Catching Up With EPA Regulations

Mark LeChevallier, Director of Innovation and Environmental Stewardship with American Water, gives a regulatory update on the Total Coliform Rule and the Stage 2 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproduct Rule, leading also to discussion on the presence and treatment of contaminants such as Cryptosporidium and Giardia.

The following is an excerpt from a Q&A with Water Online Radio. Click on the Radio Player above to hear the full interview.

Water Online Radio: I understand that you were one of the representatives on the group that did the federal negotiations for the Total Coliform Rule. Talk a little bit about what is going on there.

Mark LeChevallier: The EPA, starting in 2000-2001, put out a notice to revise the Total Coliform Rule. They thought there were opportunities to improve the public health protections. So, ending in 2008, from 2006-2008, a federal advisory committee asked us to negotiate, along with the EPA, what those changes would be. The EPA has now published the proposed rule, and we expect, before the end of the year, EPA to finalize that rule with the final revised Total Coliform Rule. 

There is a window where states have to accept that rule, then a window after that where the utilities would start to operate under compliance with that rule – that puts it out somewhere around 2015 or so.  But we expect that rule to publish by the end of the year.

It has a number of advantages.  It strengthens the public health protections, because one of the criticisms of the current rule is that the utilities are only required to collect samples.  So they collect so many samples in a month, and if they are in compliance, that’s good. If they are not, they report to the state agencies that they didn’t meet their compliance and will notify the customers, so they do that.  However, there is no requirement for the utilities to go out and actually find out what happened, or fix any deficiencies.

The new rule requires the utilities to go and do an investigation, and if they find some deficiency, they are required to fix it. So, the “investigate” and the “find and fix” is far more protective of public health than just doing the monitoring.

The old rule is kind of like Russian roulette. You spin the wheel, and if you are good, that’s fine, and if you exceed, well, you tell people about it, but then you just hope next month that things get better. Under the revised rule, if utilities don’t do what they are supposed to do, then that becomes a violation of the rule.