National Water Associations Are Pressing EPA To Protect Drinking Water
Two of the country’s largest representatives of water agencies are making a concerted effort to pressure the U.S. EPA to do more to protect drinking water quality.
The Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies — a group representing publicly-owned drinking water agencies — and the Association of State Drinking Water Representatives (ASDWA) — which represents state, tribal, and territorial agencies — have joined forces to pressure the EPA’s chemicals office to be more transparent about its analyses and regulations that could dictate drinking water quality.
The effort seems to be motivated by the growing importance of a critical EPA regulation, as well as the emergence of certain pervasive drinking water contaminants.
“The entry of public water officials into debates on the EPA’s decisions about new chemicals — ones that have never been made or imported into the U.S. — is spurred by the growing recognition of the Toxic Substances Control Act’s (TSCA) potential to affect public health, the environment, numerous industries, and the economy,” Bloomberg Law reported. “States are also wrestling with emerging contaminants like 1,4-dioxane and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which get into drinking water sources.”
Though the motives are understandable, this kind of pressure from the two groups is unusual. Typically, chemical industry groups or manufacturers are more likely to lobby the EPA to regulate these substances in certain ways. But the water agency representatives may be able to effect some change this way too.
“The EPA is required to address comments … So the utilities’ efforts could affect how the agency regulates new chemicals, leaving manufacturers to decide how much time and money they want to spend developing such chemicals,” per Bloomberg.
But, on the other hand, the EPA might be resistant to such pressure. So far, it hasn’t instituted stricter regulations for PFAS or 1,4-dioxane and it may argue that it already maintains strict standards for harmful contaminants.
“The agency hasn’t taken specific actions to respond to or revise its proposed rules in response to the groups’ comments,” according to Bloomberg Law. “The EPA already looks at a substance’s potential to expose people or aquatic life using very conservative, or protective, assumptions as it reviews a company’s request to make a new chemical.”
Whether they find success or not, the representative agencies clearly feel that in order to serve the country’s water suppliers, they need to lean on the EPA to institute stricter chemical limits.
To read more about the regulations that impact drinking water agencies, visit Water Online’s Regulations And Legislation Solutions Center.