Environmental Progress - Autumn 1996

Safe Drinking Water Act Reauthorization Adopted

More than three years of effort went into the streamlined, updated drinking water bill signed by President Clinton on August 6, 1996

After more than three years of negotiations, an updated and streamlined version of the Safe Drinking Water Act passed both houses of the U.S. Congress on Aug. 2 and was sent to the desk of President Bill Clinton, who signed the reauthorization into law on Aug. 6.

The new legislation gives states greater flexibility in identifying and considering the likelihood for contamination in potable water supplies in establishing monitoring criteria, increases reliance on "sound science" paired with more consumer information presented in readily understandable form, and calls for increased attention to assessment and protection of source waters.

One of the bill's highlights is a $7.6 billion federal grant authorization running through fiscal year 2003, to help states improve their drinking water systems by establishing revolving loan funds similar to those that have funded wastewater system improvements since 1989.

However, since reauthorization came one day after an Aug. 1, 1996, funding deadline, $725 million in previous appropriations for this program reverted to the wastewater revolving fund. Efforts are now underway to free up these dollars for drinking water loan fund purposes by the next federal fiscal year.

The Safe Drinking Water Act was created as a tool to protect public health

Enacted in 1974, the Safe Drinking Water Act was designed to protect public health by ensuring drinking water quality. Revisions in 1986 included cumbersome provisions that U.S. EPA set standards for 83 specified contaminants within three years and set standards for 25 additional contaminants every three years thereafter. The requirement proved difficult to implement and the 1996 reauthorization removes the mandate, instead requiring U.S. EPA to set new standards based on risk and cost-benefit analyses.

During its passage through the 104th Congress, the 1996 reauthorization of the Safe Drinking Water Act enjoyed wide-based bipartisan support. The compromise version finally adopted had the support of state and local officials, public and private water suppliers, environmental and agricultural interests and other industry representatives.

In other areas, the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act reauthorization will:

• require most water systems to notify customers within 24 hours when contamination occurs;
• tailor some treatments and requirements to recognize special limitations affecting smaller systems;
• make suppliers annually issue easily understandable "consumer confidence reports" to their customers on the quality of their drinking water and to itemize each contaminant it contains, with a provision for relaxing the notification requirements for small systems;
• require authorities to focus on preventing and treating the most potentially harmful pollutants in tap water, such as cryptosporidium;
• require U.S. EPA to promulgate a water standard for arsenic by Jan.1, 2001; investigate and determine by 2001 whether sulfate is a significant health hazard requiring regulation; and withdraw current proposals on radon in drinking water. After new risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis, new radon standards are to be promulgated by 2000.

New authority to impose penalties will be required

States, like Illinois, that have been granted federal primary enforcement authority for federal regulations (primacy), will be required to adopt legislation authorizing issuance of administrative penalties of at least $1,000 per day for violations by systems serving more than 10,000 users and to impose appropriate smaller penalties on smaller systems.

New regulations will take effect in most cases three years after promulgation, with the possibility for up to two additional years if capital improvements are required for compliance. Currently, new regulations become effective within 18 months.

To safeguard future capacity development, states will be required to develop policies denying creation of new water systems unless they can demonstrate they will have the technical, managerial, and financial capacity to comply with all drinking water regulations. This section will require states to begin, in 1997, to identify water systems that have a history of significant non-compliance, and to develop, by 2001, capacity development strategies for existing systems. Failure by states to comply will be tied to reductions in federal revolving fund allocations.

States will also be required, by February 1999, to take a new look at minimum standards for certification and recertification for water system operators.