Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
problems in drinking water. Although the secondary standards are not enforced at the
federal level, some state regulatory primacy agencies have adopted them as additional
primary
standards, and they are therefore enforced at the state level. A complete listing
of the 1979 secondary standards (as well as three additional secondary standards) is
in Table 1-10.
1986 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments
When originally passed in 1974, the SDWA required USEPA to:
Set interim drinking water standards.
•
Conduct (through the National Academy of Sciences [NAS]) an assessment of
the risks of exposure to drinking water contaminants.
•
Revise the interim standards to reflect the NAS findings.
•
The NAS study was completed in 1977 and became the basis for several amendments
and reauthorizations to the act. The SDWA was amended in 1977, 1979, and 1980.
However, USEPA was slow to promulgate the revised standards.
Frustrated by the lack of progress and concerned by continued reports of detecting
organic and microbial contamination, Congress enacted sweeping changes in 1986.
The SDWA amendments of 1986, placed EPA under stringent time schedules to prom-
ulgate regulations for a long list of contaminants (that may or may not have been
likely found in drinking water). The major provisions of the 1986 amendments in-
cluded:
12
Mandatory standards for 83 contaminants by June, 1989.
•
Mandatory regulations of 25 contaminants every three years.
•
National Interim Primary Drinking Water Regulations were declared National Pri-
mary Drinking Water Regulations (NPDWRs).
•
Recommended maximum contaminant level (RMCL) goals were replaced by
maximum contaminant level goals (MCLGs).
•
Required designation of best available technology for each contaminant regulated.
•
Specification of criteria for deciding when filtration of surface water supplies is
required.
•
Disinfection of all public water supplies with some exceptions for groundwater
that meet, as yet, unspecific criteria.
•
Monitoring for contaminants that are not regulated.
•
A ban on lead solders, flux, and pipe in public water systems.
•
New programs for wellhead protection and protection of sole-source aquifers.
•
Streamlined and more powerful enforcement provisions.
•
As a result of the 1986 amendments (and encouraged by numerous lawsuits by the
Bull Run Coalition), EPA did indeed move quickly to regulate the remaining contam-
inants on the list of 83 (23 of which were already promulgated by 1986). However,
limited resources within the agency and several controversial proposals (e.g., radon)
made it difficult for EPA to fully meet the congressional mandates. The statutory
