Retrospective analysis of mandated national occurrence monitoring and regulatory decisions

The 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act amendments mandated a new process for selecting new contaminants for national drinking water regulations that included required national monitoring through the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR) program. Two rounds of UCMR monitoring have been completed a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal - American Water Works Association 2014-03, Vol.106 (3), p.E116-E128
Main Authors: Roberson, J. Alan, Eaton, Andrew
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Administrative agencies
Chemical contaminants
Commercial regulation
Compliance
Contaminants
Drinking water
Environmental agencies
Environmental protection
Environmental regulations
Federal legislation
Federal Regulations
Food law
Government regulation
monitoring
occurrence
Pollution monitoring
Potable water
regulations
Safe Drinking Water Act
Sulfonic acids
UCMR
Water pollution
Water samples
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act amendments mandated a new process for selecting new contaminants for national drinking water regulations that included required national monitoring through the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR) program. Two rounds of UCMR monitoring have been completed and the third UCMR monitoring is ongoing. Zero detects were found nationally for 30 of 50 (60%) contaminants in the first two rounds of UCMR monitoring. Contaminants were detected in approximately 20% of water systems for the first two rounds of UCMR monitoring, with lower reporting limits in the third UCMR increasing the percentage of detections. Water systems have spent more than $85 million on UCMR monitoring, and the US Environmental Protection Agency should increase its outreach to the drinking water community and solicit the assistance of the community to optimize the usefulness of future UCMRs in the regulatory development process.
ISSN:0003-150X
1551-8833
DOI:10.5942/jawwa.2014.106.0040