Following Missteps In Water Sampling, EPA Looks Internally
By Peak Johnson
Because of what they considered to be missteps in state drinking water testing, the U.S. EPA has begun to scrutinize internally.
According to The Hill, in a letter to EPA officials last month, the Office of Program Evaluation at the administration’s inspector general’s office said that it is working to “determine whether the EPA can improve its oversight of state drinking water sampling programs.”
Water Issues Director Kathlene Butler wrote in her letter that the study had been scheduled as part of the Office of the Inspector General’s 2016 annual plan, according to The Hill.
The study comes after controversy over how the EPA handled drinking water testing in Flint, MI.
According to The Hill, the EPA did know ahead of time that Flint’s drinking water was contaminated with lead, but there was not much the agency could do to address the problem. Under federal law, state regulators are in charge of testing drinking water and enforcing water safety laws.
Federal officials said earlier this month that it could take almost three months of testing before Flint could distribute water from a new pipeline.
Earlier this year, the House voted to require that the EPA notify the public about high lead levels in drinking water if nothing is being done by state or local officials, The Hill reported.
The evaluation will focus on testing drinking water at EPA headquarters, but also in the state and regional offices around the country.
The EPA added that it would “assess information on who collects drinking water samples for the states in each region.”
“The anticipated benefits of this project are improvements in the protection of human health by determining the extent that EPA ensures compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act requirements for regular drinking water compliance sampling,” Butler said in her letter.
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