages 10391-10393]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 95-4598]



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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[FRL-5161-7]


Notice of Public Meetings on Drinking Water Issues

    Notice is hereby given that the U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency (EPA) is holding public meetings related to the Agency's 
drinking water program over the next several months. Descriptions of 
the subject areas for the meetings are provided below, along with 
initial meeting dates, times and locations. Names and phone numbers of 
EPA contact persons are also provided. Additional information about a 
particular subject area, as well as dates of additional meetings, may 
be obtained by calling the EPA contact person listed for that subject 
area.
    The purpose of the meetings is to provide EPA with ideas, 
suggestions and options either for proceeding with specific activities 
related to the drinking water program or which can serve as the basis 
for strategic decisions on program directions and resource allocations. 
The intent is to provide EPA with the full array of viewpoints, ideas 
and concerns which are held by its multiplicity of stakeholders. 
Summaries of the ideas and suggestions from the public meetings will be 
provided to EPA senior managers in the drinking water program for 
further consideration.
    Some of the meetings will focus on how to carry out specific 
activities which the agency perceives as ripe for action and which can 
be undertaken within EPA's existing resource constraints. Others will 
be used to seek broad input on options for prioritizing among other 
possible activities within a subject area, including suggestions for 
other ways to do business. In some cases, these two approaches will be 
combined in a single meeting.
    For some of the eight subject areas, only one or two public 
meetings may prove necessary. For others, such meetings may take place 
more frequently over a period of several months. Most of the meetings 
will be in Washington, D.C. Because EPA will not be able to fund travel 
for any participants, all meetings will be teleconferenced to enable 
participation by persons in other locales.
    Where the Agency has chosen to proceed with a specific activity, 
such as revising the State Programs Priorities Guidance for the Public 
Water Systems Supervisory Program, we will also solicit participation 
in stakeholder forums in order to enable us to receive additional 
feedback. These forums will include the array of stakeholder interests. 
Members of the public may attend and observe the forums. As with the 
public meetings, the purpose of the forums will be to provide EPA with 
individual stakeholder views rather than to seek an opinion from the 
group as a whole.
    Where EPA is seeking to prioritize among possible activities, the 
Agency will convene a senior EPA management group to review the public 
meeting summaries. That group will assemble the information and develop 
a program action plan consistent with available resources. The plan 
will be submitted to the National Drinking Water Advisory Council for 
its comment. Final decisions on priorities will be made by Assistant 
Administrator Robert Perciasepe. EPA will continue to seek further 
stakeholder input on how to proceed after priority activities have been 
determined.
    Alternatively or in addition to attending any particular meeting, 
members of the public may submit written comments to the EPA contact 
person for up to fifteen days after the meeting. General questions 
about the meeting process should be directed to Charlene Shaw with 
EPA's Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water at [phone].

Subject Areas and Initial Meeting Schedules

Regulatory Reassessment

    EPA will hold a public meeting on regulatory reassessment on March 
13, 1995, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. at the St. James Hotel, 950 24th 
Street NW., Washington, D.C. 20037. Meetings under this subject area 
will provide EPA with stakeholder input on priorities for regulating 
drinking water contaminants. There is a wide variability among the 
regulations in terms of the relative risk reductions they will produce. 
Also, EPA does not believe it has the resources to continue working on 
all regulations currently required in a timely and high quality 
fashion.
    In addition to discussing regulation priorities, meeting 
participants may also suggest criteria for prioritizing rulemaking 
efforts. EPA will consider comments provided by participants in 
developing a prioritized list of regulatory activities. The priority 
list will be used to identify which regulations can be developed in the 
near term and which are appropriate for a much longer time frame for 
development. With this information, EPA hopes to renegotiate current 
court-ordered schedules and more effectively direct federal, State and 
local resources. EPA Contact: Jan Auerbach, [phone].

Scientific Data Needs

    EPA will hold a public meeting on scientific data needs on March 
30, 1995, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. at the EPA Auditorium, 401 M Street, 
S.W., Washington, D.C. 20460. Up to date information and quality models 
and methodologies are essential to sound regulatory and programmatic 
decision-making. They form the foundation for the more visible Agency 
actions and products. Since data collection and analysis is resource 
and time intensive, some trade-offs are inevitable. EPA will seek input 
regarding identification of the most critical needs. Meetings under 
this subject area would also seek input on other factors which may 
merit consideration.
    This subject area encompasses a wide range of questions, including 
the following. Within the context of statutory goals and timetables, 
what types of data should be assembled and considered in chemical 
assessment? What levels of monitoring data are required at all stages 
of the contaminant evaluation process, from selection to actual 
regulatory decisions? What are the other key data needs with respect to 
regulatory impact assessment? What should the balance be between 
investing in more sophisticated cost estimate models versus reducing 
uncertainty in other areas such as health assessment? Within the 
context of statutory guidelines and available public and private 
resources, do interested parties believe surrogate indicators (such as 
volumes of pesticides used) are adequate for contaminant selection for 
Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) development, or should public water 
supply monitoring and federal reporting of those data precede MCL 
development? Beyond contaminant selection, cost and benefit assessments 
will be discussed.
    This subject area also includes discussion of data needs related to 
source water protection, including drinking water occurrence, 
locational and well characteristic data which [[Page 10392]] would help 
guide development of prevention programs. Such data would assist in 
developing prevention programs tailored to local conditions and would 
enable local, State and federal agencies to more effectively target 
their activities to prevent pollution of drinking water. EPA Contact: 
Ben Smith, [phone].

Treatment Technology

    EPA will hold a public meeting to discuss treatment technology on 
March 7, 1995, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Capitol, 550 C 
Street SW., Washington, D.C. 20024. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act 
(SDWA) treatment technology is important in the establishment of 
National Primary Drinking Water Standards and determining when 
allowable flexibility in the form of variances and exemptions is 
appropriate. EPA is considering ways to improve treatment technology 
determinations and associated issues. The Agency will seek input on 
critical issues, including criteria for determining best available 
technologies and treatment technique requirements; ways for EPA to 
promote the development and applications of innovative technologies; 
and the need for toxicological evaluation and certification of 
treatment chemical and system component safety. EPA Contact: Steve 
Clark, [phone].

Health Assessment

    EPA will hold a public meeting on health assessment on March 14, 
1995, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Capitol, 550 C Street 
SW., Wahsington, D.C. 20024. Under this subject area, EPA is seeking 
stakeholder views on revisiting the methodology for determining Maximum 
Contaminant Level Goals (MCLGs) for drinking water, including the 
Agency's current policy of setting zero goals for carcinogens. In 
regulating drinking water contaminants which may cause adverse health 
effects, EPA sets non-enforceable MCLGs to protect against these 
effects, incorporating a margin of safety. EPA also sets a Maximum 
Contaminant Level (MCL), which is enforceable and may be less stringent 
than the MCLG depending on feasibility.
    Several activities planned or ongoing may improve the 
characterization of the variability and uncertainty associated with the 
risk assessment for a contaminant. These include noncancer risk 
assessment methodologies such as the bench mark approach and 
categorical regression models, revision of the Cancer Risk Assessment 
Guidelines, revision of the relative source contribution policy, 
evaluation of risk assessment methods for chemical mixtures and 
development of a risk characterization policy. EPA Contact: Jennifer 
Orme-Zavaleta, [phone].

Analytical Methods

    EPA will hold a public meeting on analytical methods in Cincinnati, 
Ohio. The schedule for this meeting may be obtained by calling Herb 
Brass at [phone]. This subject area encompasses the need to set 
priorities for enhancing the analytical methods approval process and 
laboratory certification program within the context of developing and 
implementing drinking water regulations. EPA is seeking stakeholders' 
suggestions for making improvements while assuring the comparability 
and quality of measurement data. Specific issues to be addressed 
include: streamlining the drinking water methods approval process, 
including the use of performance-based methods; approaches for 
standardizing the detection and quantification of contaminants in 
water: laboratory certification; opportunities for integrating methods 
across Agency water programs; and the relationship to methods 
organizations inside and outside of the Agency. EPA Contact: Herb 
Brass, [phone].

Source Water Protection

    EPA will hold a public meeting on source water protection on March 
23, 1995, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Capitol, 550 C 
Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20024. This subject area is to address 
preparations for an EPA-sponsored National Source Water Protection 
Workshop in 1996 which will provide communities with tools and 
information to enable them to protect their sources of drinking water. 
The teleworkshop will be targeted to communities which have delineated 
their source water protection areas and carried out source 
identification and will assist such communities in moving to source 
management. EPA is seeking to work with States, communities, interest 
groups and business leaders, including from the agricultural community, 
to maximize participation in the teleworkshop.
    This subject area will also address the development of source water 
protection approaches for communities which rely on surface water and 
the development of a new consumer information provision to inform 
ratepayers about local water quality and source water protection. EPA 
Contact: Bob Barles, [phone].

Small Systems Capacity Building

    EPA will hold a public meeting on small systems capacity building 
on March 29, 1995, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Capitol, 
550 C Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20024. This subject area is to 
address options and priorities for building small system capacity, 
including the areas of management and operations, technology, and 
financing. EPA will be seeking suggestions on how best to focus and 
follow-up on current activities relative to voluntary State viability 
program development and small systems restructuring. EPA will also be 
seeking ideas and viewpoints on issues associated with technical 
assistance and training for small systems, as well as how best to 
identify and promote use of appropriate small systems technologies. 
Contact: Peter Shanaghan, [phone].

Focusing and Improving Implementation

    EPA will hold a public meeting on focusing and improving 
implementation on March 6, 1995, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. at the St. 
James Hotel, 950 24th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037. This 
subject area encompasses several topics, as follows. EPA is generally 
seeking stakeholder views on which of these or other implementation 
activities the Agency should undertake. Where the Agency plans to carry 
out a particular activity, as in reviewing the State Drinking Water 
Program Priorities Guidance, stakeholder views on appropriate 
approaches will be sought.

Review of State Drinking Water Program Priorities Guidance

    Recognizing the limited resources that States have to keep pace 
with expanding federal drinking water program requirements, EPA issued 
guidance in June 1992 to focus EPA and State resources on the highest 
priorities first and allow States time to build resources in order to 
fully implement the program. The priority scheme was to be effective 
between 1993 and 1998, during which time States are expected to 
aggressively develop adequate funding to oversee the entire Public 
Water Supply Supervision (PWSS) program. The guidance does not change 
or defer statutory or regulatory requirements for EPA, State agencies 
or public water systems. States have used the guidance successfully in 
addressing their most important implementation, enforcement and 
resource challenges. EPA believes that it is time to re-examine this 
guidance, based upon the experience gained over the past two years, and 
determine if any changes are [[Page 10393]] needed to more 
appropriately focus resources on the highest risks first. We also need 
to determine how to include new requirements in the priority scheme. 
EPA Contact: Connie Bosma, [phone].

Revising Chemical Monitoring Requirements and Defining Source Water 
Protection as Best Available Technology

    Public water systems are required to monitor for 66 different 
inorganic (e.g., mercury), synthetic organic (e.g., atrazine) and 
volatile organic compounds (e.g., benzene) found in drinking water. 
Costs to collect and analyze these chemicals can be several thousands 
of dollars per year, which can be beyond the resource capacities for 
small systems. Several statutory (Chafee-Lautenberg Amendment) and 
regulatory (e.g., grandfathering data, compositing, State-approved 
waivers) provisions have provided flexibility to systems to reduce or 
forego monitoring for at least some chemicals. EPA believes it would be 
appropriate to consider other revisions to chemical monitoring 
requirements by, for example, targeting systems at risk of 
contamination, targeting vulnerable time periods and allowing States 
greater flexibility to integrate source water protection efforts. EPA 
also believes it might be useful to consider regulatory changes to 
allow water systems to use source water protection as an alternative 
form of treatment for certain contaminants under limited conditions, 
provided such an alternative provides equivalent health protection. EPA 
Contact: Mike Muse, [phone].

Other Revisions to Strengthen Enforcement and Implementation

    Recognizing the limited resources in the drinking water program, 
EPA is interested in hearing ideas to further strengthen the public 
health protection provided by the SDWA and the regulations while at the 
same time streamlining the program. These activities could take the 
form of outreach, technical assistance and capacity building, or use of 
authorities provided under other environmental statutes. For example, 
some potential activities in this area might include the production of 
special health notifications for serious drinking water contamination, 
particularly for sensitive subpopulations; additional joint State/EPA 
efforts to develop State capacity to implement and enforce the drinking 
water program; and streamlining and strengthening EPA's ability to 
collect information from drinking water systems (particularly in cases 
where contamination is suspected or where a system is required to 
monitor on a greatly reduced basis). The activities in this area would 
be designed to ensure greater public health protection and would link 
to the actions being proposed in other areas (e.g., regulatory 
realignment, review of priority guidance and greater emphasis on source 
water protection.) EPA Contact: Bob Blanco, [phone].

    Dated: February 21, 1995.
Peter L. Cook,
Deputy Director, Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water.
[FR Doc. 95-4598 Filed 2-23-95; 8:45 am]
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