98-18992. Announcement of a Joint Application Design Meeting on the Development of Public Access Component of the National Contaminant Occurrence Database

[Federal Register Volume 63, Number 136 (Thursday, July 16, 1998)]
[Notices]
[Pages 38400-38401]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 98-18992]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[FRL-6125-2]


Announcement of a Joint Application Design Meeting on the 
Development of Public Access Component of the National Contaminant 
Occurrence Database

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Announcement of a Joint Application Design (JAD) meeting on the 
development of public access component of the National Contaminant 
Occurrence Database (NCOD).

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has scheduled a 
two-day public meeting on EPA's development of public access component 
of the NCOD. The focus of this meeting will be to capture the design 
and user interface requirements of NCOD users in the public arena. The 
meeting will be open to any interested parties. EPA encourages the full 
participation of stakeholders throughout this process. Of particular 
interest for this meeting are potential NCOD users from educational 
institutions, state and local governments, the general public, and 
anyone that does not have access to the EPA Local Area Network (LAN). 
Providing the information within the NCOD to the public in a readily 
accessible format is required by the 1996 amendments to the Safe 
Drinking Water Act (SDWA).

DATES: The stakeholder meeting on the Joint Application Design of the 
public access component of the NCOD will be held on August 17-18, 1998, 
from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. EST.

ADDRESSES: U.S. EPA Washington Information Center (WIC), 400 M Street 
SW, Washington, DC 20460, Conference Room WIC 4 South.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For general information about the 
meeting, please contact Ms. Valerie Love-Smith, U.S. EPA Office of 
Ground Water and Drinking Water, Mail Code 4606, 400 M Street SW, 
Washington, DC 2046, [phone].
    For other information on National Contaminant Occurrence Database,

[[Page 38401]]

please contact Charles Job, at the U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency, Phone: [phone], Fax: [phone].
    Members of the public wishing to attend the meeting may register by 
phone by contacting the Safe Drinking Water Hotline by August 10, 1998 
at 1-800-426-4791. Those registered for the meeting will receive 
background materials prior to the meeting.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

A. Background on the National Contaminant Occurrence Database

    The Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 (SDWA Amendments, 
section 126, appendix A) require establishing a NCOD to: (1) Include 
both regulated and unregulated contaminants; (2) identify contaminants 
that may be placed on the Contaminant Candidate List; (3) support the 
Administrator's determinations to regulate contaminants in the future; 
(4) support the review of existing regulations every six years and of 
monitoring requirements; (5) make the data base available to the public 
in readily accessible form; and (6) be assembled by August 1999, and 
maintained thereafter.
    The NCOD is planned to be a collection of data of documented 
quality on unregulated and regulated chemical, radiological, microbial, 
and physical contaminants, and other such contaminants likely to occur, 
in finished, raw and source waters of public water systems (PWS) of the 
United States and its territories.

B. Request for Stakeholder Involvement

    The upcoming meeting deals specifically with EPA's efforts to 
develop the user interface tools to provide information within the NCOD 
to the general public. The EPA Office of Ground Water and Drinking 
Water (OGWDW) sees the involvement of interested parties, representing 
a variety of perspectives and expertise, as critical to meeting the 
requirement established in the 1996 SDWA amendments. Specifically, the 
amendments stipulate the information within the NCOD will be provided 
to the public in a readily accessible format. This JAD meeting will 
provide an important opportunity for such involvement. Some anticipated 
issues for discussion include the following questions:
    1. Should the NCOD provide data currently available in other EPA 
water data systems (e.g., SDWIS, STORET)? Should the NCOD provide 
products to the public, in addition to the products and queries used to 
satisfy the internal primary drinking water program goals of the NCOD 
(e.g., establish and maintain Contaminant Candidate List (CCL); 
determination to regulate or not regulate future contaminants; review 
existing regulations; etc.)?
    2. What is a ``readily accessible format'? Is INTERNET access 
enough? What type of non-electronic format is needed?
    3. What capabilities are needed by the public: download query 
results, graphs, charts, tabular results?
    4. What, if any, restrictions should be placed on the amount of 
data a user could electronically download? Should someone be able to 
download one hundred megabytes of data on a 14400 modem?
    5. If electronic access time is restricted, as indicated above, how 
could data be provided (file type and media) for public use?
    EPA has convened this public meeting to hear the views of 
stakeholders on the development of the public access component of the 
NCOD. The public is invited to provide comments on the issues listed 
above or other related issues during the August 17-18, 1998 meeting.

    Dated: July 10, 1998.
Elizabeth Fellows,
Acting Director, Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water.
[FR Doc. 98-18992 Filed 7-15-98; 8:45 am]
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