EPA’s inspector general (IG) issued a report September 25 stating the agency does not adequately oversee enforcement of water system public notice regulations under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The IG found that some primacy agencies do not consistently fulfill their responsibilities with regard to drinking water public notice requirements. For example, some primacy agencies do not consistently record violations and some do not track or enforce Tier 3 public notice requirements. This means that EPA and the primacy agencies do not hold all public water systems to the same standards. The IG noted that because EPA’s protocol for assessing primacy agency oversight does not fully cover all public notice requirements, “not all primacy agencies know whether public water systems under their supervision appropriately notify consumers about drinking water problems.” Furthermore, EPA’s public notice guidance to primacy agencies and public water systems are inconsistent with regulations and out of date, the IG report said.
In light of these issues, the IG made the following nine recommendations:
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Require EPA regional administrators to comply with public notice requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act and the public notice regulations where EPA has primacy.
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Require EPA regional administrators to verify that primacy agencies within each region fully implement oversight of public notice responsibilities.
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Define for primacy agencies and public water systems acceptable methods and conditions under which the electronic delivery of Tiers 2 and 3 notices meet the Safe Drinking Water Act’s direct delivery requirement.
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Update EPA’s drinking water program review protocols to include steps for reviewing Tier 3 notices and for citing primacy agencies that do not retain complete public notice documentation.
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Update and revise the 2010 Revised State Implementation Guidance for the Public Notification Rule.
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Update and revise the 2010 Public Notification Handbook.
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Conduct a national review of the adequacy of primacy agency implementation, compliance monitoring, reporting and enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act’s public notice requirements.
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Direct EPA regions to require primacy agencies to adhere to requirements for accurate quarterly entry of public notice violation data into the Safe Drinking Water Information System.
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Implement a strategy and internal controls to improve the consistency of public notice violation data available in the EPA’s new national drinking water database, prior to migrating the data to the new database. The strategy should include the review and update of open public notice violations.
EPA has responded with acceptable corrective actions for six of these recommendations. Of note, EPA’s Office of Water says a new database coming online in 2020 will correct the lack of tools to assist with public notification enforcement. However, EPA has yet to provide a response for recommendations 1, 2, and 8.