EPA held a day-long meeting July 16 in Cincinnati, Ohio to discuss the development of the upcoming Fifth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 5). The meeting, which was simultaneously webcast, was conducted by the Standards and Risk Management Division of EPA’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, and covered a variety of issues including the impacts of America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 (AWIA) on the UCMR process, potential approaches the agency is considering for sampling designs, minimum reporting levels, and specific information on contaminants being considered. The meeting slides can be found on AMWA’s website.
AWIA amended the Safe Drinking Water Act that included modifications to future UCMRs. Most notably, AWIA expanded the group of utilities which must monitor every UCMR cycle to include all utilities which serve between 3,300 and 10,000 people. Previously only a small representative sample was required of utilities serving less than 10,000. A separate small number of utilities serving less than 3,300 are still required to monitor. EPA is already mandated to cover the costs of sampling for the small utilities chosen to participate in the UCMR and this would still be the case regardless of the expansion.
AWIA states that the required expansion in monitoring for systems between 3,300 and 10,000, and the representative sample monitoring for systems below 3,300 is subject to appropriations and lab capacity. The $15 million appropriation included in AWIA is intended to cover "the reasonable cost of such testing and laboratory analysis as are necessary to carry out monitoring required" for systems serving below 10,000 people.
EPA proposed a change for larger utilities – those serving 10,000 or more – which would decrease both the number of days a lab has to post UCMR monitoring results and the number of days a utility has to review the data, decreasing from 120/60 to 90/30 respectively. EPA then reviewed all 69 contaminants being considered for UCMR 5. This number will be reduced to a maximum of 30 after considering the public feedback received during the meeting and continued input from a work group the agency convened to help reduce the possible candidates from 109 to 69.
EPA reviewed the current timeline for UCMR 5, putting the release date for the proposal in summer 2020 and the final rule to be published in winter 2021. This aligns with the agency’s most recent unified agenda with projected dates of June 2020 and December 2021 respectively. Monitoring for UCMR 5 will begin in 2023 and continue through 2025.