United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Water
4606
EPA816-R-97-007
April, 1997
&EPA
STATE SOURCE WATER
ASSESSMENT AND
PROTECTION PROGRAMS
GUIDANCE
DRAFT GUIDANCE
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UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20460
APR -4 1997
OFFICE OF
WATER
Dear Colleague,
I am pleased to transmit a copy of the draft State Source Water Assessment and
Protection Programs guidance which EPA has prepared pursuant to the requirements of Sections
1453 and 1454 of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), as amended in August, 1996. I ask that
you provide us any comments you may have on this draft by June 13, 1997.
The 1996 Amendments to the SDWA establish the Act as an environmental law, better
integrated within itself. The new law goes beyond a simply regulatory approach to add a new
"prevention" orientation, one that seeks to prevent problems by increasing public water systems'
capacity to provide safe drinking water, and by protecting the source waters frpm which we draw
our drinking water. As the report of the House Commerce Committed on the 1996 Amendments
states, the new law "creates a new program under which States exerting primacy must ponduct an
assessment of source water areas.... to determine the [susceptibility] of sources of drinking water"
to contamination. In addition to these State source water assessment programs, the amendments
provide many options and substantial funding for States to undertake source water protection
programs and activities.
What may not be evident on the face of the law, but is vital to how it functions, is the
extent of the linkages among different parts of the law. These linkages, together, create almost a
tapestry of provisions, integrated across the whole program. For example, the source water
assessments will be critical to implementation of the ground water disinfection rule as well as for
permanent monitoring relief. Furthermore, these assessments will assist the watershed
approaches now being implemented in the States, as well as programs under the Farm Bill and
other federal statutes, to better focus these programs to protect public health through protecting
the nation's source waters. In the same way, effective capacity development programs are
necessary to the success of the provisions for small system variances and exemptions, and efforts
for technical and compliance assistance. Thus, because the amended SDWA now functions in an
integrated way, the prevention programs in general — and source water assessment and protection
in particular — are critical to the effective operation of many of the regulatory provisions and new
flexibilities in the law.
Printed on Recycled Paper
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We plan to continue our consultation process by engaging all stakeholders in many ways
to facilitate a full discussion of this draft guidance. This draft reflects comments on an October,
1996 draft of a discussion guide on this topic, comments on a December 27, 1996 final discussion
guide, results of the January 7/8 national source water protection stakeholders conference, and
the March 13/14, 1997 meeting of the Source Water Protection Working Group of the National
Drinking Water Advisory Council. Each Region will be holding stakeholder meetings in April and
May so as many stakeholders as possible can participate in discussions. We will also meet with a
workgroup of regional office and State representatives, and in early June will meet again with the
Source Water Protection Working Group of the National Drinking Water Advisory Council. We
plan to publish the final guidance on or before the statutory deadline of August 6, 1997.
I look forward to receiving your comments on the draft guidance. Please send them to
Comment Clerk, Water Docket MC-4101, Environmental Protection Agency, 401 M Street, SW,
Washington, D.C., 20460.
Robert Perciasepe
Assistant Administrator
Enclosure
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Draft Guidance for
State Source Water Assessment
and Protection Programs
PREVENT ON
Draft 2 Draft
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CONTENTS
Page
Chapter 1 Overview of Source Water Protection
and the Safe Drinking Water Act
Chapter 2 Draft Guidance for State Source Water
Assessment Programs
Chapter 3 State Source Water Protection Programs
Including Petition Programs and Drinking Water
State Revolving Fund
Chapter 4 Relationship Between Source Water Assessments
and the Public Water Supply Supervision Program
Chapter 5 Coordination of SWP and Other EPA
and Federal Programs
Appendices
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62
83
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Chapter 1
Overview of Source Water Protection
and the
Safe Drinking Water Act
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Overview of Source Water Protection
and the Safe Drinking Water Act
Purpose of this Document
The purpose of this document is to publish a
draft of the guidance required by the Safe
Drinking Water Act (SDWA) Amendments of
1996 (P.L. 104-182) for State Source Water
Assessment Programs (Section 1453) and for
Source Water Petition Programs (Section 1454).
The SDWA Amendments require the
Administrator to publish guidance for these
provisions by August 6, 1997. This document
also describes EPA's recommendations for what
should be the elements of a State Source Water
Protection Program. Finally, the document
describes how other EPA and Federal programs
can assist States in developing and
implementing assessment and protection
programs and vice versa.
Background
Public drinking water supplies have always been
key to the location and development of
communities. The public water supply of a
community often defines and directs its growth.
Historically, the location of a good source of
drinking water was a key factor in determining
the location of centers of population. Indeed,
safe drinking water was essential to the quality
of community life because of the link between
public health and the quality of the public water
supply.
We can look at our own history to see how
important a safe, adequate source of water has
been to the development of our country. Early
settlements were charted, in part, according to a
ready supply of water for drinking, irrigation,
and farming. Jamestown, Virginia, located on
the beautiful James River, offers one example of
the importance placed on maintaining a clean
source of water. Indeed, Jamestown's Governor
Gage, in 1610, proclaimed:
There shall be no man or woman dare
to wash any unclean linen, wash
clothes,... nor rinse or make clean any
kettle, pot or pan, or any suchlike
vessel within twenty feet of the old
well or new pump. Nor shall anyone
aforesaid within less than a quarter
mile of the fort, dare to do the
necessities of nature, since by these
unmanly, slothful, and loathsome
immodesties, the whole fort may be
choked and poisoned.
Today States, municipalities and water suppliers
are primarily responsible for protecting the
drinking water supplies of their citizens. Most
use several tools for this activity, including
wellhead protection, watershed protection, and
reservoir management. Actions have also been
taken on the Federal level to protect water
supplies. For example, the Clean Water Act
ensures protection of surface waters designated,
in part, for use as drinking water. Other
environmental laws—the Safe Drinking Water
Act (which includes the Wellhead Protection
Program, the Sole Source Aquifer Program, and
the Underground Injection Control Program),
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
(RCRA), Comprehensive Environmental
Response Compensation and Liability Act
(CERCLA) and Federal Insecticide, Fungicide
and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)—provide
authorities, financial support, and technical
assistance to protect sources of drinking water,
especially ground waters.
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EPA's Source Water Protection Goal
Past Accomplishments
As a result of the 1996 amendments to the
SDWA, source water protection has become a
national priority. Accordingly, a source water
protection goal is included in EPA's draft
"Environmental Goals for America With
Milestones for 2005," which was released on
January 27, 1997 for a 2-month review by all
State environmental-related agencies, all tribes,
and Federal agencies. It is EPA's draft goal that
"by the year 2005, 60 percent of the population
served by community water systems will
receive their water from systems with source
water protection programs in place."
How is the nation going to accomplish this
goal? First, we will build on past
accomplishments that resulted from the 1986
amendments, such as Wellhead Protection
Programs and Sole Source Aquifer Programs, as
well as successes with monitoring waivers and
treatment exemptions based on the existence of
source water protection efforts.
Second, we will build on other key foundations
such as EPA's Watershed Approach,
Comprehensive State Ground Water Protection
Programs, the Toxic Release Inventory,
pollution prevention and community-based
initiatives as well as those of other Federal
agencies like the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's (USDA) Conservation Reserve
Program.
Third, we will maximize the use of the new
tools and resources provided under the 1996
SDWA amendments, with its emphasis on
public involvement and new State Source Water
Assessment Programs, which should lead to
State Source Water Protection Programs. Also,
the amendments provide States an
unprecedented opportunity for source water
assessment and protection programs to use new
funds from the new Drinking Water State
Revolving Fund (DWSRF) program for eligible
set-aside activities.
Prior to the 1996 SDWA, EPA emphasized
ground water and wellhead programs and the
Watershed Approach to protect source waters.
The approval of State Wellhead Protection
Programs was a core component of this effort as
well as the formation of multiple partnerships
with agencies and associations that had an
interest in source water protection, such as the
States, the National Rural Water Association,
the American Water Works Association, the
National Association of Towns and Townships,
the National Association of Counties, the
League of Women Voters, and the Groundwater
Foundation. From these partnerships grew
public information networks and information
sharing. The EPA Community Source Water
Protection Mentor Project, which will provide
individual mentors to facilitate the
implementation of protection efforts in
communities, was established, and the Clean
Water Act Section 106 and 319 programs were
put to new uses. The Sole Source Aquifer
Program was used to protect major underground
sources of drinking water, and Comprehensive
State Ground Water Protection Programs have
been a vehicle for focusing contaminant source
control programs on the protection of drinking
water sources. The Watershed Approach also
has provided a means to better focus water
pollution control efforts on the protection of
drinking water supplies. Watershed protection
tools and information have been developed and
broadly disseminated to communities through
such vehicles as the Internet and through two
highly successful national conferences. States,
such as Massachusetts and Illinois, and large
systems, such as Portland, Boston, Seattle, and
New York, have developed extensive watershed
protection approaches to protect then- drinking
water supplies from potential contamination as a
way to ensure the highest quality water and to
reduce treatment costs.
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SDWA Amendments of 1996—New
Resources and Tools for Source Water
Protection
The SDWA Amendments establish the Act as an
environmental law, integrated within itself. It
goes beyond a simply regulatory approach,
focused on detecting and remediating existing
contamination problems, to add a new
"prevention" approach that seeks to prevent
problems by increasing both public water
systems' capacity to provide safe drinking water,
and the protection of the source waters from
which we draw our drinking water.
There are linkages among different parts of the
law which together, create almost a tapestry of
provisions, in which the prevention programs
are integrated with, and are in fact essential to
the success of, the new regulatory flexibilities in
the amendments.
The amendments embody the concept that new,
responsible regulatory flexibility (within a
baseline of national protection) is appropriate, if
triggered by sound information on relevant local
conditions.
For instance, in monitoring, States can provide
flexibility to systems, but it must be based on
occurrence data and good science of each
system's hydrogeology. In variances, States can
let small systems achieve less than full
compliance with the National Primary Drinking
Water Regulations (NPDWR), but the variances
must be based on consistent judgments on
affordability and a full analysis of compliance
alternatives.
The new prevention approach in the
Amendments has two key elements:
• A clear State lead, with flexibility and
resources to achieve results. This is
necessary because prevention is ultimately
about land use and water management,
which belong at the State and local levels,
• A strong ethic of public information and
involvement within the States' decision-
making processes.
The SDWA requires States to establish and
implement Source Water Assessment Programs
(SWAP) which includes both of these elements.
EPA, both in Headquarters and in the Regions,
is committed to successful assessments
including providing assistance to the States to:
• Ensure that, in each State, the State programs
use the amount of funding from the DWSRF
set-aside necessary to do a solid job on the
assessments.
• Stretch the assessment dollars by working to
get the strong involvement of all capable
participants and contributors who can take an
appropriate part in the assessments.
• Encourage networks for exchange of
information about models for assessments
that have worked for States, communities,
and water suppliers in other areas.
• Identify and help use other applicable or
useful sources of information that can plug
into or serve for the assessments, as the law
provides.
In the area of source water protection, the law
represents a real, national commitment to try the
flexible, state-driven prevention approach.
There is great flexibility for States to shape their
own source water protection programs, with the
funding available under the DWSRF program
set-aside provision, Section 1452(g)(2)(B). This
provision enables States to adopt source water
protection programs that fit the needs and
conditions of each State.
These source water assessment and protection
provisions of the Amendments create powerful
incentives to do many activities, including
voluntary ones—because other parts of the law,
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including regulatory ones, simply won't work as
well without them.
The same integrated incentive principle
applies in the area of capacity. Here, the
Amendments seek to improve water
systems' ability to meet the challenging
tasks of SDWA by requiring States to
prevent the formation of new systems that
lack capacity, and to develop a capacity
development strategy, a plan for a State
program to boost the technical, financial and
managerial capability of water systems
reliably to deliver safe drinking water. The
law's requirements here for States, though
important, are limited.
But the capabilities States can develop in
their strategies are essential to make other
parts of the law work. Like source water
protection, achieving increased capacity
through improved management of the water
resources and/or physical infrastructure
(including ensuring certified operators run
the systems), can head off compliance
problems that will cost far more to fix than
the management improvements did. Also, to
give small system variances and exemptions,
the Amendments require States to make
complex and demanding decisions on
whether restructuring and water supply
alternatives are affordable for the systems
that apply for variances or exemptions. To
make these decisions — of great importance
to many systems - States will need an
information base and analytic methodologies
for water and system management, both of
which they can build in framing their
capacity development strategies. These are
equally valuable tools for evaluating the
problems of systems in non-compliance, and
for targeting technical assistance to systems
most in need of help.
Source water and capacity have a couple of
fundamental linkages in common, too. One
obvious linkage is to the DWSRF, which
enables States to set aside sufficient funds
for these prevention activities. The annual
Intended Use Plan that must be prepared for
the set-aside funds is the drinking water
program's opportunity to make the public
case for these prevention activities. But the
Amendments only require the States to
prepare the source water assessment
program and capacity development strategy
once, which means this will be the one time
State programs are assured of getting set-
aside funds for these purposes. Thus, States
need to be sure that the actions they propose
are the right ones to equip them to make
these linkages ~ and the other SDWA areas
that depend on them ~ work.
The second common linkage is public
participation. A consistent theme in the new
law is that States have both new flexibility
and resources to tailor programs to State
needs and conditions, especially in the
prevention area, and the obligation for
public information and involvement to
ensure that States' choices respond to their
constituents' needs and conditions.
The Benefits of Public Involvement in
Developing the Source Water Assessment and
Protection Programs and in Other Aspects of
SDWA Implementation.
The 1996 Amendments include a number of
provisions for public awareness and
involvement. For example, EPA is to develop a
regulation for community water suppliers to
provide an annual consumer confidence report
that includes information on each system's
source waters. States are required to involve the
public in developing SWAPs (Section 1428(b)),
and the actual source water assessments for
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PWSs will be made available to the public, in
addition to information on contaminant
occurrence and violations.
Involving the public in source water
assessments and protection programs offers
States and localities the opportunity to channel
the energies of an increasingly informed public
into efforts to protect their water supplies. It is
critical to increase public involvement over the
next several years in the actual development of
the State SWAP programs in order to build a
base of support for using the assessments once
completed. Stakeholder involvement would
assist States to clearly define goals for and
design of the assessments; that is, the design for
how the inventories and the susceptibility
analyses will be accomplished, within a
comprehensive approach that includes
protection programs. For example, if a Sate will
be taking set-asides from the DWSRF for source
water protection, stakeholders involved in
developing the assessments could also assist the
State to determine the best use of those set-
asides.
Assessment Programs
Chapter 2 of this draft document provides
guidance to States by explaining a new Section
1453 of the SDWA for State Source Water
Assessment Programs. States with Public Water
Supply Supervision (PWSS) primacy must
submit source water assessment programs to
EPA for approval. States must submit their
program to EPA no later than 18 months after
EPA publishes final guidance. A State program
is automatically approved 9 months after
submittal to EPA unless EPA disapproves the
program.
A State Source Water Assessment Program
(SWAP) must: (1) delineate the boundaries of
the areas providing source waters for public
water systems, and (2) identify, to the extent
practical, the origins of regulated and certain
unregulated contaminants in the delineated area
to determine the susceptibility of public water
systems to such contaminants. Assessments are
to be completed for all public water systems
within 2 years after EPA approval of the State's
program. EPA may extend this period up to 18
months taking into account funds made
available to the State under the DWSRF. States
must make the results of the source water
assessments available to the public. To avoid
duplication, assessment programs may make use
of sanitary surveys, State wellhead protection
programs, pesticide State management plans,
State watershed approaches including efforts
under the Surface Water Treatment Rule, and
efforts under the Federal Water Pollution
Control Act (Clean Water Act).
For a State to tailor alternative monitoring
requirements for public water systems under a
new permanent monitoring relief authority
(Section 1418(b)), a State must have an EPA
approved SWAP. Any public water system
seeking alternative monitoring requirements
under a State's permanent monitoring relief
authority must be in a delineated Source Water
Protection Area (SWPA) with a completed
source water assessment.
Each assessment for a SWPA is intended to be
as stated hi the statute, "for the benefit and
protection of the public water systems" (Section
1453(aXl)), that is for the purpose of
developing a source water protection program to
protect the drinking water for that area. Indeed,
an assessment is essentially the first three steps
of a full prevention program: delineating the
SWPA, inventorying of the significant potential
sources of contamination, and understanding the
susceptibility of the public water system(s) in
the SWPA to contamination. The assessment,
therefore, is a snapshot of the problems and/or
potential problems for source waters and/or
public water systems. The assessment,
however, should lead to, or be done
simultaneously with other actions which
complete a prevention program: forming a team,
an early warning system for the PWS through
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monitoring for actual contamination in the
source waters so significant potential sources of
contamination can be monitored, implementing
management measures for sources of
contamination, and contingency planning. The
assessments should be a strong basis for States
and localities to move toward a full prevention
program. Consequently, assessments are a tool
for further efforts not a complete process in and
of themselves. Congress explicitly recognized
this in the numerous statutory references to the
further application of the Section 1453
assessments.
To be effective tools, however, SWAPs do need
to be measured for success. The basic measure
of State performance in implementing a SWAP
is whether a State completes the program as
described in a State's approved program. That
is, SWAP performance will be measured, in
part, on a State-by-State basis given the State's
approved program goals, policies, and timetable
and processes during implementation. Program
completion is when all local assessments are
accomplished.
However, because EPA's goal is to implement
full source water protection programs for 60
percent of the population served by CWSs (144
million Americans) by the year 2005, EPA will
also be measuring whether States and localities
are implementing prevention programs separate
from our measurement regarding whether States
are implementing SWAP. EPA will be tracking
progress towards achieving this goal, if finalized
as a part of the Agency's effort to implement the
"Environmental Goals for America with
Milestones for 2005." Efforts to achieve this
goal will encourage the States to participate and
afford their public water systems the
opportunity to get State assistance with source
water protection; but such participation is not
required by the SDWA amendments. Progress
toward achieving this goal can readily be
measured without additional burden on States or
localities, as States would need to describe any
protection programs when seeking protection
funding under the DWSRF set-asides.
Source Water Protection and Petition
Programs
While these programs are voluntary, EPA
believes that States should plan for protection
programs simultaneously as they plan for and
implement their SWAPs. This simultaneous
planning provides both the efficient use of
taxpayers' SWAP funds and accountability to
the States' constituents regarding productive use
of SWAP-generated information. In particular,
States will likely use current information on the
hydrology and hydrogeology of different
regions of the State to determine the degrees of
detail that will be appropriate in assessments to
support protection program options that are
being considered. Protection programs will
likely be necessary to provide local flexibility
on monitoring relief, ground water disinfection,
regulation of Class V Underground Injection
Control wells, and filtration.
Chapter 3 of this document explains that States
have many options to consider in developing
source water protection programs that go
beyond their required assessment program
including: statewide or localized Source Water
Protection programs; Wellhead Protection
Programs; innovative local, partnership
approaches; and petition programs of various
types. There are various ways States can use
Federal, State, and possibly private funding
sources to develop each of these different
approaches. Some States may prefer to develop
statewide Source Water Protection programs
using one process and structure. Other States
may decide to allow each locality to create
approaches that include voluntary incentive-
based mechanisms using State and Federal
resources differently depending on the results of
the assessments.
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The Petition Program is an entirely voluntary
incentive-based approach. States may establish
the petition program specified in the statute to
receive, approve, and respond to petitions from
a public water system operator/owner or local
government entity to assist in the development
of voluntary local incentive-based partnerships
to (1) reduce the presence of contaminants, (2)
provide financial or technical assistance
requested, and (3) develop recommendations for
voluntary, long-term source water protection
strategies. [Section 1454 of the SDWA]
Drinking Water State Revolving Fund
(DWSRF) and Other Financing
The Drinking Water State Revolving Fund can
be used to finance the variety of source water
assessment and protection activities described
above. This includes three possible set-asides:
(1) up to 10 percent for a State to administer or
provide technical assistance for source water
protection programs within the State; (2) up to
15 percent for more than one of several source
water protection activities (i.e., land acquisition/
easements, voluntary protection and petition
activities, source water assessments and
wellhead protection); and (3) up to 2 percent for
additional technical assistance to rural PWSs.
Of special note, DWSRF funds (i.e., part of
the 15 percent set-aside) for source water
assessments will not be available to States
after the FY 1997 allotment.
States must match, dollar-for-dollar, the 10
percent set-aside noted in number 1 above
though they may be able to substantially apply
certain existing spending to meet the match
requirements. For the latter two set-asides, the
15 percent and 2 percent, there are no separate
State match requirements. The States are
required to provide a 20 percent match for the
entire DWSRF capitalization grant to a State
(see the final DWSRF Guidelines for a full
description of this 20 percent match
requirement).
DWSRF funds can also be used for public water
system activities that may complement source
water protection, such as operator certification
and system capacity building. The new SDWA
amendments also contain separate provisions
—not funded through the DWSRF pro-
vision—with funding authorizations for
Wellhead Protection Programs (WHP),
Comprehensive State Ground Water Protection
Programs (CSGWPPs), and the Underground
Injection Control (UIC) Program. However,
appropriations for the WHP and CSGWPP
programs were not provided in FY 1997, and
UIC funding levels will likely remain at that of
previous years. Additional financial support for
local source water protection activities may be
available under Clean Water Act Section 319
grants to State nonpoint source programs or
Section 106 or 604 (b) programs, and there may
be opportunities for targeting the resources of
other programs, such as Pesticide State
Management Plans or USDA Farm Bill
conservation programs, to support source water
protection efforts. As they evaluate SWP
options, States may want to formulate programs
to access these funding sources.
SWP and Other Public Water Supply
Supervision Program Implementation Efforts
Chapter 4 explains how we plan to continue our
efforts to incorporate source water assessment
and protection actions into the basic regulatory
and programmatic functions of the PWSS
Program. These linkages are essential to
ensuring that prevention efforts lead to better
quality finished water. When increasing
systems' capacities, certifying operators,
conducting sanitary surveys, reforming
monitoring, improving small system operations,
or implementing standards, public water system
managers have an essential opportunity to
ensure that prevention efforts are enhanced by
each of these components of the overall
drinking water protection program. For
example, information on significant potential
contamination sources and on susceptibility of
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systems for delineated source water protection
areas derived from the assessment process
should help States target systems for additional
or reduced monitoring.
Source Water Assessment and Protection and
the Watershed Approach
The development of State Source Water
Assessment and Protection Programs offers a
unique opportunity to integrate not only
drinking water programs so that they operate in
a coordinated fashion, but also to integrate
drinking water, clean water, coastal, solid and
hazardous waste, agricultural and other
environmental management programs so that
they work together to better protect public
health and the environment while reducing
duplication of effort and program costs. The
watershed approach provides a framework in
which to achieve better program integration,
improved identification of the highest priority
problems, and increased stakeholder input. The
watershed approach focuses Federal, State,
tribal, and local government programs and
citizen efforts for environmental and public
health management within hydrologically
defined geographic areas, taking into
consideration both ground and surface water
flow. While watershed approaches may vary in
terms of specific objectives and resources, they
should emphasize partnerships (with the people
most affected by management decisions); a
geographic focus; and scientific data, tools, and
techniques. Many States are developing
strategies for watershed management. Source
water assessment and protection programs
should be an integral component of these
strategies.
Operating and coordinating programs on a
watershed basis makes good sense for
environmental, financial, social, and
administrative reasons. For example, by jointly
reviewing the results of assessment efforts
undertaken for source water protection, total
maximum daily loads, State water quality
inventories, volunteer monitoring, State
nonpoint source programs, and other aquatic
resource protection programs, managers from
all levels of government can better understand
the cumulative impacts of various human
activities and determine the most critical
problems within each watershed. Using this
information to set priorities for action allows
public and private managers from all levels to
allocate limited financial and human resources
to address the most critical needs. Establishing
environmental indicators helps guide activities
toward solving those high-priority problems and
measuring success in making real world
improvements rather than simply fulfilling
programmatic requirements. Besides driving
results towards environmental benefits, the
approach can result in cost savings by
leveraging and building upon the financial
resources and the willingness of the people with
interests in the watershed to take action.
Through improved communication and
coordination, the watershed approach can
reduce costly duplication of efforts and
conflicting actions.
Finally, the watershed approach strengthens
teamwork between the public and private
sectors to achieve the greatest environmental
improvements with the resources available.
This emphasis gives those people who depend
on the aquatic resources for their health,
livelihood, or quality of life a meaningful role in
the management of the resources. Through such
active and broad involvement, the watershed
approach can build a sense of community,
reduce conflicts, increase commitment to the
actions necessary to meet societal goals and,
ultimately, improve the likelihood of sustaining
long-term environmental improvements.
SWP and Other Federal/State Agency
Programs
In Chapter 5, we explain how delineating source
water protection areas, inventorying significant
potential sources of contamination in those
areas, and doing susceptibility analyses, can
provide benefits to other EPA programs (e.g.,
Nonpoint Source Program), and Federal
programs (e.g., the Department of Agriculture's
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water quality efforts, the Departments of
Energy's and Defense's Federal facilities
operations, and others). For example,
delineating SWPAs will enable these programs
to identify where the high-priority source water
protection areas are located. Also, as
assessments are completed, these other Federal
programs (and in some cases State programs),
will be able to reset priorities for prevention
efforts to reduce or eliminate contaminants
flowing into PWS wells or intakes. For some
PWSs, this could mean significant increases in
efficiency through both reduced monitoring and
reduced need for new or more expensive
treatment technologies. The delineated SWPAs
will also certainly increase the awareness of
Federal and State managers of other programs
that action in these areas should be a high
priority for the protection of human health.
EPA Assistance to States and Localities in
Implementing Source Water Assessments,
Protection Programs and Petition Programs
EPA has many resources to assist these
programs. For example, a comprehensive
listing of all Wellhead Protection Technical
Assistance Documents and how to secure them
is described in a document titled "Office of
Ground Water and Drinking Water (OGWDW)
Publications" (EPA 810-B-96-001). Other
documents and information on source water and
wellhead protection are available at OGWDW's
Internet homepage found at
[http://www.epa.gov/OGWDW]. Another
compendium now available on the Internet
[http://www.epa.gov/owow/watershed/tools/] is
titled "Watershed Tools Directory: A
Collection of Watershed Tools" (EPA 841-B-
95-005). These documents are available by
calling the Drinking Water Hotline at (800) 426-
4791. There are several forthcoming documents
on delineation methods such as "State Source
Water Protection Area Delineation Methods For
Surface Water Drinking Water Supplies,"
"Delineation of Source Water Protection Areas:
An Integrated Approach For Ground and
Surface Waters," "Case Studies For the
Conjunctive Delineation of Ground-
Water/Surface-Water Source Water Protection
Areas," and a "Compendium of Wellhead
Protection Area Delineation Documents."
In addition, over the next 2 years, EPA will be
sponsoring with other organizations, source
water assessment/protection conferences/
meetings. One meeting in 1997 will be a
conference with the National Governors'
Association and five other State Executive
Branch Organizations. In addition, tentatively
scheduled for the spring of 1998, there will be a
conference titled, " Source Water Quality and
Protection: Delineation, Monitoring and
Effectiveness."
Conclusions
Source water assessment and protection
programs provided for under the 1996
amendments to the SDWA offer opportunities
and tools to protect drinking water at its source.
The process of producing this guidance includes
a wide array of stakeholders from other Federal
agencies, States, local governments, water
providers, businesses and environmental and
citizen groups. We are fully engaging these
groups in many ways and hope this is a model
for how the Agency will do business in the
future. (See Appendix A.)
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Chapter 2
Draft Guidance for State Source Water
Assessment Programs
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Chapter 2 Contents
Page
Introduction
A. What is an Approvable State Program Submittal — What should be included?
B. Adequate Public Participation in Developing and Implementing the State
Source Water Assessment Program
C. Adequate Delineations Under Approved State Source Water Assessment Programs
—Delineating Source Water Protection Areas (SWPAs)
D. Adequate Contamination Source Inventories and Susceptibility Analyses Under
Approved State Source Water Assessment Programs
E. Adequate Assessments) for Boundary Rivers, Multi-State Rivers and the Great
Lakes and EPA's role in assisting States Accomplish These Assessments
F. Adequate Policies for How States Will Make Source Water Assessments Available
To The Public — Understandable Assessments (Maps, Lists) and Other Procedures
G. Linking Assessments to Protection Programs
H. Process for Submitting the State Source Water Assessment Program Submittal
and for Program Implementation
I. Tribal Organizations Are Encouraged to Develop and Implement Source
Water Assessment Programs
J. The Drinking Water State Revolving Fund — Financing Source Water Assessments
Through The DWSRF and Other Programs
K. "Complete" State Source Water Assessment Programs and a "Complete" Local
Source Water Assessments
s
L. Reporting Requirements for State Source Water Assessment Programs
M. Updating the Assessments
N. Conclusions
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25
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30
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35
35
38
38
39
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Appendices
A. Outreach Process for Notice and Comment by Stakeholders
B. Process for State Submittal and Implementation of Source Water
Assessment Programs
C. Enhancing Topographic Delineations for Source Water Protection Areas
D. Conjunctive Delineation of the Zone of Ground Water Contribution and
the Area of Surface Water Contribution to Public Water Systems
E. Potential Sources of Contamination Found In Wellhead Protection Areas
and In Watersheds
F. Factors to Consider When Doing an Adequate Contamination Source
Inventory and Adequate Susceptibility Analysis
G. What Actions Are Needed to Complete a Local Source Water Assessment?
H. Timetable for Certain Actions Under the 1996 SDWA Amendments
I. Glossary of Terms
J. Requirements and EPA Guidance for Implementing Section 1453 of the
Act for State Source Water Assessment Programs ;
K. List of Acronyms . •'••;.
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95
102
104
107
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Draft Guidance for State Source Water Assessment Programs
Introduction
The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)
Amendments of 1996, P.L. 104-182, includes a
provision adding a new Section 1453 to the Act
requiring States to develop, submit to EPA, and
implement, once approved, Source Water
Assessment Programs (SWAPs). .These
required State SWAPs are to be submitted to
EPA no later than 18 months after EPA
publishes this guidance in final (August 6, 1997
or before). The State SWAPs are then required
to complete source water area delineations and
source inventory/susceptibility analyses for the
public water supplies in the State within 2 years
after EPA approval of the program (unless
extended). Many localities have begun to
delineate Source Water Protection Areas
(SWPAs) (e.g., watershed areas and wellhead
protection areas), but mapped source water
assessments should be done as described here in
Chapter 2.
States are also required to involve the public in
developing their SWAPs and to make the
assessments for public water supplies available
to the public. In doing so, EPA hopes that such
information will encourage the development and
implementation of complete Source Water
Protection (SWP) Programs which incorporate
the SWAP steps of delineation, source inventory
and susceptibility analyses, but add the.
establishment of local teams, source
management, and contingency planning. (See
Chapter 3 for descriptions and means for
supporting these additional steps of a complete
SWP Program.)
The core purpose of the source water
assessments in any SWPA is to provide a strong
basis for developing, implementing, or
improving source water protection actions in
that SWPA. Considering the many other
programs of the SDWA specifically and hi other
environmental laws (detailed in the preceding
section) whose success depends upon the
assessments, EPA strongly recommends that
assessments should not be viewed as activities
done for their own sake, but should be used to
protect source waters and meet other SDWA
requirements.
A. What is an Approvable State Program
Submittal—What should be included?
All States with primacy under the Public Water
Supply Supervision (PWSS) Program are
required to submit State SWAPs to the EPA for
approval. The time frames and processes for the
submittal are described in Section H of this
chapter and in a schematic at Appendix B.
An approvable State program is a State
submittal that meets all the requirements under
Section 1453 of the Safe Drinking Water Act
and includes as necessary for the State's
stakeholders, other information requested as
described in this chapter. States must include
in their submittal the following information:
• Required Delineations. Describe the
approaches and criteria or benchmarks for
the delineation of the geographic areas
(SWPAs) that constitute the source of water
to each Public Water System in the State.
(See Section C below for details on what
must be in a submittal.) The State should
also describe how maps for all delineated
areas will be developed and maintained.
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• Required Contamination Source
Inventories and Susceptibility Analyses
for Public Water Systems. Describe the
approaches and criteria or benchmarks for
completing an inventory, to the extent
practical, of significant potential sources of
contamination that lie within each of the
delineated SWPAs. Also for each SWPA
delineated, an analysis must be provided in
the submittal of the relative potential for a
PWS (the well or the intake) to draw source
water contaminated by significant potential
sources inventoried. Factors to be
considered include hydrogeologic con-
ditions, characteristics of the contaminant
sources, and any mitigation practices in
place. (See Section D below for details on
what must be in a submittal.)
• Required Public Involvement in
Developing Assessments and Public
Availability of Assessments. Describe how
the State will involve the public in the
establishment and implementation of its
SWAP and the process for making
completed source water assessments for each
public water supply available to the public
(See Sections B and F for details).
• Required Discussion of Any Linkage to
Source Water Protection. The overall
program must also include a description of
any plans to structure a SWAP to link to any
State or local Source Water Protection
Programs a State is or will be developing,
and if there are no such plans for a protection
program, a statement to that affect.
States may include a:
• Description of the Overall Program for
Undertaking the Above Efforts. This
should include brief descriptions of goals;
priorities; targeted completion dates;
resources to be committed including any set-
aside funds from the State's Drinking Water
State Revolving Fund; the roles and
responsibilities of State government
agencies, local governments, water
purveyors, citizen groups, and any other key
stakeholders; and the use of other Federal,
State and local programs in completing these
assessments. The overall program should
clearly indicate when the assessments will be
completed, whether a possible extension
beyond 2 years after program approval may
be needed and when a State will update its
assessment (including more sophisticated
and complete delineations, source
inventories and susceptibility analyses based
on rules EPA will publish during the period
after the initial assessments are completed).
(Note: When describing policies in a submittal,
a State should describe what it will be doing;
For example, which type of delineation method
it will be using. When describing processes, the
State should describe how it will implement the
policy.)
1. Specific Contents of an Approvable State
Source Water Assessment Program
Submittal
To be approved, a State submittal must describe
the following information, not necessarily in
this order:
• Description of how a State achieved public
participation in developing its submittal
(Adequacy Criteria described in Section B).
• Policy and processes for delineating SWPAs
for systems, ground water, surface water, or
both (Adequacy Criteria described in Section
C).
• Policy and processes for contamination
source inventories and susceptibility
analyses (Adequacy Criteria described in
Section D).
• Policy and processes for how the States will
do assessments for SWPAs (i.e.,
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delineations, inventories, and susceptibility
analyses) for boundary rivers, multi-State rivers
and the Great Lakes (Adequacy Criteria
described in Section E).
• Policy and processes for how a State will
make each assessment available to the public
(Adequacy Criteria described in Section F).
• Timetable and priorities (phasing plan) for
completing statewide the delineations,
contamination source inventories, and
susceptibility analyses for each SWPA. (See
Section H.)
• In addition, a State submittal must be
consistent with the State's DWSRF Intended
Use Plan under Section 1452 and provide a
description of whether the State plans to
implement a Source Water Protection
Program (SWP) or local SWPs within
SWPAs, or if the State is not planning to
implement such a program, a statement that
it will not do so. This SWAP submittal must
also include the more detailed language of its
workplan for any SWP set-asides. As 1453
(a)(l) makes clear, a major purpose of the
SWAP is "for the protection ...of Public
Water Systems." EPA cannot properly
evaluate whether a SWAP ultimately will be
effective unless the State describes the
linkage to future SWP efforts. Therefore, to
be approvable, a SWAP must include such a
discussion or a statement that the State isn't
going to do a protection program.
Furthermore, EPA strongly encourages a State
to include in its submittal the following
information:
• Goals for the State Source Water Assessment
Program.
• State and Local Roles and Responsibilities
for the Source Water Assessments. If a State
will delegate some of the aspects of
assessments, the submittal should include a
description of how, to whom and what
aspects of SWAP implementation the State
will delegate, and a definition of delegation.
States and delegated entities may involve
any other appropriate groups under State law
to do the assessments.
• Policy and processes for coordinating State
environmental agencies and offices.
• Policy and processes for coordination with
Tribes and other States in accomplishing
assessments for surface and ground waters
that flow across or under political
boundaries.
• Description of future efforts to coordinate
environmental programs with other Federal
programs that will be asked to assist the
State with the assessments, such as
coordination with the DOI United States
Geological Survey, U.S. Department of
Agriculture Farm Bill programs, or
coordination with Federal land management
agencies for cross-boundary/cross
jurisdictional situations. (See Chapter 5.)
• How the State will finance the Assessment
Program (See Section J).
• Description of the process the State will use
to report the results of the SWAP program
assessments to EPA (See Section L).
• Description of the process the State will use
to update the assessments to take into
account final Safe Drinking Water Act rules
(See Section M).
2. Options for Formatting a State SWAP
Submittal
States and EPA Regions should negotiate a
format for the submittal. The submittal can be
in any format so long as it includes the
information noted in this chapter under
"Specific Contents of an Approvable State
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Source Water Assessment Program Submittal."
Formats can range from something similar to a
Wellhead Protection Program submittal to such
other options as:
• A report to the public; or
• A public report to the State legislature,
Governor, or a State Commissioner/
Secretary.
Other formats are also possible. The key is that
the format must supply the information that
EPA needs in order to determine if the submittal
is complete and adequate. The format should
also be useful to the State in attaining public
participation in developing the program and iii
implementing the program once EPA approves
it.
B. Adequate Public Participation in
Developing the State Source Water
Assessment Program.
The purpose of the public participation process
is to build public support and responsibility
among the public for then- local water supplies
in each SWPA. Therefore, to achieve this goal,
EPA will require the States to develop and
implement a public participation process for
developing and implementing a SWAP: This is
consistent with the statute at Section 1428 (b)
which requires, "To the maximum extent
possible, each State shall establish procedures,
including but not limited to the establishment of
technical and citizens advisory committees, to
encourage the public to participate in
developing the protection program for wellhead
areas and source water assessment programs
under Section 1453. Such procedures shall
include notice and opportunity for public
hearing on the State program before it is
submitted to the Administrator."
Prior to submitting the State's Source Water
Assessment Program submittal to EPA, a State
must:
• Conduct public hearings or public
workshops, focus groups, or meetings around
the State with prior dissemination of
invitations and basic infonnation about the
issue in an understandable format to widely
representative groups as well as general
public notice to ensure broad and informed
participation. ;
• Convene a technical advisory committee and
a citizens advisory committee. An advisory
committee would include, but not be limited
to, public interest groups, public health
groups (e.g., medical associations),
vulnerable population groups (e.g., elderly,
transplant patients, dialysis patients,
chemotherapy patients, people living with
HIV/AIDs), groups representing business
(e.g., agricultural businesses and chemical
manufacturers and small business), local
governments, tribes, land conservation
groups, and others. A State should provide
opportunities for these groups to participate
but not be inhibited from program
development or implementation should any
group decide not to participate.
Opportunities should be provided for wide
and effective advance notice of the
involvement process; wide distribution/
availability of decision planning documents
with adequate tune to review; meaningful
and substantial opportunities to provide
detailed comments representative of all
interested sectors; and provision of direct,
genuine feedback from State program
officials.
Other options a State might want to consider
include:
• Internet conferences; or
• Series of conference calls for all stakeholders
to comment on the draft State program
submittal; or
• Other outreach actions.
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Whichever options it chooses, a State should
include in its submittal a responsiveness
summary showing how the public's comments
and opinions were used in developing the
submittal. These should be full, written
responses on the record to all significant
comments, specifying agreement, disagreement,
and substantive reasons for each.
To the extent that:
(1) a State has implemented one or both of
the requirements for public participation
during development of its Wellhead
Protection Program and/or Watershed
Approach, or when developing only the
ground water or only the surface water
programs; and
(2) these programs included delineations,
source inventories, and susceptibility
analyses similar to the adequacy criteria in
this draft guidance;
the State needs to accomplish these participation
requirements again only for those SWAP
functions it has not previously performed with
the required participation.
Once EPA has approved a State's SWAP
submittal and the State begins implementation,
EPA strongly encourages a State to continue to
work with its technical committee and its
citizens committee to provide advice to the State
as the assessments are being accomplished.
These committees will provide valuable
linkages to the stakeholders within the State as
assessments are completed and made available
to the public. In addition, these committees can
advise the State on how to use the assessments
in implementing prevention programs and
improving treatment methods.
C. Adequate Delineations Under Approved
State Source Water Assessment
Programs—Delineating Source Water
Protection Areas (SWPAs)
The statute at Section 1453 (a)(2)(A) requires
that States must "delineate the boundaries of the
assessment areas in such State from which one
or more public water systems in the State
receive supplies of drinking water, using all
reasonably available hydrogeologic information
on the sources of the supply of drinking water in
the State and the water flow, recharge, and
discharge and any other reliable information as
the State deems necessary to adequately
determine such areas."
An approvable State SWAP submittal must
include descriptions of the policies and methods
that will be pursued in delineating Source Water
Protection Areas (SWPAs) for:
• Public water systems based solely on
ground water;
• Public water systems based solely on
surface water;
• Public water systems using both ground
and surface water, or systems using
ground water that is connected to surface
water, (i.e., under the influence of surface
water).
EPA encourages States to accomplish these
delineations in a cost-effective manner and to be
realistic in scope to facilitate contamination
source inventories and susceptibility analyses
(as described below) that will lead to effective
source water protection efforts. EPA realizes
that the cost of doing delineations may vary
significantly by the size and hydrogeologic
characteristics of the area. States have the
option to set different delineation policies, i.e.,
use different delineation methodologies for
different sizes and types of Public Water
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Systems. Thus, options for State phasing of
delineations include, but are not limited to:
• Starting with large in-state surface water or
ground water systems and gradually doing
delineations for smaller systems;
• Starting with community water systems and
then doing delineations for non-transient
non-community systems, and then doing
transient non-community systems; or
• Conducting more detailed system-specific
assessments for community water systems,
and less detailed assessments or a regional
approach for non-community systems.
1. Adequacy Criteria for Ground Water Eased
Public Water Systems
EPA defines source water protection areas for
ground-water based systems as synonymous
with "Wellhead Protection Area" as defined in
Section 1428(e).
States -with Approved Wellhead Protection
Programs under Section 1428 of the SDWA
Delineations of Wellhead Protection Areas in
States with approved programs are adequate for
ground water-based systems. States are
encouraged to update their delineations to
ensure that they will lead to increased protection
ofPWSs.
• These delineations are based on one or a
combination of the delineation
methodologies described in EPA's
publication titled "Guidelines for
Delineation of Wellhead Protection Areas"
published in June 1987. EPA does not
mandate any particular method, but States
must follow the methods in their EPA-
approved Wellhead Protection (WHP)
Programs as required under Section 1428.
These States should consider modifying,
where necessary, the WHPA delineations to
take full advantage of regulatory flexibility
to be offered by EPA in the future and to
improve protection of public water supplies.
States without Approved Wellhead
Protection Programs Under Section 1428
These States must also delineate the wellhead
protection areas for public water systems based
on ground water. Each State in its Source Water
Assessment Program submittal must describe its
policy for conducting these delineations. These
States may adopt any policy of another EPA-
approved State Wellhead Protection Program or
create a new policy consistent with the methods
in the EPA's "Guidelines for Delineation of
Wellhead Protection Areas" which is based on
Section 1428.
States should recognize that EPA is planning to
promulgate, over the next several years, a
number of rules that will provide regulatory
flexibility based, in part, on specific
delineations of SWPAs and the absence or
adequacy of managing relevant sources of
contamination within those areas. States should
consider modifying, where necessary, the
delineation approaches under their EPA-
approved WHP Program to ensure increased
protection of public water supplies and to take
full advantage of the regulatory flexibility to be
offered under these emerging rules:
• Ground Water Disinfection Rule. EPA is
currently developing a proposed rule
regarding the requirements for disinfection
by public water systems using ground water
sources. The Agency is considering the
presence of adequate management of any
potential source of pathogen within a
specified distance from the drinking water
well(s) as a factor in determining which
systems would not have to disinfect.
Regulatory specificity on this point will
require further analysis. Thus, it is possible
that microbial source setbacks adopted by
approved State WHP Programs may not
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reflect scientific understanding of the long-term
viability of some viruses in ground water when
the new regulation is promulgated.
• Underground Injection Control Rule for
Class V Wells. EPA is considering a rule
that will allow the States flexibility to focus
their Class V (i.e., shallow injection wells
that inject wastes into or above an aquifer)
regulatory efforts on those injection wells
located within WHPAs of community water
supplies as delineated under a State's EPA-
approved WHP Program.
• Chemical Monitoring Reform Rule. EPA
plans to release in 1997 a proposed rule to
replace current requirements for chemical
monitoring by community water systems.
Under the proposed approach, how often a
system needs to take samples can depend, in
part, on the size of the protection area where
relevant sources are absent or adequately
managed. For example, reducing the
sampling frequency from once every 3 years
to once every 5 years may require source
water area information generated by the
delineation of a 5 year time-of-travel WHPA.
2. Adequacy Criteria for Surface Water Based
Public Water Systems
For systems based solely on surface water, a
policy to delineate topographic areas as SWPAs
must be included in the State's SWAP submittal
in order to be approved (except as described in
Section E below). States will have the
flexibility to decide the size of the geographic
areas for each of these Source Water Protection
Areas. EPA recognizes that States are in the
best position to decide upon the most
appropriate scale for each SWPA. Thus, States
may use varying hydrologic, hydrogeologic,
and management criteria in determining the
protection area for any Public Water System.
Appendix C lists possible criteria to use when
developing or enhancing SWPAs for surface
water-based systems. However, when setting a
delineation policy, a State should consider
existing or new regulations such as the
forthcoming Chemical Monitoring Reform
Rule, Guidelines for Permanent Monitoring
Relief, the Enhanced Surface Water Treatment
Rule and the Class V UIC Rule.
A Topographic Boundary Delineation Method
A State Submittal must define the types of
topographic boundaries that will be used to
delineate SWPAs. These boundaries should fall
into one of two categories: watersheds, or
watershed areas. Topographic boundaries are,
irrespective of scale, defined by the elevation of
the land.
A topographic boundary of a watershed
(Figure 1, next page) is the perimeter of the
catchment area of a stream. Analogously, a ,
topographic boundary of a subwatershed is the
perimeter of the catchment'area of a tributary of
a stream. The distinction between a watershed
and a subwatershed is purely one of
nomenclature. That is, the catchment area of a
tributary is both the watershed of the tributary
and a subwatershed of the main stream. Thus,
the occurrence of one watershed (subwatershed)
within another may be thought of as nested
watersheds. (Note, however, that the catchment
area of any stream that drains directly to an
ocean is always considered a watershed,
because, by definition, the stream is not a
tributary of another stream.) The topographic
boundary of the area contributing to a PWS is
the perimeter of the catchment area that is
upslope of the PWS intake, that is, the upslope
watershed-area.
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Figure 1. A Watershed
A topographic boundary of a watershed-area
(Figure 2) is delineated on a topographic map by
the drawing of a line connecting the highest
points uphill of the intake, from which overland
flow drains to the intake. This area is composed
of the land and the surface water (i.e., lake,
reservoir, tributaries and streams) upgradient of
the drinking water intake.
3. Adequacy Criteria for Systems Using Both
Ground Water and Surface Water
For systems using both ground water and
surface water, or systems using ground water
that is connected to surface water (i.e., under the
influence of surface water), a State's SWAP
submittal must include a policy that will ensure
that WHPAs are delineated for public water
wells and topographic areas are delineated for
the surface water sources.
Figure 2. Watershed Area
4. Consideration of Ground Water
Hydrogeologic Connections To Surface
Water When Finalizing Delineations of
Public Water Systems Based Mostly on
Surface Water
EPA strongly encourages States to consider the
ground water impacts on surface water when
delineating SWPAs for Public Water Systems
based mostly on surface water. SWPAs should
include zones of surface water contribution and
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zones of ground water contribution to public
surface water supplies. The consideration of
both surface water contribution areas and
ground water contribution areas during the
delineation process is termed "conjunctive
delineation". Conjunctive delineation is defined
as the line bounding the combined areas of
surface water contribution and of ground water
contribution to a water-supply intake/well or
other site of interest; the process of defining this
boundary requires the delineation of the zone of
ground water contribution and the area of
surface water contribution to the site of interest.
(For further discussion of conjunctive
delineation, the reader is referred to Appendix D
of this document.)
Protection of public water supplies that are
supplied by surface water "should recognize that
ground water (via base flow to streams) is
generally also a component, possibly a major
one (and during some parts of the year, possibly
the only component), of streamflow" (Ginsberg,
1997, in progress).
D. Adequate Contamination Source
Inventories and Susceptibility
Analyses Under Approved State Source
Water Assessment Programs
The statute at Section 1453 (a)(2XB) requires
that States must "identify for contaminants
regulated under this title for which monitoring is
required under this title (or any unregulated
contaminants selected by the State, hi its
discretion, which the State, for purposes of this
subsection, has determined may present a threat
to public health), to the extent practical, the
origins within each delineated area of such
contaminants to determine the susceptibility of
the public water systems in the delineated area
to such contaminants."
/. General Policies
In an approvable State SWAP submittal, a State
must include a policy that ensures that once the
SWPA boundary is established for a public
water system or systems, an inventory, to the
extent practical, of significant potential sources
of contaminants will be completed for the
delineated area. In addition, a State must
describe its policy for conducting susceptibility
analyses to determine the susceptibility of the
public water system(s) in each SWPA. A State
must also list in its SWAP program submittal
the contaminants for which it will be doing an
inventory of significant potential sources of
contamination.
The purpose of this inventory is to (1) ensure
that the land uses or activities that could
potentially degrade water quality are identified,
and (2) evaluate, to the extent practical, the
relative potential for pollution of the Public
Water System(s) posed by identified
contamination sources. The inventory, in other
words, needs to show specifically where the
significant potential sources of contamination
are located relative to the well(s) or intake(s) so
a susceptibility analysis can be conducted.
The purpose of the susceptibility analysis is to
determine, with a clear understanding of where
the significant potential sources of
contamination are located, how susceptible is
the Public Water System(s) in the SWPA to
contamination from these sources. This analysis
will assist the State in determining which
potential sources of contamination are
"significant." This analysis can also be used to
establish a SWP program and prioritize
management actions to control sources of
contamination.
Indeed, an analysis of the risks from the
inventoried significant potential sources of
contamination is the only way for a State to
make the inventory useful for reasonable
decisions regarding source water protection
programs and other possible uses. By including
the language in section 1453(a)(2)(B) "to
determine the susceptibility of the public water
systems in the delineated area," to the identified
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contaminants, Congress recognized that the
inventory would not be useful without analyzing
whether the identified sources of contaminants
may, in fact, pose threats to the public water
supply. The legislative history further indicates
that a SWAP is intended to include an analysis
of potential threats to public water systems from
the inventoried sources. In describing the link
between the information in the assessments and
source water protection programs, the House
Committee report described such programs as
"designed to protect source waterfront threats
identified during the assessment" (emphasis
added). Simply identifying significant potential
sources of contamination does not in itself
determine which of them may present threats to
drinking water, or, which are priorities to
manage in order to protect drinking water. A
scientific analysis of the hydrogeology and/or
hydrology, an understanding of the
contaminants, and an analysis of the
effectiveness of existing prevention and
mitigation measures are essential so States can
credibly apply the assessment results to source
water protection and monitoring and other
regulatory flexibility, as Congress intended.
An analysis of the risks from these sources,
described as a "susceptibility" analysis in
Section 1453 (a)(2)(B), is therefore a required
part of each SWAP, and thereby for each
assessment in a SWPA.
Appendix E is a listing of potential
contamination sources found in Wellhead
Protection Areas and a separate list of potential
sources found in watersheds. However, for any
particular Wellhead Protection Area or
watershed, many of these sources, and their
contaminants, may not be present.
Which Contaminants Should be the Focus of An
Inventory and for the Susceptibility
Analysis ?
The significant potential sources of
contamination to be included in the inventory
are those that release or could release
contaminants regulated under the SDWA for
which a maximum contaminant level has been
promulgated or for which monitoring is
otherwise required under the SDWA. In
addition, States may inventory significant
potential sources which have at their location,
contaminants which are Federally unregulated
under the SDWA, but for which the State, in its
discretion, has determined may present a threat
to public health.
For the purposes of this guidance, determination
of the threat to public health could be based on
the extent to which unregulated contaminants)
are known to cause, or are suspected of causing,
cancer, birth defects, or any other adverse effect
on human health according to nationally
accepted guidelines. If a State will use nori-
Federally regulated contaminants in its
inventory, the State should define in its program
submittal the methodology used for determining
that Federally unregulated contaminants are a
"threat to public health."
(Note: EPA recognizes the possible
complexity of these requirements and invites
comments on ways to implement them
efficiently.)
2. Adequate Contamination Source
Inventories
The purpose of these inventories is to ensure
that each PWS and the consumers of the
drinking water know what sources could be
releasing contaminants that may end up at the
treatment plant. In WHPAs, Federal and State
program policies usually require an inventory of
"all current and potential anthropogenic sources
of contaminants that can effect public health".
The "Assessment" provision of Section 1453
requires that the inventory include
contamination sources "to the extent practical."
EPA defines "to the extent practical" to mean
that States must inventory sources of
contamination to the extent they have the
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technology and resources to complete an
inventory for a Source Water Protection Area
delineated as described in the guidance. All
information sources should be used,
particularly previous Federal and State
inventories of sources.
States should define in their submittal that a
"contamination source inventory" is a listing of
all "significant potential sources" of
contamination of source waters, whether those
source waters are ground waters or surface
waters. Appendix F lists factors to consider
when conducting a contamination source
inventory.
A State should define in its submittal
"significant potential" sources of contamination
in the State. A State should define a
"significant potential source of contamination"
as a facility or .activity that stores, uses, or
produces chemicals or elements, and that has
the potential to release contaminants identified
in a State program (contaminants with MCLs
plus any others a State considers a health threat)
within a SWPA in an amount which could
contribute significantly to the concentration of
the contaminants in the source waters of the
public water supply. This includes existing
sources of contamination in SWPAs such as
Superfund sites, National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System (NPDES) permittees,
RCRA sites, and others.
A State should also describe in its submittal
how assessments will explain why some
potential contamination sources were not
included in the inventory of contamination
sources. That is, when some potential sources
of contamination are determined by the State
not to be "significant," and therefore not in the
inventory, the State should explain why those
potential sources are not a "significant potential
source of contamination" so it is clear to the
public why the State has made the decisions it
made in establishing the inventory for each
Source Water Protection Area.
We encourage States to set up community
volunteer programs that can accomplish low-
cost inventories using credible groups within
each SWPA to do the inventories such as the
elderly through RSVP programs or younger
people such as the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts.
In addition, States and localities are encouraged
to use all current databases to accomplish these
contamination source inventories and
susceptibility analyses and to seek help from
EPA and other Federal agencies in locating
additional existing data sources.
When making.the inventory available to the
public as part of the assessment, States, for
"significant potential sources of contamination,"
should, where appropriate so that the inventory
will enhance protection of sources of drinking
water:
• For point sources: identify the name of the
owner and the street address.
• For nonpoint sources: identify either (1) the
name of the owner and street address or (2)
describe the geographic area where the
nonpoint sources are located.
States may show the public the sources in the
inventory on a map, or in a listing. This also
applies for nonpoint sources, which could be
described on a map by identifying the areas or
in a narrative description. See Section F for
more specific information on mapping.
Ground Water-Based Public Water Systems
• States -with Approved Wellhead Protection
Programs. Source inventories completed
under a State's EPA-approved Wellhead
Protection Program (WHP) should be
considered adequate so long as they are
consistent with a State's policy for
inventories in their approved Wellhead
Protection Program. However, EPA
encourages States to update local Wellhead
Protection Program inventories that are now
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incomplete and thereby hinder protection of
Public Water Systems.
EPA expects that the 43 States which have
Wellhead Protection Programs will continue
to maintain and implement their
contamination source inventory policies in
their approved programs.
• States Without Approved Wellhead
Protection Programs. These States must
also do a source inventory for all delineated
SWPAs under an approved Source Water
Assessment Program. These States, in their
Source Water Assessment Program
submittal, should describe their policy for
conducting these source inventories. These
States may adopt any policy of another State
that has an EPA-approved program or create
a new policy consistent with the methods in
EPA's "Guidelines for Conducting
Contaminant Source Inventories For Public
Drinking Water Supplies," published in
December 1991 and based on Section 1428
of the SDWA. As noted above, these source
inventories may need to be modified to
provide the flexibility intended under
existing or future public water supply
regulations (e.g., Enhanced Surface Water
Treatment Rule, Chemical Monitoring
Reform, or the final Ground Water
Disinfection Rule).
Surface Water-Based Public Water Systems
For most of these systems, a contamination
source inventory must be accomplished in the
entire delineated SWPA for significant potential
sources of contamination. There are, however,
certain source waters for which "practical"
contamination source inventories may be
focused on sources in "critical areas." These
areas are defined as areas where there is high
and reasonable potential for impacting intakes
withdrawing water from a major river system
(e.g. the Mississippi River, Illinois River, Ohio
River, etc.) or the Great Lakes.
Public Water Systems With Ground Water and
Surface Water Sources
i
The requirements of both of the sections above
apply to these systems.
3. Adequate Susceptibility Analyses
States are required to conduct a susceptibility
analysis for each delineated SWPA. States may
want to accomplish these analyses for
Community Water Systems (CWSs) differently
than non-CWSs. System-specific data and
analyses are necessary for CWSs; a more
generalized level of analysis, covering multiple
hydrogeologically similar systems, could be
appropriate for many non-CWSs.
In an approvable State SWAP submittal, a State
must include a policy that describes what is a
susceptibility analysis for each delineated
SWPA. The susceptibility analyses are
intended, as the statute says, "to determine the
susceptibility of the public water systems in the
delineated area to such contaminants." The
contaminants referred to are those described
above in subsection D. 1, Thus, these analyses
measure the susceptibility of wells or intakes to
contamination from inventoried sources in the
SWPA.
Each State program submittal should include a
description of how it will accomplish a
susceptibility analysis, which is defined as
determining the relative potential for the Public
Water System(s) to draw water contaminated by
the sources in the inventory or have the
potential to contaminate the sources for a
SWPA taking into account hydrogeologic
factors, characteristics of the contaminant and
the contaminant sources, and the existence and
effectiveness of any mitigation measures.
States should take full advantage of analyses
done when they delineated wellhead areas or
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assessed surface waters. States may also have
aquifer and other ground water-related
vulnerability maps that should assist in meeting
this requirement.
Thus, States may use already collected data,
rather than collect new data on characterizations
of ground water or surface waters. States,
however, may need to do susceptibility analyses
for new SWPAs or new WHPAs delineated for
Non-CWSs. These areas may be somewhat
large, in which case, a susceptibility analysis
may only require some data manipulation from
current State maps and data bases.
A susceptibility analysis does not necessarily
require modeling or monitoring in the source
waters to determine which potential sources of
contamination are significant. While current
information may be used for these analyses,
EPA strongly encourages States to review the
results of the analyses to determine if PWSs are
being classified susceptible or not in light of the
hydrogeology and hydrology of the SWPAs.
However, EPA encourages States to undertake
such modeling and monitoring (taking
advantage of other resources for monitoring
than those available through the DWSRF),
where necessary to provide the basis for good
source management measures.
E. Adequate Assessments) for Boundary
Rivers, Multi-State Rivers and the Great
Lakes and EPA's Role in Assisting States
Accomplish These Assessments
1. Role of the States
To be approvable, a State SWAP submittal must
include a description of how they will delineate
SWPAs, conduct an inventory of contamination
sources, and conduct a susceptibility analysis
for that portion of a boundary river, the Great
Lakes, or Multi-State river that is within their
State borders.
To meet this requirement, States can, for these
water bodies, do these required actions in either
of the following two ways.
(1) For each intake ofacommunityora non-
transient non-community water supply on
a river, the State must designate a critical
area upstream of each intake, and for each
of these critical areas, conduct the
delineation, inventory and susceptibility
analysis and make the resulting
assessment available to the customers
relying on that public water supply.
{A "critical area" is an area where there
exists a high and reasonable potential for
significantly impacting intakes
withdrawing water from a major river
system (e.g. Mississippi River, Illinois
River, Ohio River, etc.) or the Great
Lakes.}
(2) For the entire portion of the watershed in
the State, the State delineates,
inventories, and conducts a susceptibility
analysis.
States may want to do a susceptibility analysis
first to see which potential sources of
contamination are in a critical area near the
water body and whether those sources could
pose a significant risk to the water system.
Sources of contamination that pose a significant
probability of risk would be "significant
potential sources of contamination" and would
thereby be in the inventory for that SWPA's
critical area.
While not a delineation technique, and therefore
optional, States should describe in their
submittal the "contingency planning" policy
they have for these water bodies in case of spills
or other emergencies. In addition, States may
want to describe any multi-state agreements or
organizations hi which they participate or which
will be established to create these contingency
plans. For example, the States of Pennsylvania,
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Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia could
describe how they participate with each other
through Ohio River Valley Water and Sanitation
Commission (ORSANCO).
States should consult closely with local
stakeholders (particularly governments) to get
their perspectives on the scope, focus and level
of effort that would lead to the best assessments.
2. EPA'sRole
EPA, working through the Regions, will
strongly encourage cooperation among States to
accomplish compatible and complementary
source water assessments in a watershed that
includes numerous States or countries. Many
States already participate in multi-State
organizations for protecting rivers or lakes that
cross State boundaries. While these efforts are
voluntary on the part of the States, EPA, based
on requests from the States, can facilitate
discussions and provide regional assistance.
F. Adequate Policies for How States will
Make Source Water Assessments
Available to the Public—Understandable
Assessments (Maps, Lists) and Other
Procedures
The statute at Section 1453(a)(7) requires that
States "make the results of the source water
assessments conducted under this subsection
available to the public."
In an approvable SWAP submittal, a State must
describe how it will ensure that assessments are
made available to the public, either directly or
through a delegated entity. At a minimum,
States should implement a widespread
notification of availability, such as water bill
staffers, and a free means to obtain a hardcopy
such as postage free return mail cards or a free
call-in number, plus Internet posting and
download access.
1. Understandable Assessments—Mapping
Assessment Information, Listings of
Sources and Narrative Assessment Reports
Made Available to the Public
A State should present all information and
analysis developed for that PWS, to the
maximum extent possible, in an understandable
format.
For assessments to be understandable to the
public, maps should be created as part of the
assessment, and those maps should include the
delineated area and the sources of
contamination listed in the inventory. The
susceptibility analysis most usable by the public
could be in a narrative, but should be presented
on a map if the results of the analysis can be
presented understandably in that format. If
more analysis for a SWPA is accomplished
(e.g., modeling), susceptibility analyses that can
be presented on a map in a graphic format
should be done and made available to the public
in an understandable way. Maps can either be
topographic or created through a Geographic
Information System.
For significant potential sources of
contamination listed in the inventory for a
SWPA, a State should include them on the same
map as the SWPA delineation in a format
understandable to the public.
States that have a protection program goal (s)
for their SWPAs will want to determine the
appropriate scale of such maps, and therefore,
the locational detail, based on that goal. For
example, a map may need to identify individual
underground storage tanks to help target
resources for pulling tanks or taking other
prevention actions. If a State has not defined a
protection program goal for the SWPA or the
State, it must clearly state in this part of the
assessment that they do not anticipate a Source
Water Protection Program. In such cases, the
scale should be as detailed as possible under the
resources made available to the State for the
assessment, to make the assessment as useful as
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possible for all potential future purposes
(regulatory flexibility and possible future source
water protection by the State or the PWS).
2. Optional Procedures for Making
Assessments Available to the 'Public
The assessments should be in a form that is
readily accessible and understandable by the
public. To accomplish this, States, or the
delegated entities, should make the assessments
available in hard copy or in electronic format
over the Internet. In addition, States should
make every effort to make the assessments
available to be displayed through the National
Watershed Assessment Project (NWAP) and in
the STORET database. (See NWAP description
in Chapter 5.)
EPA also encourages States to have ah active
outreach effort to inforrii and involve customers
in community efforts to protect their drinking
water sources. While assessments do not need
to be made available in any particular
timeframe, EPA recommends that when a local
assessment is completed, it should be made
available to the public shortly thereafter. A
reasonable timeframe for release of assessments
to the public should be described in the State's
submittal.
"Making the assessments available" to the
public can be achieved hi many ways.
Therefore, in its program submittal, a State
should describe how it will make each local
assessment available to the public. For
example, a State could describe the process for
making the assessments available to include any
of the following methods below. It could
describe and use one or a combination of
methods:
• Send copi&g of the assessment or a summary
to the public through request to a hotline,
either a telephone or on-line computer
system. Perhaps a Statewide hotline system
could be established. States could use the
hot lines or information phone numbers of
community water supplies.
• Send a notice or summary report to each
customer in his or her water bill advising
consumers annually or in some other
timeframe about how to attain a copy or
view completed assessments. Such a
procedure would advise all customers that
the report exists and how it can be obtained.
The notice could be sent to each customer as
part of a utility's consumer confidence
report. These reports are required annually
and may be the most efficient method to
send either the assessment or a summary of
the assessment, or announce the availability
of the assessment. This would have to occur
in compliance with the regulations that will
be published under Section 14l4(c)(4)of
the Safe Drinking Water Act (as added by
the 1996 amendments).
• Establish an active outreach process to make
sure each household in the delineated area
knows about the assessment report's
availability and how to access it easily. This
effort could include a Public Water System
newsletter, or flyer to each household.
Possibly the local communities affected
could advertise the availability of the
assessment in a local newspaper.
Communities encompassing Public Water
Systems could advertize its availability on
radio or on local cable televisions as well as
on local government Internet home pages.
• Develop a Statewide database of assessments
and have them accessible through a
homepage with possible links to other
ground water and watershed databases.
Such a database could become part of EPA's
National Watershed Assessment Project and
thereby become accessible through the "Surf
Your Watershed" Internet system.
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• Briefly summarize the assessments from a
statewide perspective and note their
availability of the assessments in the State
Clean Water Act Section 305 (b) reports.
These reports are available to the public, and
the availability of the assessments and how
to obtain them could be easily described in
one of the sections of the State report.
G. Linking Assessments to Protection
Programs
As 1453 (a)(l) makes clear, a major purpose of
the SWAP is "for the protection of Public water
Systems." The State itself cannot assess, and
EPA cannot properly evaluate whether a SWAP
ultimately will be effective, unless the State
describes the linkage to future SWP efforts.
Thus, an approvable State SWAP submittal
must include a description regarding whether it
plans to implement a Source Water Protection
Program (SWP) or local SWPs within SWPAs,
or if the State is not planning to implement such
a program, a statement that it will not do so.
This requirement for State submittals will
prevent the waste or inefficient use of funding
on the DWSRF set-asides for assessments by
ensuring their utility for future purposes as
intended by Congress and will ensure that clear
goals for the use of those assessments will be
stated to the public for review during a State's
process for SWAP development. This
description should also be consistent with—and
should assist in clarifying—plans for the
DWSRF set-asides described in the State's
Intended Use Plan (IUP), and any work plan
based on the IUP, as required under Section
1452. (See Chapter 3 for EPA's descriptions of
Source Water Protection Programs.)
H. Process for Submitting the State Source
Water Assessment Program Submittal
and for Program Implementation
Under P.L. 104-182, the States must submit to
EPA and implement the Source Water
Assessment Program (see Appendix B for the
process described). The statutory process to
follow, as envisioned for EPA Headquarters,
Regions and States, is discussed below.
The statute at Section 1453(a)(3) requires that
"a State source water assessment program under
this subsection shall be submitted to the
Administrator within 18 months after the
Administrator's guidance is issued under this
subsection and shall be deemed approved 9
months after the date of such submittal unless
the Administrator disapproves the program as
provided in section 1428(c). States shall begin
implementation of the program immediately
after its approval. The Administrator's approval
of a State program under this subsection shall
include a timetable, established in consultation
with the State, allowing not more than 2 years
for completion after approval of the program."
the statute at Section 1453 (a) (4) states that
the timetable referred to hi paragraph (a)(3)
must" take into consideration the availability to
the State of funds under section 1452 (relating
to State loan funds) for assessments and other
relevant factors. The Administrator may extend
any timetable included in a Slate program
approved under paragraph (3) to extend the
period for completion by an additional 18
months."
/. Outline of the Process For Submitting and
Implementing a Program
There are four separate and distinct phases for
establishing State Source Water Assessment
Programs:
• Publishing the Guidance, EPA must
publish final Guidance by August 6,1997.
• Submitting the Program. States must
submit SWPAs to the appropriate EPA
Regional Administrator by February 1999.
The States must develop programs with
public participation, as defined in Section B.
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• Approving or Disapproving the Program.
EPA must approve or disapprove a State
program within 9-months after submittal. If
there is no EPA action in the 9-month period,
a State program will be deemed approved. If
EPA disapproves the program in the 9 month
period, EPA will negotiate with the State in
an expeditious manner to ensure that the
State has an opportunity to develop an
approvable program. When approving a
program, the Regional Administrator must
include a timetable, established in
consultation with each State, for completion
of the program.
• Implementing an Approved Program.
States must begin implementation
immediately upon approval. A State must
complete program implementation within 2
years of approval unless an extension is
granted. The Administrator may extend the
implementation timetable for an approved
State program up to an additional 18 months,
based on certain conditions noted below.
• Completion of the State Source Water
Assessment Program. States must do
assessments for all SWPAs delineated in the
State and should report the results to EPA (as
described in Section L). EPA also is
encouraging States to include hi their
submittals a brief description regarding how
the State will update the assessments to take
into account new rules published by EPA
under other sections of the SDWA
amendments of 1996. (See Section M.)
2. Timetables For State Submittal
Development and Post Approval
Implementation and Policy for Gaining An
Extension of a Timetable For Implementing
an Approved SWAP
In an approvable submittal, a State must
describe a timetable for implementing and
completing assessments within the State. A
"complete State assessment" and a "complete
local assessment" are defined in Section K.
The timetable in the submittal must be no more
than 2 years after EPA approves a State
program. However, a State may request, and
EPA may approve, an extension of the time for
completion of assessments up to 18 months after
the original 2-year period. Thus, statewide
completion of the assessments could be a
maximum of 3 Vi years from initial EPA
approval of a State's program. States that are
continuing to implement Wellhead Protection
Programs, and have been accomplishing
assessment-type work in their local watershed
efforts, will, in essence, be implementing
assessments over a 6 % year period from the
date of enactment which was August 6,1996.
To be approvable, extension requests, to
complete the State's Source Water Assessment
Program, must be made based on:
• Consideration of the availability to the State
of funds under the DWSRF under Section
1452 of the Act. For this reason. EPA
encourages States to determine how much
it would cost to do complete assessments
for their source water protection areas.
and then take up to the full 10 percent
allowed from the FY1997 funds.
That is, based on its approved program, a
State must show that additional tune is
needed to complete the assessments based on
an analysis of how much DWSRF funding it
is spending to do the assessments.
• Consideration of other relevant factors such
as statewide or sub-state emergencies such as
natural disasters.
But, in no case, can the State be provided any
more than 18 months more than the completion
date negotiated in the State's EPA approved
Source Water Assessment Program.
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For EPA to grant an extension of time to
complete an assessment program, the State must
provide to EPA, no later than 18 months into
program implementation, an extension request
that describes:
• The rationale for requesting an extension
based on one or both of the criteria described
above.
• A description or estimate of the number of
delineations, source inventories, and
susceptibility analyses completed, by SWPA,
by the end of the 18th month.
• Information on the nature of the delineations,
source inventories, and susceptibility
analyses accomplished.
• A description of how and when the State will
complete the program within the requested
extension period.
3. EPA's Approval and Disapproval
Process for State Submittal
• EPA must make a decision on whether to
approve or disapprove a State's program
submittal within the first 9 months after the
submittal.
• If the Regional Administrator determines a
program should be disapproved, EPA must
disapprove a program within 9 months of
receipt of the program or the program is
"deemed" approved.
* If the Regional Administrator disapproves a
program, EPA must send a written statement
of the reasons for such disapproval to the
Governor of the State.
• Within 6 months of EPA's written statement
to the Governor, the Governor or Governor's
designee must submit a modified program to
EPA. These State modifications to the
program submittal should, in part, be based
upon the recommendations of the EPA.
• EPA must then make a decision on whether
to approve or disapprove a State's re-
submittal.
4. State Delegation of Source Water
Assessment Responsibilities
To be approvable, the State must include a
definition of what "delegation" means if it will
delegate any aspect of the assessments. A State
can implement all assessments or aspects of the
assessments, delegate the assessments, or
delegate only aspects of the assessments. If a
State delegates the assessments or aspects of the
assessments, the State may delegate
implementation consistent with State law.
Delegations could be to:
• Local governments, separate or regionally
based.
• Public Water Systems.
• Entities that operate local wellhead and
watershed programs/approaches.
If a State submittal describes that the State will
"delegate" any part of implementing its Source
Water Assessment Program, the State's
submittal should not only define what
delegation means in the State, but also include a
description of what will be delegated and to
what entity or entities such delegation will be
made.
States must ensure that the program is
completed under whatever delegation authority
and procedures it uses.
5. The State's Submittal to EPA
To be approvable, the State must submit to EPA
its SWAP Program with an official transmittal
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letter from any official in the State. For
example, States could submit the program from:
• The Governor.
• The State Environmental
Commissioner/Secretary or Health
Commissioner/Secretary, or jointly by
several departmental directors.
• Whoever the Governor designates, but the
designee must be identified in writing to
EPA.
I. Tribal Organizations Are Encouraged to
Develop and Implement Source Water
Assessment Programs
While the statute does not explicitly require the
Tribes to implement Source Water Assessment
Programs, EPA recommends that each Tribe
implement a Source Water Assessment Program
to the extent appropriate resources are available
to do so. Tribes can benefit from ensuring that
the public water systems on Tribal lands
implement an assessment program. Some
Tribes have implemented wellhead protection
activities and watershed approaches. If so, a
Tribe has already begun to delineate its source
water protection areas and likely has begun a
contamination source inventory. These Tribes
should continue to implement these programs.
If a Tribe decides to establish and implement a
program, it should submit it to EPA for
approval. The process and timetable for tribal
programs, once submitted to EPA, will be the
same as described here in Chapter 2 for States.
We fully expect a Tribe will be able to negotiate
a timetable for implementation based on its
resources for the program.
Because the water bodies which Tribes rely
upon for their drinking water may flow through
State lands prior to entering Indian country,
Tribes may want to consider participation in a
cooperating capacity on state technical and
citizens advisory committees as described in
Section B of this chapter.
Tribes can finance development and
implementation of a Source Water Assessment
Program in various ways. One possibility is to
receive funding from the States. Tribes can also
apply for EPA to fund part of their programs
using EPA's discretionary funds, or Tribes can
use Clean Water Act funding available to the
Tribes.
J. The Drinking Water State Revolving Fund
(DWSRF) and other Financing For Source
Water Assessments
For complete discussion of the Agency's
Drinking Water State Revolving fund policies,
the reader should refer to EPA's National
Guidelines for the DWSRF released on
February 28, 1997, which is available by calling
the Drinking Water Hotline.
A State may set aside up to 10 percent of its
Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (SRF)
capitalization grant to do assessments for public
water systems hi accordance with Section 1453
of the 1996 SDWA amendments. Unlike other
source water protection activities eligible for
DWSRF assistance, funds for delineations and
assessments under Section 1453 programs is
only available from the FY 1997 capitalization
grant. For this reason. EPA encourages States
to determine how much it would cost to do
complete assessments for their source water
protection areas, and then take the amount
necessary up to the full 10 percent allowed from
the FY 1997 funds. Funds set-aside for this
purpose must be obligated within four fiscal
years after a State receives its grant.
The Intended Use Plan: The Key Funding
Vehicle
Consistent with EPA's Guidelines for
implementing the Drinking Water SRF, the
central component of the capitalization grant
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application is the Intended Use Plan (IUP). The
IUP describes how a State intends to use
available Drinking Water SRF funds to meet the
objectives of the SDWA and further the goal of
protecting public health. A State must prepare
the IUP, after providing for public review and
comment, and submit it to the Regional
Administrator as part of its capitalization grant
application. The IUP must include specific
details on how a State will use all funds in its
capitalization grant, including funds it will
allocate for the set-asides.
States have the option of developing the IUP in
two parts, one part that identifies the
distribution and uses of the funds among the
various set-asides and the DWSRF Fund, and
the other part dealing only with project funding
in the DWSRF Fund. In other words, a State
may submit a capitalization grant application for
only the funds it intends to allocate among the
set-asides. This option provides States with a
great opportunity for expediting the process for
receiving those funds. As with all grant
applications, the State would have to include a
detailed description (workplan) of the
assessment activities to be funded.
The Importance of Funding the Source Water
Assessments
EPA will ask States that indicate in their IUP
that they do not intend to set aside the full 10
percent for assessments if they have considered
their source water assessment needs in the light
of the limited time frame for the availability of
funds for that purpose. Assessments are
particularly important as the foundation of
effective source water protection programs;
without them, further progress in protecting
source waters from contamination in an efficient
and effective way is very difficult. Assessments
are necessary components of Wellhead
Protection Programs and pesticide State
Management Plans and will play key roles in
providing regulatory flexibility under a number
of existing and future Federal drinking water
protection rules. In addition, the information
obtained through assessments will be critical in
targeting source water areas for protection under
numerous programs, including UIC Class V
programs, USDA's Farm Bill programs,
nonpoint source programs, and watershed
protection programs. States should, therefore,
set aside funds for source water assessments as
soon as possible and not count on funds
becoming available in future reauthorizations of
the SDWA.
Other Financing Options
Aside from the DWSRF, other potential sources
of financial support for source water
assessments exist. A limited portion of the
Section 319 grants of the Clean Water Act
(CWA) may potentially provide support to
States for protection of source waters from
nonpoint sources of pollution. The most recent
319 grants and program guidance specifies that
319 grants can be used to support source water
protection activities, including assessments.
States will continue to be eligible to use CWA
Section 106 funds for wellhead protection
activities, which may include source water
assessments. In addition, States may want to
explore the viability of using the Clean Water
Act SRF for aspects of the assessments.
TMDL Policy
The primary purpose of a source water
assessment is to determine the susceptibility of
sources of drinking water supplies to sources of
contamination so that appropriate preventative
actions can be planned and implemented to
protect those drinking water sources and insure
protection of public health and compliance with
National Primary Drinking Water Regulations.
Recognizing the associated costs, Congress
provided States with flexibility to use a portion
of the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund
(DWSRF) for these required delineations and
assessments. In the same light, Congress also
encouraged the use of existing programs and
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efforts that provide information that could be
used for source water assessments, as indicated
in Section 1453(a)(6)(E) of the Amendments:
"to avoid duplication and to encourage
efficiency, the (Source Water Assessment)
program ... may make use of... delineations or
assessments of surface or ground water sources
under programs or plans pursuant to the Federal
Water Pollution Control Act". This intent is
also reflected clearly on page 64 of the Senate
Committee report on the 1996 amendments:
"States are strongly encouraged to use existing
assessment data gathered under other State and
Federal programs and guidance developed by
EPA under other Federal laws."
One example of an existing program that can
provide useful information for source water
assessments is the total maximum daily load
(TMDL) program under the Clean Water Act.
A TMDL is designed to show how much
pollution needs to be reduced by individual
sources in a watershed. A TMDL is a
quantitative assessment of water quality
problems and contributing pollutant sources and
provides the information needed to specify the
amount of a pollutant that needs to be reduced
by individual sources so that lakes, rivers,
streams, or estuaries meet State water quality
standards and designated water uses. A TMDL
quantifies the pollution to be controlled from
permitted point source discharges as well as
nonpoint sources such as storm water runoff.
EPA encourages States to use relevant
information from existing TMDL programs to
help complete source water delineations and
assessments.
A question that arises is whether States can use
a portion of the DWSRF allocation for source
water assessments to develop a TMDL. These
assessments, as described here in Chapter 2,
include delineations, contamination source
inventories and susceptibility analyses. In some
casesi use of a TMDL or other water quality
monitoring as part of a source water assessment
may be a useful method to identify the
susceptibility of a drinking water source and
could constitute a necessary part of the State's
effort to accomplish these three assessment
activities for a source water protection area. The
February, 1997 "DWSRF Program Guidelines"
state that:
"States may use funds from this set-aside
(note: the 10 percent set-aside for source
water assessments in accordance with
Section 1453 of the Safe Drinking Water
Act) for the development of TMDL's in
limited circumstances. The State must
establish a policy of allowing use of the set-
aside funds to develop TMDL's only if a
clear cause and effect relationship can
demonstrate that development of the TMDL
is essential to public health protection and
continuing compliance with national primary
drinking water regulations. Funding
TMDL's through source water set-asides is
only eligible if it will prevent or reduce
source water contamination or enhance the
efficiency of the drinking water treatment
process. In this context, TMDL activity
should be weighed against other source
water assessment and delineation priority
activities. State source water assessment
programs submitted to EPA that propose to
include TMDL activity must ensure that the
development of TMDLs does not delay the
completion of the source water assessments."
Despite these constraints, there are numerous
scenarios under which TMDL development
would be eligible to be funded under the 10
percent set-aside for Fiscal Year 1997 DWSPJF
appropriations. To promote the continued
integration of public health goals into Clean
Water Act programs, and to encourage
efficiency as envisioned by Congress, EPA
encourages States to use up to 10 percent of the
10 percent set-aside to develop TMDLs for
source water areas as long as the TMDL
assessment satisfies the following criteria: (1)
there is a direct linkage between contaminants)
and/or sources in the TMDL assessment and
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public health; (2) a Maximum Contaminant
Level has been established for the
contaminants) in the TMDL assessment; (3) the
TMDL assessment will assist a public water
system(s) achieve or maintain compliance with
a National Primary Drinking Water Regulation;
and (4) the TMDL meets one of the three
functions required of a State source water
assessment program discussed here in Chapter 2
(i.e., delineation, source inventory and/or
susceptibility analysis).
In a limited number of cases, States may find
that a greater portion than 10 percent of the 10
percent set-aside should be used for TMDL
development to improve either the quality
and/or efficiency of their source water
assessment programs. States have this
discretion, although they must demonstrate
reasons consistent with the above criteria for
allocations greater than the 10 percent threshold
recommended by this guidance in their bi-
annual reports to EPA on the DWSRF program.
Again, any funding for TMDLs should be linked
to their intended use as platforms for source
water protection activities directly related to
public health protection and compliance with
drinking water regulations.
K. "Complete" State Source Water
Assessment Programs and a "Complete"
Local Source Water Assessment
A State program is "complete" when a State has
completed all the actions in its approved Source
Water Assessment Program and met all the
requirements under Section 1453 of the Safe
Drinking Water Act, including the completion
of source water assessments for each locality
that includes a Public Water System.
A "complete" assessment for a locality means
that a delineation of a SWPA has been
completed, an adequate contamination source
inventory has been completed for that SWPA,
and a determination has been made of each
public water system's susceptibility to
contamination by sources inventoried within
each SWPA. (See Appendix G for the
components of a complete local assessment.)
A complete assessment for a locality can be
accomplished regardless of whether State
employees actually do the assessment or
whether a local entity, either delegated by the
State or in cooperation with the State,
accomplishes the assessment.
L. Reporting Requirements for State
Programs
In order for EPA to know whether a State has
completed the SWAP, a State must report on
whether the program has been completed if a
State has used the DWSRF set-aside for source
water assessments. (See Final DWSRF
guidelines for reporting requirements.
Essentially, States are required to describe how
funds have been expended using the set-aside
funds for assessments in the required biennial
reports.)
For EPA to determine whether a State has
completed its SWAP program, States should,
upon completion of the program, report to EPA:
• The number of delineations, source
inventories, and susceptibility analyses
completed, by SWPA area.
• Assurance that each completed local
assessment has been made available to the
public.
States can use current reports or a separate
report to EPA as the mechanism for providing
information to EPA on SWAPs! For example,
States can use their Wellhead Protection
Program biennial reports to report on completed
programs. That is, a State can wait until the
next biennial report is due and report on the
completion of its Source Water Assessment
Program in its biennial report.
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M. Updating the Assessments
In an approvable submittal, a State should
include a brief description of the process it plans
to use to update assessments to incorporate the
following rules promulgated by EPA during the
time period when the State is completing the
assessments under its approved SWAP program:
• Ground Water Disinfection Rule
• Chemical Monitoring Reform Rule
• Underground Injection Class V Rule
• Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule
States may want to update these assessments for
other reasons, such as location of new potential
contamination sources in any SWPA.
N. Conclusions
States should begin developing their SWAPs
now based on this draft guidance, with
particular emphasis in planning and
implementing a process for ensuring extensive
public participation in program development.
States with Wellhead Protection Programs
and/or Watershed Approaches should continue
to implement them, and thereby get a good jump
on completing their assessment programs once
approved by EPA. However, the State may
desire to modify these programs or approaches
to better address drinking water concerns
including better alignment with the anticipated
flexibilities in future regulations.
As noted before, while the SDWA requires
States to develop and implement complete
SWAPs, the Agency is not requiring that States
develop or implement Source Water Protection
Programs. However, EPA strongly encourages
States to do so. In Chapter 3, we describe some
models and functions for potential State and
local actions to develop and implement the
SWPs. States with approved Wellhead
Protection Programs which are being fully
implemented throughout their States are, in fact,
implementing what EPA is recommending for
ground water sources of drinking water. For
surface waters, States which are implementing
Source Water Protection Programs and/or
Watershed Approaches are also beginning to
accomplish what EPA is recommending for
Source Water Protection Programs. We applaud
these States and want to assist them so their
systems and people can achieve the substantial
benefits of source water protection and pollution
prevention. This will also advance the nation to
meet EPA's draft national goal that by the year
2005,60 percent of the population served by
community water systems will receive their
water from systems with Source Water
Protection programs in place.
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Chapter 3
State Source Water Protection Programs
Including Petition Programs
and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund
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State Source Water Protection Programs
Including Petition Programs and the Drinking Water
State Revolving Fund
A. Introduction
As described in Chapter 2, the SDWA
Amendments of 1996 require States to develop
and submit to EPA for approval Source Water
Assessment Programs (SWAP) and, upon EPA
approval, to implement these programs. States
are required to conduct assessments for PWSs
within two years after approval. This chapter
addresses the question of what should be done
with these assessments once they are completed.
It is EPA's desire that these assessments will
lead to the implementation of efforts to manage
the sources of contamination identified by the
assessments in a manner that will prevent
contamination of the sources of drinking water
supplies. This objective is furthered by the
requirement that these assessments be made
available to the public and, along with other
required consumer awareness activities, will
motivate citizens and communities to put in
place Source Water Protection (SWP) Programs.
The purpose of this chapter is to lay out what a
State should do to facilitate the establishment of
local SWP efforts. For ground water-based
drinking water supplies, wellhead protection
programs are the key to protection. For surface
water-based systems (as well as mixed systems),
a drinking watershed or source water protection
area approach is appropriate. For either ground
water or surface water systems, source water
protection is becoming an integral part of
existing and new requirements and flexibilities
under SDWA. Chapter 4 will describe how
these SWP efforts can be coordinated with other
programs to be of mutual benefit.
Local SWP efforts hinge on three key elements:
forming a team of local SWP advocates;
reviewing, evaluating, and selecting appropriate
management measures to control or eliminate
potential sources of contamination; and putting
both long and short-range emergency water
supply replacement strategies in place in the
form of contingency planning. Getting local
citizens involved in SWP efforts heightens a
sense of ownership in protecting the resource.
As information generated from Consumer
Confidence reports becomes available to the
public, SWP efforts will become highly visible,
and support for these efforts will grow. At the
same tune, interest and involvement in
exploring SWP financing options for local
activities through the DWSRF will also grow.
There are many financing options available
under the 1996 SDWA amendments in SWP for
States and local communities to take advantage
of, but citizens need to familiarize themselves
with the mechanisms that are in place and the
processes by which this assistance can be
secured.
B. Local Source Water Protection Program
Efforts
The essential elements of Source Water
Protection are the same regardless of whether
the activities are conducted at the State or local
level. Source Water protection area delineations,
contaminant source inventories, and
susceptibility analyses are required by law
under SDWA 1996, but these steps basically
only "set the stage" for actual source water
protection efforts. In the strictest sense, Source
Water Assessment Programs are mandatory
under the law, while Source Water Protection
Programs are at the discretion of States and
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local entities. Rather than simply "shelve" the
results of source water assessments, it is
Congress' and EPA's intent that States and local
communities use these tools in formulating
drinking water source protection plans.
Once source water assessments have been
completed, the follow-up measures that
galvanize a true local source water protection
effort start by bringing people in the community
together. These activities consist of forming
teams, selecting management measures, and
doing contingency planning. The manner in
which they are accomplished does not matter as
much as making sure that they are completed
using sound information at hand. One of the
basic concepts of EPA's approach to source
water protection is to give States and local
communities maximum flexibility in structuring
and implementing then- activities. Recognizing
that what is best for one locale may not be at all
suitable for another, EPA encourages innovative
and creative structuring of local efforts based on
availability of resources, level of technical
sophistication, and economic feasibility.
1. Forming a Team
Before any meaningful approach to SWP can be
developed, a team of responsible individuals
needs to be assembled to guide the process in &
cohesive, efficient manner. They need to be
focussed on the primary objective of protection
of drinking water sources, but they must also
recognize the constraints of their particular
locations. Investigating "success stories" from
similar programs adopted elsewhere to meet
similar goals (e.g.. case studies) are particularly
effective and efficient in deciding what options
make sense. A variety of factors, including
availability of alternative sources of drinking
water, public awareness and commitment to the
program and legal and institutional tools
available will largely dictate the objectives of
the effort; either a total and complete SWP
approach to all drinking water sources, or a
threat-specific management strategy that deals
with potential contaminants (e.g., USTs) on a
case-by-case basis. Although these management
endpoints can be relatively clearly defined with
more or less obvious solutions, care should be
taken to stay focussed on the protection of the
resource. As these efforts come to fruition, the
local team can consider expanding the initial
management program into a broader, more
comprehensive one.
Local team planning staff need to have some
knowledge about their drinking water sources,
and at least some degree of expertise in
selecting the appropriate regulatory or non-
regulatory management tools they are
considering putting in place to protect them.
Team members need to understand why certain
source water areas may be in jeopardy and need
specific levels of protection, and how to rank or
prioritize the results of source water
assessments and contaminant sources identified
during the assessment inventory process
discussed in Chapter 2. The team also needs to
know the extent of existing management
measures that are already in place, and how they
may be brought to bear on the problems
encountered in the local SWP effort. As the
program matures, they need to know how and be
able to gauge whether or not their efforts are
producing results. Team members having
experience with management tools or regulatory
controls and enforcement will have a better idea
of which management and administrative
techniques are best suited for their local
program, and for local needs.
Because the "science" of SWP is relatively new,
few team members are likely to have extensive
experience in implementation, but new SDWA
resources may allow staff with such experience
to be engaged in an appropriate capacity. EPA
urges that other team members seek to improve
their skills through formal courses at local
colleges or universities, or informal
opportunities. (EPA has produced many
Technical Assistance Documents, or TADs,
dealing with drinking water protection and
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related science and issues that are available
from EPA's ten Regional Offices throughout the
country). Some of the more important subject
areas are hydrogeology, environmental law, and
land-use planning. There is also great utility and
benefit to be had from sharing expertise in the
person of a "roving" employee, or "circuit
rider" approach to borrowing resources from
selected State agencies or local colleges or
universities. These often highly-trained
personnel are invaluable in researching specific
technical information, references, case studies,
and comparative program analysis for efficiency
and effectiveness in SWP and other
environmental programs. Teams should also not
overlook the possibility that a neighboring
municipality or jurisdiction may have developed
or may be simultaneously developing SWP
activities and may be willing to share its
expertise and experiences.
Internal communication between and among
team members is crucial to the success of the
local effort. Transfer of knowledge and
experience is important for maintaining program
continuity and momentum, and avoids wasting
resources rediscovering what has already been
learned in the past. Developing and organizing
information sources, such as source water area
delineations and contaminant source inventory
lists generated during SWP assessments (as
discussed in Chapter 2) provide quick reference
materials for team members. Checklists and
worksheets can be developed from these
materials for use in ranking and selecting
management strategies for use hi dealing with
threats to drinking water supplies, and these
types of standardized tools can be maintained
for use in documenting the decision-making
process as the program matures. This approach
has particular benefit in the event team members
resign, move on, or are reassigned to other
areas. In addition, documentation of this type is
particularly useful in formulating strategies for
land acquisitions such as conservation
easements and land grants, where purchase or
granting may be contingent on verification of
past uses, net worth, and cost to remediate or
replenish (as in the case of wetlands or
contaminated sites). Documented resources of
this type are also very useful in training new
team members as they come on board.
Various types of information to support the
efforts of the team may be secured from a
variety of outside sources, such as Departments
of Health, water control boards or districts,
local colleges, land-grant and private
universities, environmental agencies, soil and
water conservation districts, departments of
agriculture, departments of housing, community
development and planning, National
Association of Counties, National Association
of Towns and Townships, the League of
Women Voters, regional planning agencies,
regional and district offices of the U.S.
Geological Survey), the U.S. Soil Conservation
Service, and the U.S. EPA's Regional offices
throughout the county.
All it takes to get started is a basic
understanding of local hydrogeologic
conditions, a familiarity with appropriate SWP
management tools, and the motivation to protect
your sources of drinking water drawn from
within your SWPA.
2. Selecting Management Measures
Once potential contaminant sources have been
identified and inventoried under SWAP
assessments as outlined in Chapter 2, local
teams need to explore options available to them
for managing these sources. The basic goal is to
reduce or eliminate the potential threat to
drinking water supplies within SWP areas either
through existing regulatory or statutory controls,
or by using non-regulatory (and often voluntary)
measures centered around an involved public.
While land-use controls, regulatory and source
controls, and other methods have traditionally
been used for a variety of purposes hi
controlling land use and municipal growth, only
recently have these tools been employed to
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protect drinking water supplies on a large scale
nationwide.
Local teams need to review examples of how
these tools have been used in the past to protect
drinking water supplies, how to best apply them
to their local situation, and be aware of some of
the considerations they may need to confront in
adapting and implementing them. Some of the
more effective and cost-efficient management
tools used in SWP are outlined below.
• Zoning Ordinances. These are typically
comprehensive land-use requirements designed
to direct the development of a specific area.
Local governments have used zoning to restrict
or regulate certain land uses within SWPAs,
such as intensive agriculture requiring heavy
pesticide use, and high-unit confined livestock
feeding operations.
• Subdivision Ordinances. Subdivision
ordinances apply to land that is divided into two
or more subunits for sale, resale, or
development. This tool is especially useful in
SWPAs where ongoing development is causing
contamination or there is inadequate surface or
ground water recharge, such as in coastal areas,
many of which have already outgrown their
current water supplies and can no longer rely on
shallow coastal aquifers.
• Site Plan Review. These are regulations
requiring developers to submit for approval
plans for development occurring within a
specified area. The review ensures compliance
with regulations or other requirements made
within the SWPAs.
• Design Standards. Design standards
typically are regulations that apply to the design
and construction of buildings or other structures
Use of design standards ensures that new
construction, including buildings and
impervious surfaces placed within a SWP area
are designed so as not to pose a threat to nearby
drinking water supplies.
• Operating Standards. These regulations
apply to ongoing land-use activities to promote
safety or environmental protection. These
standards can minimize the threat to SWPAs
from ongoing activities such as agricultural
pesticide or fertilizer application by prescribing
maximum application rates and frequencies, and
by restricting the location, storage, and use of
hazardous substances within the
SWPA.
• Voluntary Management Measures. These
measures include efforts to secure cooperation
of organizations that are potential sources of
pollution of source waters in efforts to ensure
that polluting activities are minimized and
reduced. Such activities can include a variety of
the management measures described above,
such as public education, but could also include
use of various government efforts. For example,
for nonpoint sources of pollution, the 1996 Farm
Bill includes many conservation related
programs that could be utilized to enhance or
initiate local voluntary, incentive-base
approaches to managing sources of
contamination. These efforts could include such
programs as the Conservation Reserve Program,
the Environmental Quality Incentives Program,
the Wetlands Reserve Program and/or the
Farmland Protection Program. In addition, a
newer effort under the State Conservation and
Technical Committees could also lead to
increased voluntary efforts.
• Source Prohibitions. Source prohibitions are
regulations that prohibit the presence or use of
chemicals or hazardous activities within a
specific area. For example, restricting the
storage, handling, and use of large quantities of
hazardous chemicals within SWPAs can reduce
or eliminate the threat of a contamination
incident.
• Purchase of Property or Development
Rights. Outright purchase of property or the
rights to develop a property can be used by local
municipalities to ensure complete control of the
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use of specified land areas in and around SWP
areas. The use of loans under the DWSRF set-
aside [1452(k)(l)(A)] for acquiring lands from
willing sellers or conservation easements can be
most cost-effective in providing long-term
community drinking water supply protection,
especially in cases where regulatory restrictions
on land use are not politically feasible and the
purchase price of the property is affordable.
• Public Education. In order for citizens to
appreciate the benefits of Source Water
Protection, they must first understand what the
problems are in providing safe drinking water,
and how they can become involved in the
process. Public education most often consists of
brochures, pamphlets, field days, mall displays,
town meetings, and other mass-exposure
opportunities to present SWPA problems and
protection efforts to the public in a
straightforward, understandable fashion. Under
SDWA 1996, a Consumer Awareness
component of the Source Water Protection
Program will extend the scope of this
information to include the results of source
water assessments through a State Drinking
Water Hotline and access to the State's Clean
Water Act Section 305(b) Report. The use of
these tools greatly enhance public buy-in to a
locally-developed, locally-applied SWP plan.
Properly "spun", public education is the greatest
promoter of voluntary action and public support
for a community's SWP program.
• Ground Water Monitoring. Monitoring
efforts generally consist of placing test wells
within SWPAs, sampling on a periodic basis,
and use of the test results to adjust or implement
other management controls in the program to
reduce or eliminate detected elevations in
undesirable substances in the drinking water.
Water supply quality assurance and quantifying
movement of contaminant plumes within the
SWPA are two of the most useful aspects of this
tool.
3. Contingency Planning
Contingency planning is simply the
development and implementation of both long
and short-term drinking water supply
replacement strategies for supplying safe
drinking water to the consumer in the event of
contamination or physical disruption. The
State's role in contingency planning is primarily
to delegate contingency planning responsibility
to local governments within a framework
established by the State, and to provide back-up
support to local responders in drinking water
supply disruptions. With most States now
having EPA-approved Wellhead Protection
Programs already in place, the contingency
planning process will have already been
established as part of that program. Expansion
from the ground water-based planning process
to the source water-based process,
encompassing surface water supplies as well,
will complete the protective coverage intended
for all drinking water supply sources under
SDWA 1996. These efforts should be derived
from, or closely coordinated with, existing State
contingency planning under Section 311 of the
Clean Water Act and EPCRA Section 303.
As the State assigns responsibility for source
water contingency planning to one or more
agencies or individuals, and establishes a lead
agency to coordinate the effort, the importance
of teams will become apparent, as discussed
above, hi Section 1, Forming A Team.
Well-crafted, pre-existing local plans, such as
those in place under EPA-approved State
Wellhead Protection Programs, can help State
planners get a sense of how water supply
disruption response actions are actually
managed at the local level. Local plans will also
give State team members a feel for local
hydrogeology, contamination threats, and
response capabilities. These local plans should
be examined in the context of adequacy and
practicality (e.g., have they ever been used in a
real contamination or disruption incident and, if
so, were they efficient and effective?).
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State water planners should begin their efforts
by evaluating the current status of water
supplies in the State. Under SDWA 1996,
source water assessments are required, and part
of the assessment process involves identifying
potential threats to the drinking water supplies
within delineated source water protection areas.
Once these threats are identified, existing
capabilities for responding and dealing with
them will be much simpler to evaluate. New
monies available under the DWSRF can be
targeted for source water contingency planning
measures, and can greatly facilitate the
refinement and application of existing source
water information data bases. (Most States
should already have on hand an emergency plan
for water supplies that was prepared in support
of their State primacy program under Section
1413 of SDWA). State planners should also
explore the new financial opportunities
available from the DWSRF set asides for
technology assistance under Section
1452(gX2)(B).
Some of the factors States will need to consider
in developing effective source water
contingency plans for local water supply
systems are the number of systems hi the State
and whether they are ground or surface water
dependent (or both), their locations, size of
population served, capacity, interdependency on
common aquifers or distribution systems, and
how many have locally available alternative
sources of supply. State planners may wish to
create a hierarchy of systems based on local
response capabilities, which will help planners
determine what type and level of support the
State will need to provide in the event of an
emergency, focussing financial support on
systems with the least capacity to respond.
In the event the local response capability is
exceeded or requires specialized expertise, the
State may be called upon to supplement the
local effort. State planners must therefore assess
the adequacy of State resources prior to such an
emergency. Factors that should be examined are
the support functions that the State will need to
provide; the conditions or circumstances under
which State support will be rendered,
identifying areas of sufficiency or deficiency in
the State's support capability, and correcting any
such deficiencies. In striking a balance between
the goal of meeting all local public water supply
system needs and the limitations imposed by its
budget, the State should examine opportunities
for supplementary funding from the DWSRF for
personnel, equipment, laboratory and treatment
facilities, and other technology
assistance-oriented requirements in
implementing source water protection at the
State and local level.
For States with EPA-approved Wellhead
Protection Programs, contingency plans will
already be in place for most ground water-based
systems. State emergency response plans
developed under Section 1413 of SDWA can
also be used. Data generated by previous water
supply emergencies and existing data bases of
land use and water resources can also be
incorporated into the contingency plans.
Monitoring and vulnerability assessments
required of PWSSs for detecting contamination
by volatile organic compounds can also be
useful. Thus, much of the information required
for contaminant source inventories required as
part of State source water assessments may
already be collected and available.
State contingency planners can benefit from a
concentrated effort to build support for a
contingency plan through a variety of methods.
These typically include expert review (industry,
academia, etc.); review by local officials for
"reality checking" the process; soliciting input
from local communities (workshops, public
notice and comment, advisory councils, etc.);
and Federal agency review.
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C. Opportunities for State Support of New
Approaches to Source Water Protection
Under the Safe Drinking Water Act
(SDWA) Amendments of 1996
The SDWA amendments of 1986 relied
primarily on voluntary compliance with
programs such as wellhead protection,
principally due to a lack of adequate funding.
Provisions under SDWA 1996, however, put
heavy emphasis on drinking water pollution
prevention using the concept of source water
protection, which combines both ground and
surface water management measures. Thus,
SDWA 1996 provides a preventive approach to
drinking water protection, rather than the
previous "end of the pipe" regulatory
enforcement-type approach taken under SDWA
1986. Under the new law, much greater
flexibility for funding exists for States, ensuring
that PWSs have adequate technical, managerial,
and financial resources to maintain compliance
and deliver safe water to the consumer.
Appendix H provides a timetable for actions
under the SDWA 1996 amendments.
1. New Sources of Revenue for
Prevention - The Drinking Water State
Revolving Fund
The Drinking Water State Revolving Fund
(DWSRF) and other programs was authorized
under 1452 by Congress to assist public water
systems to finance the costs of infrastructure
needed to achieve or maintain compliance with
SDWA requirements and protect public health.
In addition, States may use a portion of their
capitalization grants to fund source water
protection and enhance water systems
management programs and projects. States may
elect to use up to 31 percent of the funds
available to them under 1452 for eligible set-
aside activities.
As part of this, a State may use up to 10 percent
of its allotment (with a 1:1 dollar State match)
to support its State drinking water program, and
develop and implement a source water
protection program, a capacity development
program and operator certification, program.
Examples of how these funds could be used for
source water protection include: development of
contaminant source management and preventive
best management practices, development and
refinement of contingency planning programs,
and in designing and implementing public
information and education programs. Of
particular note, these funds can be used for
activities under EPA's Underground Injection
Control Program to manage Class V shallow
injection wells which can often be found in
wellhead protection areas of public water
supplies.
With few exceptions, most States now have
EPA-approved WHP programs hi place, which
provide the cornerstone of a "head start" hi the
source water assessments required under the
1996 SDWA feauthorization. Funds from the
DWSRF may be used to enhance the
implementation of these existing WHP
programs or to develop such programs for
submittal to EPA for approval.
Up to 2 percent of the allotment may be set
aside to provide technical assistance to small
communities under 10,000, and up to 4 percent
of the allotment may be set aside for costs
associated with administering the DWSRF
program.
Up to 15 percent of the capitalization grant
(limited to 10 percent of the grant for any one
activity) is available for local assistance and
other eligible activities as described in the law,
which are aimed at on-the-ground
implementation of source water protection,
wellhead protection, capacity development and
operator certification activities. Examples of
activities under this set-aside include:
delineation and assessment, land acquisition or
conservations easements (loans only) for source
water protection, and voluntary source water
projects (loans only).
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Amounts that can be set aside for the
delineation and assessment of SWPAs, must be
taken from the amount of the FY1997
appropriation available to the State under 1452.
EPA is encouraging States to determine their
needs with regard to delineation and
assessments and then take advantage of this
one-time funding opportunity in their FY 1997
capitalization grant applications to the extent the
State needs to use these funds, up to the full 10
percent. (See Chapter 2 - Section I).
Funds for land acquisition and conservation
easement may only be provided as loans and
may only be used to acquire lands from persons
willing to sell the land, or in the case of
easements, the grantors of the easements, when
the land will protect drinking water sources
from contamination. A State may also make a
loan to any community water system in support
of the implementation of voluntary efforts to
protect source water in SWPAs. Both of these
loan options are intended to foster compliance
with national primary drinking water regulations
applicable under Section 1412, and to
significantly enhance the protection of public
health. A State may also make loans to any
community water system to provide funding for
activities under a Source Water Petition
Program in accordance with Section 14S4 of the
SDWA as described in Section 3 below.
2. Approaches for State Source Water
Protection Activities under SDWA 1996
The following discussions are intended to
outline some major approaches or models that
States considering undertaking Source Water
Protection programs may wish to consider.
Because the choice to undertake source water
protection under the 1996 SDWA Amendments
is voluntary for States, these approaches are
suggestive of internally coherent means by
which States can pursue source water protection
at various levels of resource commitment and
policy focus, and are not meant as limiting
prescriptions in this important area. EPA does,
however, strongly endorse Congress' view as
reflected in the Amendments that the source
water assessments were intended to be used "for
the protection... of public water systems," that
is, in actual protection programs. Thus, EPA
invites commenters on this draft to offer
suggestions for any additional approaches or
models for source water protection, particularly
ones that have actually been applied
successfully at the State or local level, and
believes that States should closely consider
undertaking an approach that iis appropriate for
their situation. Additional detail will be
provided on these areas in the final guidance
and thereafter, as may be useful to States. In the
areas of the Source Water Petition Program,
EPA is required by the Amendments to publish
final guidance by August 6,1997, so the
language in this draft represents a proposal in
preparation for the final guidance.
EPA further points out that, even for States that
may be hesitant on this subject, there are very
workable starting points that can achieve several
important objectives. Approaches of
"Protection Through Existing Programs," for
example, can be done with modest additional
effort, are a good way pf making drinking water
a positive means of coordinating and focusing
existing State and Federal programs, and can be
of real benefit to water systems that likely
would not otherwise be able to participate in
these programs.
(a). Source Water Protection Through
Existing Programs — Proactive or
Reactive Approaches
States using this approach will create a
networking-clearinghouse function to
coordinate whatever range of existing Federal,
State and local programs, authorities and efforts
the State believes will contribute to achieving
source water protection objectives. This
function would be intended to give a focal point
and be an assistance facilitator for local
governments, water systems or others in
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communities on these source water protection-
related programs. Those contacting this State
clearinghouse may want help from these
programs to protect their local source water, but
may lack the resources, expertise or both to
identify the types of program help (which may
be regulatory and/or non-regulatory) that is
available and useful for their situation, and to
pursue the variety of appropriate programmatic
aid effectively through the time-consuming
complexities of different application processes
and levels of government.
States would establish this clearinghouse
function in a State office which would be
responsible for responding to requests for aid of
the type described above, or in the case of a
proactive approach, to use the source water
assessments to work with local communities to
set priorities for source water protection areas
where the clearinghouse would focus on seeing
that appropriate programmatic aid was
provided. In a reactive approach or where
States enabled communities to seek
clearinghouse help, in which communities were
informed about their situation by using the
results of the source water assessments, the
State office would respond to these requests in
its discretion. In any case, the clearinghouse
would help to identify programs that might be
able to address a specific local source water
problem, to formulate and then present the
relevant program aid applications to the
appropriate agencies, and to work with the
communities to advance these applications with
those agencies. The State clearinghouse would
also help in an ongoing way to improve
coordination among the relevant agencies and
programs in general, and on drinking water and
source water protection objectives hi particular.
(b). Source Water Protection Through Local
Partnerships
Under this approach, the State would focus its
protection efforts on educating, equipping and
funding local communities to lead directly in
undertaking source water protection-initiatives.
States could ensure that localities interested in
getting help in source water protection from
State or Federal programs would be provided
with a full list of potentially applicable State
and Federal programs and resources and be sent
information regarding these as options to assist
with local efforts.
In addition, the SDWA Amendments provide
for various ways to finance some of these
efforts. One option is for States to provide
loans to local water suppliers to acquire land or
partial interests in land to support source water
protection priorities, which may be most
effectively supported by the identification of
threats to drinking water sources in the source
water assessments. Such loans may also be
provided to support whatever type of voluntary,
incentive-based efforts the community considers
useful to address its particular problems. A
third option in SDWA is the authority to provide
technical assistance funding through a State
source water protection program.
This approach could be an alternative or an
effective complement to the "Reactive" version
of the Existing Programs approach described
above. If used by itself, this approach would
not fully substitute for an "Existing Programs"
approach, discussed above, because it would not
provide for ongoing State help or facilitation in
gaining access to State or Federal programs or
resources. Often, this help is likely to be the
critical factor, especially for smaller systems
which, as noted above, may lack the expertise or
resources to do this effectively on their own.
But this approach may be a useful initial starting
point, however, at least for some States that may
not have experience in coordinating program
efforts for watershed protection, source water
protection, or other similar, overarching
objectives. It would be most desirable for States
choosing this approach to adopt it in the near
term with the expectation and plan to build up to
an Existing Programs approach soon thereafter
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as a more responsive means to help the water
systems which most need the effort.
(c). Source Water Protection Through a
Comprehensive Approach
Existing laws at the Federal level have tended to
focus on specific sources, pollutants, or water-
related activities, and have not addressed the
need for an integrated multi-disciplinary
approach to environmental management. In
fact, historically, successes in controlling
waterborne pollution have centered around
controlling point sources and, in the case of
ground water, preventing contamination from
hazardous waste sites.
States implementing a Comprehensive approach
would develop a Watershed Approach through a
State structure that would integrate surface
water protection programs with comprehensive
ground water protection efforts focusing
Federal, State and local resources on source
water protection as a whole. This approach
should use the source water assessments as a
starting point to identify which data developed
by other programs for use in the assessments
and what those programs' characteristics are to
incorporate them into the comprehensive
approach. The assessment results will then
present a verified statewide priority-setting
structure to guide implementation of the
comprehensive approach. It would closely
coordinate water-related programs with State
point and nonpoint source control programs so
as to integrate administration of Federal
programs and related State programs, such as
through the Farm bill and remedial efforts
through Superfund, UST and RCRA.
Significant gaps that now exist in our efforts to
protect drinking water source waters would be
filled. Thus, the key programs of air, waste,
toxic substances and pesticide management, and
water pollution control and prevention are in
place, but interested States would integrate them
into a cohesive State-based resource-oriented
framework to maximize their effectiveness.
This comprehensive approach to source water
protection would create an effective "toolbox"
of existing management options, both voluntary
and regulatory, for use in framing approaches to
complete source water protection.
States are in a unique position to foster
comprehensive source water protection using
these tools because they implement most
existing water and natural resource protection
programs. Further, this approach would provide
a unique structure to support and lead State and
local governmental stakeholders and the private
sector to implement source water protection.
3. Guidance for State Source Water Quality
Protection Partnership Petition Programs
Description and Purpose
Section 1454 of the SDWA (Section 133 of
P.L. 104-741) establishes a new authority
for a Source Water Petition Program. This
State-administered program is voluntary for
States, and is intended to support locally-driven
efforts designed to address a limited number of
sources of contamination identified in local
source water protection assessments. Petitions
may address only either: (1) pathogenic
organisms which are regulated (or for which
regulation is required) by EPA drinking water
standards, or, (2) contaminants detected in
source water that are not at levels "reliably and
consistently" below the MCL. Under the State
program, an owner or operator of a community
water system, or a municipal or local
government or political subdivision within the
State may submit a source waiter quality
protection partnership petition to the State,
requesting assistance in support of a local,
voluntary, incentive-based partnership among
interested parties to protect their drinking water
supply. The central focus of the petition
program is to reduce or eliminate contaminants
in the water supply by addressing their origin;
obtain financial or technical assistance to
facilitate efforts to protect source water in order
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to meet national primary drinking water
regulations and standards; and help develop
voluntary and incentive-based strategies for the
long-term protection of source water supplying
a community water system.
(a) State/Local Program Procedures
Substance of Petitions and Process for
Submission of Petitions To the State
A Petition must: facilitate the local development
of voluntary, incentive-based partnerships
among owners and operators of community
water systems, governments, and other persons
in source water protection areas; and obtain
.assistance from the State in identifying
resources which are available to implement the
recommendations of the partnerships to manage
the origins of the contaminants affecting the
drinking water supplies of a community.
Contaminants addressed under a petition are
limited to pathogenic organisms for which a
national primary drinking water regulation has
been established (or is required under Section
1412), or for which a regulation under Section
1412 has been promulgated or proposed, and
that are detected by adequate monitoring
methods at the source water intake structure or
in collection, treatment, storage, or distribution
facilities in the community water system when
they occur above the MCL; or are not at levels
reliably and consistently below the MCL.
Petitions submitted under this program must at a
minimum contain the following information: (1)
a delineation of the source water area that is the
area of consideration of the petition; (2) the
identity of the origins of the drinking water
contaminants that are to be addressed by the
petition that are found within the delineated
source water protection area (including
descriptions of specific activities contributing to
the presence of the contaminants); (3) the
identity of information gaps that would hinder
the implementation of recommendations made
by the voluntary local partnership for addressing
drinking water contaminants that are to be
addressed by the petition; (4) documentation of
efforts made to establish the voluntary local
partnership, including solicitation of private
individuals living within the delineated source
water protection area who are likely to be
affected by decisions made by the partnership
and whose participation is essential to the
success of the partnership, and members of
municipal or other local governments or
political subdivisions of the State with
jurisdiction over the delineated source water
area; (5) a description of how the voluntary
local partnership has or will identify, recognize,
and take into account any voluntary or other
activities already underway under Federal or
State law in the delineated source water
protection area that are aimed at reducing or
eliminating the likelihood that contaminants
will occur in drinking water at levels of public
health concern, and (6) a description of
technical, financial, or other assistance that the
voluntary local partnership requests of the State
to help develop the partnership, or to implement
the recommendations of the local participants in
the partnership.
Recommended State Procedures for
Approval/Disapproval of Petitions Submitted by
Local Voluntary Partnerships
The State may approve a petition if it meets the
requirements of Section 1454 (a).
States must provide a notice and an opportunity
for public comment on petitions submitted
under Section 1454, and States must approve or
disapprove the petition in whole or in part
within 120 days after submission.
If the State approves a petition, a notice of
approval must be provided, giving the following
information: (1) an identification of technical,
financial, or other assistance the State will
provide to help address drinking water
contaminants identified in the petition based on
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public health concerns relative to other water
quality needs identified by the State;
coordination with any other States' programs
implemented or planned under Section 1454;
and funds available (including DWSRF monies
accessed through CWA or SDWA State
Revolving Funds), and (2) a description of
technical or financial assistance available from
State or Federal programs to assist in
implementing the recommendations of the local
voluntary partnership in the petition.
Disapproved petitioners may resubmit at any
time if new information becomes available, if
conditions affecting the source water that is the
subject of the petition change, or if
modifications are made in the type of assistance
being requested.
Technical and Financial Assistance Available to
Localities-with Approved Petitions
Assistance is available to assist in the
implementation of recommendations made by
the partnership in the petition, including any
program established under the Federal Water
Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.);
programs established under Section 6217 of the
Coastal Zone Act Reauthorization Amendments
of 1990 (16 U.S.C. 1455b); agricultural water
quality protection program established under
Chapter 2 of subtitle D of title XH of the Food
Security Act of 1985 (16 U.S.C. 3838 et seq.)
and the Farm Bill of 1996 (P.L. 104-333 ); the
Sole Source Aquifer Program established under
Section 1427; the Community Wellhead
Protection Program established under Section
1428; any pesticide or ground water
management plan; any voluntary agricultural
resource management plan or voluntary whole
farm or whole ranch management plan
developed and implemented under a process
established by the Secretary of Agriculture; and
any abandoned well closure program.
Full use of available technical and financial
assistance will depend upon the extent to which
States encourage and assist municipalities, local
governments, and community water systems to
understand and take advantage of existing
programs at the State level that are available to
help them address sources of contamination in
Source Water Protection Areais. These include
programs for the management of solid waste,
underground storage tanks, fertilizer and
pesticide use, recycling and reclamation,
underground injection disposal wells, State
Superfund programs, and others. A large part of
the public participation component of any
source water quality protection partnership
petition program should be focussed on making
sure that the partnership members know and
understand about these existing State programs
and their corresponding funding mechanisms
and opportunities for integration into a
comprehensive source water protection
partnership. This helps conserve resources,
maximizes both regulatory and non-regulatory
management mechanisms, and assures equal
representation of the various members of the
partnership in helping to bring about consensus
at various stages of decision making as the
partnership matures and begin:; to implement its
recommendations.
Additional Finding for Local Source Water
Petition Programs
• Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. A
State may make a loan to assist a community
water system implement voluntary,
incentive-based source water protection
measures resulting from the implementation
of recommendations specified by a local
partnership petition submitted to the State.
Only community (not non-community) water
systems are eligible for this assistance, and
only pathogenic organisms, and chemicals
exceeding MCLs or chemicals not reliably
and consistently below established MCLs
can be identified as contaminants hi the
petition. If a State elects to use the Drinking
Water State Revolving Fund set-aside, the
State must develop a list of systems that will
receive loans, giving priority to projects that
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promote compliance and protect public health,
and subsequently seek public review and
comment on this list. States are encouraged to
review EPA's recently released final guidelines
on the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund for
use in prioritizing projects eligible for loans
under the set-aside.
(b) Sense of the Congress
• Sense of the Congress and EPA Regarding
the Clean Water Act State Revolving Fund.
It is the sense of the Congress that each State
in establishing priorities under Section
606(c)(l) of the Clean Water Act should give
special consideration to projects that are
eligible for funding under that Act, and that
have been recommended pursuant to a
petition submitted under Section 1454 of
SDWA. EPA recognizes that petitions
submitted to a State program developed
under Section 1454 of SDWA only address
either (not both) regulated or required-to-be
regulated pathogens or contaminants
detected that are not found reliably and
consistently below the MCL. While the
petition program may prove a valuable
adjunct to total source water protection, the
required consensus-building at various levels
of local and State government necessary to
make the process work may delay the
resolution of public health issues from
contaminated drinking water hi a timely
manner. Similarly, petition programs that go
beyond the basic requirements (e.g., looking
for other pathogens/ contaminants) may
enhance me detection of additional
pathogens/substances over the basic required
ones, but the additional incremental costs
necessary to achieve this level of detection
need to be weighed against the net benefit to
the consumer in terms of increased public
health protection. For these reasons, States
and local communities need to carefully
consider the net benefit of the petition
program in comparison to a total source
water protection program in terms of cost
and efficacy in protecting the public health,
and evaluate the advantages and trade-offs
inherent in both programs before deciding
what is right for them.
c) EPA/State Procedures for Grants
Procedures and Substance of a Submittal of a
State Source Water Quality Protection
Partnership Petition Program for EPA and
Approval of Such Programs
• Substance of a State Program Submittal. The
design of the State Source Water Quality
Protection Partnership Petition Program
should be to.... ".assist hi the local
development of a voluntary, incentive-based
partnership, among the owner, operator, or
government and other persons likely to be
affected by the recommendations of the
partnership ". Beyond this, statutory
definition, the State should consider how
well the structure of its Source Water
Quality Protection Partnership Petition
Program satisfies the following underlying
goals: meeting the spirit and intent of SDWA
1996 (e.g., affording locals the opportunity
to develop their own drinking water
protection program through the use of the
petition process); recognizing the diversity
of hydrogeologic settings and sources of
contamination that may be encountered on
the local level; allowing local entities
maximum creativity and flexibility in
designing and implementing the
recommendations of the petitioners;
recognizing State and local primacy in
matters of land use and water allocation, and
assisting local entities in achieving
comprehensive source water protection by
offering the petition process as a valuable
tool in an overall array of State-administered
drinking water protection programs such as
the State's Wellhead Protection, Sole-Source
Aquifer, and watershed protection programs.
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• Procedures for Submitting a State Program
for Grant Assistance and for EPA Approving
a Program. State programs developed for
Source Water Quality Protection Partnership
Petition Programs may be submitted to EPA
at any time subsequent to EPA's approval of
the State's Source Water Assessment
Program (SWAP) as prescribed under
Section 1453 (a) of SDWA. If, after a period
of 120 days after the date of submission of
the program, unless EPA determines that the
program does not meet the statutory
requirements as specified under Section
1454(a) of SDWA, the program shall be
deemed approved. If EPA disapproves a
petition program (in whole or in part) during
the 120-day period after submission of the
program, EPA will immediately notify the
State, and will work with the State to assist
in the modification or redevelopment of the
program to meet the statutory requirements
necessary for approval. Once EPA approval
has been obtained, States should
immediately begin implementing the receipt,
review, and approval process for petitions
received from local, voluntary, incentive-
based partnerships for source water
protection at the community level.
Adequacy Criteria for EPA Approval of State
Program Submittal. EPA approval of State
Source Water Quality Protection Partnership
Petition Programs will be based upon how
adequately the State's program process
considers and evaluates the objectives of the
local entity filing the petition. These
objectives include how well the State's
program process facilitates the development
of local, voluntary, incentive-based
partnerships through coordination of local
governments, persons living within source
water protection areas affected by the
decisions or recommendations of the
partnership, and owners and operators of
community water systems, and how well the
State program process provides for
assistance from the State hi identifying
resources available to the implement the
recommendations of the partnership in
addressing the origins of drinking water
contaminants specified in the petition. (This
includes the specific activities contributing
to the presence of the contaminants affecting
the drinking water supplies of the
community). The contaminants for which
petitions may be submitted are specified
under Section 1454 (a) (3).
• Grants to States. Grants may be made to
each State that establishes an EPA-approved
petition program in an amount not exceeding
50 percent of the cost of administering the
program for the year in which the grant is
made available. In .order to receive this grant
assistance, States must have approved
programs that meet the criteria and
objectives of Section 1454, as described in
this guidance. (NOTE: No funds were
appropriated for grants under Section
1454 (c) in Fiscal Year 1997.)
(These grant program procedures and submittal
are only required if appropriations are provided
for Section 1454 of the SDWA and a State
chooses to submit a Petition Program which
applies for a grant).
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Chapter 4
Relationship Between Source Water
Assessments and the Public Water Supply
Supervision Program
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Relationship Between Source Water Assessments
and the Public Water Supply Supervision Program
Introduction
Preventing the contamination of, and
maintaining good quality drinking water
supplies is the primary goal of source water
protection efforts under the Safe Drinking
Water Act. Reducing or preventing chemical
and microbiological contamination of source
waters could ideally allow public water systems
to avoid costly treatment and minimize
monitoring requirements. States could also save
resources that would otherwise have to be
devoted to compliance assistance, oversight, and
enforcement. The purpose of this chapter is to
identify those programs either already
established or under development in the Public
Water Supply Supervision (PWSS) Program
that could benefit from source water protection
efforts, and in turn, discuss how some PWSS
activities can help States and systems achieve
objectives of the source water assessment and
protection programs.
Interim Monitoring Relief
How Can Local Source Water Assessments
Assist an Interim Monitoring Relief Program?
Under Section 1418(a), States may reduce
monitoring requirements for most contaminants
for an interim period for a system(s) serving
under 10,000 people if: 1) the initial sample
fails to detect, at the tune of greatest
vulnerability, the presence of the contaminant;
and 2) "the State, considering the hydrogeology
of the area and other relevant factors,
determines in writing that the contaminant is
unlikely to be detected by further monitoring
during such period."
The interim monitoring relief period would end
either when permanent monitoring relief is
adopted and approved for the State, or August
1999, whichever comes first. Interim, or
permanent (see below) monitoring relief would
not apply to microbiological contaminants,
DBFs, or corrosion byproducts, but would apply
to all other chemical contaminants. To serve as
the basis for interim relief, monitoring
conducted at the beginning of the period must
occur at the time determined by the State to be
the tune of the source water's greatest
vulnerability to the contaminant, "taking into
account in the case of pesticides the time of
application of the pesticide for the source water
area and the travel time for the pesticide to
reach such waters and taking into account, in the
case of other contaminants, seasonality of
precipitation and contaminant travel tune."
States could use any timely and relevant
information gleaned from source water
assessments to help determine whether interim
monitoring relief for given systems and
contaminants would meet those requirements.
At a minimum, assessments would help the
State identify those systems likely to be eligible
or ineligible for monitoring relief. However, it
must be recognized that, due to the different
timing of the interim relief and source water
assessment provisions, few new assessments (as
opposed to data from existing assessments) are
likely to be available in time to be useful for
interim monitoring decisions.
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Permanent Monitoring Relief
How Can Local Source Water Assessments
Assist States Implement a Permanent
Monitoring Relief Program?
Under Section 1418 (b), States with an
approved source water assessment program may
adopt "tailored alternative monitoring
requirements": where the State "concludes that
(based on data available at the time of adoption
concerning susceptibility, use, occurrence, or
wellhead protection, or from the State's
drinking -water source -water assessment
program) such alternative monitoring would
provide assurance that it complies with the
Administrator's guidelines." (emphasis added).
EPA will publish these guidelines under
separate cover, after notice and opportunity for
comment, by August 6, 1997. Permanent
monitoring relief does not apply to
microbiological contaminants, DBFs, or
corrosion byproducts - it would apply to all
other chemical contaminants. It applies to all
public water systems, including non-community
water systems, for which a source water
assessment has been completed.
Many States have already reviewed chemical
monitoring waiver applications under the Phase
II/V rules. For those cases where waivers have
not already been considered, permanent
monitoring relief provides one of the clearest
potential benefits for States and systems to
conduct source water assessments. Primacy
States that do not have an EPA-approved source
water assessment program will not be eligible to
offer permanent monitoring relief to their public
water systems. Public water systems that do not
have a complete source water assessment are
not eligible for permanent monitoring relief.
Unlike the limited time frame for granting
interim monitoring relief, there is no time
constraint for granting permanent monitoring
relief by the State, nor for the duration of such
relief. This should encourage States to not only
conduct source water assessments so as to
gather information needed to make permanent
monitoring relief determinations, but to
maintain an active and comprehensive
assessment program. States that do so will be at
an advantage in responding to system requests
for monitoring relief, and in responding to the
public regarding justifications for such
decisions.
Chemical Monitoring Reform (CMR)
How Can CMR Assist States Implement Local
Source Water Protection Assessments?
Depending on timing of the chemical
monitoring reform (CMR) regulations, States
could incorporate data from assessments
conducted under CMR into their source water
assessment programs. The CMR is scheduled to
be proposed in 1997 and promulgated by August
6,1998. EPA is planning to require States to
identify systems at risk of contamination and
establish sampling schedules during the
period(s) of greatest vulnerability.
Development of system specific sampling
schedules will typically involve identifying
potential contamination source(s) and assessing
the probable timing of contamination based on
the management of those sources and
intervening hydrogeologic or climatic features.
These analyses would both support and be
supported by activities that States undertake in
implementing a source water assessment
program. The process of targeting at-risk
systems may help States establish priorities for
conducting more thorough assessments. For
many States, the information collected through
the source water assessments could provide a
necessary component for meeting the
requirements of CMR. CMR is also expected to
include provisions for systems with source
waters at low risk of chemical contamination to
reduce the frequency of monitoring and possibly
the number of sampling points, based on local
vulnerability. It may also allow groups of
systems to consolidate their sampling points
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within an aquifer or watershed based on a
comprehensive assessment of the area.
Reduced sampling would be permitted in States
that have established criteria that meet CMR
requirements for conducting source water
assessments. These requirements for States will
be established in the rule and will include
several components of a source water
assessment program discussed in this guidance,
such as delineations, and identification of
contamination sources and management
practices in the area.
How Can Source Water Assessment
Programs Assist Development and
Implementation of CMR?
A State source water assessment program could
serve, at least in part, as a technical basis under
the CMR for 1) targeting at risk systems for
increased monitoring; 2) reduced monitoring
through waivers; or 3) establishing "ultra-
system surrogate sampling" (selected points that
represent all sampling locations within a
system) by determining which sampling points
are the most vulnerable. Time-of-travel
assumptions used by a State for its SWAP
would have to be consistent with CMR criteria
in order to take advantage of reduced
monitoring options.
States that meet the CMR criteria may also
allow the use of "inter-system surrogate
sampling points" (i.e., geographically targeted
sampling points), which would serve for all the
sampling points among two or more systems, by
determining where the most vulnerable
sampling points should be located. Source
water assessments will be critical to States in
implementing inter-surrogate sampling
programs under CMR since information will be
generated on the susceptibility of source waters
to contamination and the vulnerability of public
water systems to the contaminants found.
Several issues would arise if source water
assessment programs were to be used to support
inter-system surrogate sampling. For example,
as a condition of approval for inter-system
surrogate sampling, States would also be
required to have GIS mapping of ground water
supplies, delineations of surface water supplies,
and an inventory of all sources of contamination
for affected systems within the watershed or
recharge zone that may contribute to any of the
source water withdrawal points.
Surface Water Treatment Rule
How Can Implementation of the Surface
Water Treatment Rule Assist States with Local
Source Water Protection Assessments?
Under the Surface Water Treatment Rule
(SWTR), a system is eligible for a waiver from
filtering their surface water supply only if a
series of water quality and disinfection criteria
are met, and the system maintains a watershed
control program satisfactory to the State that
minimizes the potential for microbial
contamination. Most systems that have received
such waivers have source water delineations and
some inventory of potential contamination from
coliform bacteria, Giardia, and other microbials
in their watersheds. In some cases, systems
have worked with local communities and State
and county agencies to institute additional
control measures and monitoring programs in
the watershed to prevent source water
contamination. In these cases, States should use
information already available in conducting
assessments of these systems. For systems with
approved filtration waivers where sources of
regulated microbial contaminants have been
assessed, States or delegated entities should
conduct assessments for potential chemical
contamination as well if they have not been
previously inventoried.
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How Can Local Source Water Assessments
Assist Implementation of the Surface Water
Treatment Rule?
In overseeing approved filtration avoidance
waivers, States may benefit from additional
information that would otherwise not be
available in the absence of source water
assessments. The SWTR is designed to
minimize risks from only a subset of microbial
contaminants (Giardia, coliform bacteria,
viruses, Legionella) and filtration avoidance
determinations could have missed potential
sources of contamination from
Cryptosporidium, as well as other indices such
as phosphorous loadings or chemical
contamination. In addition, assessments could
provide information on activities in the
watershed with potential for contamination of
source water, and on water quality in
waterbodies upstream from drinking water
reservoirs (e.g., tributaries) that could signal
potential threats. This type of information could
provide States and systems with important tools
to identify problems and prevent contamination
that could ultimately trigger filtration
requirements. Further, this information could
prove invaluable in efforts by States and
systems (both filtered and unfiltered) to prepare
for future regulatory requirements for Enhanced
Surface Water Treatment and Disinfection
Byproducts.
The Agency encourages States to review
available information on their unfiltered surface
water systems in cases where watershed land is
not protected, to determine whether or not
system vulnerability to microbial contamination
has increased since a filtration avoidance
determination was made. Where States
determine that microbial vulnerability has
significantly increased, States should adjust or
institute additional source water protection
measures as needed, or conduct additional
assessments.
For surface water systems that have filtration in
place, the SWTR does not require any source
water protection measures. Filtration systems
require proper operation and maintenance and
are subject to sub-optimal performance.
Assessments in conjunction with other
watershed protection measures could identify
potential threats and help such systems
maintain multiple barriers against microbial
contamination and good source water quality
and thereby avoid the need for additional
treatment. It could assist States to prioritize
oversight, technical assistance efforts, or
DWSRF funding considerations for those
systems that are at increased risk of source
water contamination. As noted above, if
properly designed, operated and maintained,
filtration removes most turbidity, and the SWTR
only covers a subset of microbiological
contaminants; even systems with successful
filtration treatment, or States, may not be aware
of potential sources of contamination from
Cryptosporidium or chemical contaminants in
the watershed. States could use information
already available from assessments conducted
under wellhead protection programs (for ground
water systems with filtration) or other programs
under the Clean Water Act (e.g., Section 303,
TMDL assessments, non-point source
monitoring).
Underground Injection Control: Class V
Wells
How Can Implementation of the UIC Class V
Program Assist States with Local Source Water
Protection Assessments?
Class V program staff can identify Class V
wells that are potential sources of contamination
in wellhead and source water protection areas,
particularly those that may pose an
endangerment to a community's water supply.
Class V program staff have targeted shallow
underground disposal wells in source water
protection areas to ensure that the wells comply
with the Safe Drinking Water Act by having
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owners and operators close the well or having
other management measures applied to avoid
endangerment.
Class V wells are one of the most important
sources of contamination to public water
supplies and should always be a high priority for
identification when assessments are conducted,
Unfortunately, these wells are not easily found
since they may consist of a septic system that a
commercial facility misused to dispose of its
wastewater, or floor drains at industrial/
hazardous material-handling facilities. Further
some Class V wells, such as appropriately
operated septic systems, may pose relatively
low risks to an aquifer compared to other
contamination sources in the same wellhead
protection area. Class V program staff may
have an inventory of the Class V wells that are
located in a source water protection area and
may assist with the search for high risk
facilities.
How Can Local Source Water Assessments
Assist Implementation of the Class V
Program?
State source water protection programs can
support Class V programs by addressing Class
V wells in source water protection areas. EPA
will propose regulations by June 18,1998 with
respect to high risk Class V injection wells, such
as large capacity cesspools and industrial waste
wells in source water protection areas. Once the
new Class V rules become effective, it will be
important that source water areas are delineated
if the final rule targets high risk wells in source
water protection areas. Source water
assessments will help State UIC program
managers save considerable resources by
allowing these regulations to be targeted to
delineated source water protection areas in lieu
of statewide application.
For Class V well categories other than cesspools
and industrial disposal wells, such as
agricultural drainage wells, risk and impact
information is limited and the wells will not be
regulated until sufficient information is
gathered. A source water assessment program
can assist the Class V program in the national
study of Class V wells where EPA will be
collecting information on those Class V wells
that have been identified in source water
protection areas. This information, in turn, can
be used to support the Class V rulemaking and
determine whether additional regulation is
needed.
Sanitary Surveys
How Can Sanitary Surveys Assist States
Implement Local Source Water Protection
Assessments?
The purpose of a sanitary survey is to evaluate
and document the capabilities of a public water
system to continually provide safe drinking
water and identify any deficiencies. A system's
treatment, storage, distribution network,
operation and maintenance, as well as the
system's source(s) are evaluated as part of a
survey. Sanitary surveys could provide the
opportunity for State drinking water officials (or
approved third party inspectors) to conduct the
formal source water delineations and
assessments.
If States choose to rely on the samitary survey ;
schedule to conduct all of their source water
assessments, one concern would be whether the
assessments could be completed within the
timeframe specified in the Act. Under 40 CFR
142.10, States must establish a systematic
program for conducting sanitary surveys, with
priority given to public water systems not in
compliance with drinking water regulations.
The 1995 EPA/State Joint Guidance on Sanitary
Surveys recommends numerous factors for
States to consider in establishing a survey plan.
These plans will be negotiated with EPA
Regional Offices. In many cases, the sanitary
survey plans and the source water assessment
programs could be integrated by the State to
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insure completion of source water assessments
so that the two can be done concurrently.
Sanitary surveys could provide one means of
providing updates to the source water
assessment program and follow-up on
development of source water protection
activities.
How Can Local Source Water Assessments
Assist States to Conduct Sanitary Surveys?
States could use information collected in source
water assessments, whether done separately or
concurrently, to enhance sanitary survey
information and to identify systems of concern
that should receive priority for surveys.
Ground Water Disinfection Rule (GWDR)
How can the GWDR Assist States Implement
Local Source Water Protection Assessments?
Section 1412(1>X8) of the SDWA directs EPA to
issue a regulation after August 1998 requiring
disinfection for ground water systems, as
necessary, after publishing criteria for States to
determine if ground water systems need
disinfection. In developing the GWDR, EPA is
considering strategies to control risk from
microbial contamination as an alternative to
disinfection. When developing their source
water assessment programs, States may want to
consider the strategies being considered for the
GWDR. EPA encourages States to review the
components of their wellhead protection
programs to insure that the best available
scientific information is fully reflected in the
States program.
How Can Source Water Assessment Programs
Assist Development and Implementation of the
GWDR?
It is possible that the GWDR, once enacted, may
recognize the implementation of specific source
water protection criteria (e.g., delineation of
microbial set back areas, identification and
effective management of potential sources of
microbial contamination) in conjunction with
additional criteria as an alternative to
disinfection. States should recognize that
meeting these criteria through wellhead
protection activities may necessitate an
enhanced focus in the wellhead program on
microbial risks or possibly require
modifications of established setback distances.
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Chapter 5
Coordination ofSWP and
Other EPA and Federal Programs
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Coordination of SWP and Other EPA and Federal Programs
A. Linkages to Other EPA Programs
Integrating Source Water Protection into the
Watershed Approach
1. What is the Watershed Approach?
EPA and other agencies are encouraging a
watershed approach which is a coordinating
framework for environmental management that
focuses public and private sector efforts to
address the highest priority problems within
hydrologically defined geographic areas, taking
into consideration both ground and surface
water flow. Watershed approaches aim to
prevent pollution, achieve and sustain
environmental improvements and meet other
goals important to the community. Although
watershed approaches may vary in terms of
specific objectives, priorities, elements, timing,
and resources, EPA recommends the following
guiding principles.
Partnerships. Those people most affected by
management decisions are involved throughout
and shape key decisions. This ensures that the
people who depend upon the natural resources
within the watersheds are well informed of, and
participate in planning and implementation
activities. Watershed stakeholders comprise a
wide variety of interests, including: Federal,
State, and local environment, public health,
agricultural and natural resource agencies,
concerned citizen igroups, Indian tribes, industry
and agricultural sector representatives, and the
academic community.
Geographic Focus. Activities are directed
within specific geographic areas, typically the
areas that drain to surface water bodies or that
recharge or overlay ground waters or a
combination of both.
Sound Management Techniques based on Strong
Science and Data. Collectively, watershed
stakeholders employ sound scientific data, tools,
and techniques in an iterative decision making
process. This includes:
• Assessment and characterization of the
natural resources and the communities
that depend upon them;
• Goal setting and identification of
environmental objectives based on the
condition or vulnerability of resources
and the needs of the aquatic ecosystem
and the people within the community;
• Identification of priority problems;
• Development of specific management
options and action plans;
• Implementation; and
• Evaluation of effectiveness and revision
of plans, as needed.
The iterative nature of the watershed approach
encourages partners to set goals and targets and
to make maximum progress based on available
information while continuing analysis and
verification in areas where information is
incomplete.
2. How Can -a Watershed Approach Assist
^States and Localities in Conducting Local
Source Water Protection Assessments?
Source Water Protection Assessments
undertaken by States and localities can benefit
from integrating their assessments into ongoing
or new watershed efforts, including integrating
various State and local assessment efforts,
establishing joint priorities for assessments, and
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coordinating actions among programs. Whether
a jurisdiction starts with a Source Water
Protection Program, a National Estuary
Program, a Clean Lakes Project, a total
maximum daily load assessment, a National
Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
watershed strategy or other place-based
strategy, moving to a more comprehensive
approach will foster a more efficient and
effective collaboration of efforts. By integrating
these efforts, managers of Source Water
Assessment programs as well as other program
managers will better understand the pollutant
sources causing the most critical problems
within each watershed. Using this information
to set priorities allows public and private
managers from all levels to allocate limited
financial and human resources to address the
most critical needs.
3. How Can a Watershed Approach Assist
States and Localities in Implementing Local
Source Water Protection Programs?
Integrating Source Water Protection Programs
into watershed projects will bring to the
attention of the various stakeholders in the
watershed the importance of targeting source
waters as high priority areas for protection by
various Federal, State, local and volunteer
programs. Watershed projects will strengthen
teamwork between the public and private
sectors at the Federal, State, tribal and local
levels. This emphasis gives people who depend
on the aquatic resources a meaningful role in
their management, and can build a sense of
community, reduce conflicts, increase
commitment to the actions necessary to meet
societal goals and, ultimately, improve the
likelihood of sustaining long-term
improvements. Building on or initiating new
local watershed projects can result in cost
savings by leveraging and building upon the
financial resources and the willingness of the
people with interests in the watershed to take
action. Through improved communication and
coordination integrating these efforts can reduce
costly duplication of efforts and conflicting
actions.
4. How can Finished Local Source Water
Assessments Assist State/Local Watershed
Protection Programs?
Watershed protection programs will benefit
from having finished Source Water Assessments
which identify source water priorities to be
integrated into other watershed efforts like point
and nonpoint source pollution control, wetlands
protection, waste management, air pollution,
pesticide management and other programs such
as agriculture (in any given jurisdiction, these
might be several different agencies). This
integration of efforts will allow various
watershed stakeholders to jointly compare their
lists of high priority areas, meet with each other,
and look for opportunities to leverage their
limited resources to meet common goals.
5. Who are the Key Watershed Protection
Decision Makers at the State and Local
Levels?
Various stakeholders including State and local
public health, environment, and natural
resources agencies, industry and agricultural
sector representatives, citizens groups, and
tribes all contribute to collaborative decision
making. For more information on watershed
efforts visit EPA's homepage
[http://www.epa.gov/owow/watershed/].
National Watershed Assessment Project
1. What is the National Watershed Assessment
Project (NWAP)?
NWAP is EPA's first attempt at a nationwide
watershed characterization and has four
objectives: characterize the condition of the
nation's 2,149 watersheds and identify
watersheds at particular risk; stimulate and
empower citizens to participate in watershed
assessment, protection, and restoration efforts;
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inform the dialogue about priorities among
water resource managers; and establish a
baseline for measuring progress towards
achieving healthy watersheds.
2. How can NWAP Assist States and Localities
in Conducting Local Source Water
Assessments?
State and Tribal water quality managers will use
the NWAP characterization of watershed
condition and vulnerability as a starting point
for discussing where the most serious water
quality problems are located and where further
assessment and monitoring, education, and
protection programs needs to be focused.
NWAP can also be considered a backbone to
which additional data layers and information
can be added to meet the needs of specific
program areas such as the Source Water
Assessment program. For example, a group of
EPA, State, and interest group representatives
are working to both refine the NWAP source
water data layer, which currently provides a
partial characterization of the overall condition
of source waters used by public water systems.
This effort may produce a separate, but
associated and more detailed characterization of
the condition for source water quality in
watersheds.
3. How can NWAP Assist States and Localities
in implementing Local Source Water
Protection Programs!
NWAP has already helped by stimulating
improvements to the data EPA maintains related
to source water quality. In particular, for
NWAP, data in the Safe Drinking Water
Information System (SDWIS) were geo-located
into 8-digit watersheds. This geographic
assignment is now being reviewed and refined
by States. Because these data are now geo-
referenced, Source Water Protection Programs
will be better able to get an initial idea of how
well the protection measures put in place are
affecting the quality of the watershed.
4. How can Finished Source Water
Assessments Assist NWAP?
Better and more complete information about
source water quality (both surface and ground
water) will improve the NWAP characterization
of watershed condition in subsequent portrayals.
The source water assessment program is an
essential means to generate the comprehensive
information necessary to accurately reflect
drinking water sources as a national priority for
protection in watersheds.
J. Who are the Key Decision Makers for NWAP
at the State and Local Levels?
EPA Regions, State water quality agencies and
Tribes are reviewing NWAP and will be making
key decisions.
Monitoring and Data Management
1. What are EPA's Clean Water Act
Monitoring and Data Management
Programs?
The core of EPA's monitoring program is the
305(b) report of the Clean Water Act which
requires States to report to EPA on the condition
of their ground and surface waters. States
conduct ambient water monitoring to determine
the quality of their waters, changes in water
quality over tune, the causes of water quality
problems, and if pollution control programs are
working. Water monitoring data are compared
to State standards to determine the extent to
which waters meet designated uses, including
drinking water supply. States use their 305(b)
water quality reports to communicate findings
to the public and to better manage then* water
programs. The national summary of these State
reports is presented in a report to Congress.
This is one of the few national-level water
quality reports; its overall conclusions about
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sources and causes of pollution are used in
determining where to focus national water
pollution control efforts and resources. The
report also includes information on State and
Tribal water pollution programs and special
human health and aquatic life issues.
EPA produces a variety of monitoring tools
such as technical methods and protocols, as well
as guidance recommending baseline State
monitoring program components to be
implemented. Monitoring is also conducted
under the nonpoint source program (Section
319), the National Estuary Program (Section
320), the Clean Lakes Program (Section 314),
and through various special studies and
programs.
EPA's data management program for ambient
water quality is centered on EPA's STOrage and
RETreival system (STORET). This database
contains decades of raw surface and ground
water data. Much of the raw data analyzed for
the 305(b) water quality reporting process is
stored hi STORET. STORET is currently being
modernized to more effectively handle the
complex needs of the nation's evolving
monitoring programs. EPA is the co-chair of
the National Water Quality Monitoring Council,
a consortium of public and private monitoring
agencies that facilitates implementation of the
nationwide monitoring strategy designed by the
Council's predecessor, the Intergovernmental
Task Force on Monitoring Water Quality.
EPA's information on water discharges
permitted by NPDES is included hi its Permit
Compliance System (PCS) database.
2. How can EPA Monitoring and Data
Management Programs Assist States and
Localities in Conducting Local Source Water
Protection Assessments?
Monitoring data collected under the various
programs cited above, using a broad variety of
technical monitoring tools, may provide
valuable existing data to source water
assessments which can result in reduced costs
and efforts. For those source waters that need
additional pollutant occurrence data, EPA's
technical monitoring tools (e.g., monitoring
protocols and guidance documents) should be
useful.
In 1994, States were asked to work with EPA to
prepare multi-year State monitoring strategies
addressing core program elements, including
integration with program-specific monitoring
such as source water or the National Pollutant
Discharge Elimination System. These multi-
year monitoring strategies can be used as a base
for SWAP programs, and at minimum should be
closely linked with monitoring and assessment
of specific source waters.
The modernized STORET data management
system will be able to handle information
generated by source water assessments. A vast
array of information on data owners, project and
survey types, field activities, sampling stations,
types of samples, and sampling results will be
stofable and accessible in the modernized
STORET, along with quality assurance checks
to ensure the reliability of the information.
EPA's Water Body System allows States to
submit and store their CWA 305(b) data in
electronic form. One of the water uses States
assess under 305(b) is source water for drinking
water.
EPA is also working to strengthen State
georeferencing capabilities to better track
monitoring information for mapping and GIS
applications. GIS tools, including the Reach
File 3 system that assigns unique locational
identifiers to the waters of the U.S., will be
valuable in source water assessments.
Source water protection programs should work
cooperatively with State ambient monitoring
staff, including the 305(b) and performance
partnership staff, to ensure that existing data are
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recognized and used. Source water assessments
are not intended to involve substantial amounts
of new, ambient monitoring. Any monitoring
undertaken for assessments must be economical
and effective; cooperative work with State
monitoring will ensure that duplication of
monitoring effort is not occurring, and that any
new data that are collected are appropriate and
credible. Coordination with the EPA data
management staff will ensure that all needed
data storage capabilities for source water
protection efforts are accounted for in the
modernized STORET system, as appropriate.
3. How Can Monitoring and Data Management
Programs Assist States and Localities in
Implementing Local Source Water
Protection Programs?
Monitoring data collected under the various
programs cited above, using a broad variety of
technical monitoring tools, will allow source
water protection program managers to 1)
characterize waters; 2) identify problems; 3)
design programs; 4) measure the effectiveness
of their efforts; 5) identify resulting trends; and
6) direct resources to areas of greatest need.
Similarly, EPA's data management systems will
allow analysts and decision makers easy access
to monitoring information, are flexible to
varying data requirements, and ensure that the
data stored are of documented quality. This
should help implement the most effective
controls and management practices in source
water protection areas.
4. How Can Source Water Protection
Assessments Assist Monitoring and Data
Management Programs?
Information about source water quality is a
valuable data layer to be added to monitoring
data collected by State and Federal agencies,
and thereby improve State and national
assessments of water quality. The water
environmental indicators reporting project at the
national level and at the watershed level
(through the National Watershed Assessment
Project) includes source water protection data,
and the source water assessments will make that
data more robust.
5. Who are the Key Decision Makers for
Monitoring and Data Management at the
State and Local Levels?
State 305(b) water quality assessment
coordinators, monitoring program managers and
computer information services providers at the
State and local levels are key decision makers.
Staff who design performance partnerships are
also critical, since it is monitoring that provides
the information to assess results. For more
information visit EPA's homepage
[http://www.epa.gov/owow/monitoring/].
Nonpoint Source Program (CWA)
1. What is the Nonpoint Source (NPS)
Program?
The national nonpoint source program was
established by Congress when it enacted the
Clean Water Act amendments in 1987 and
included a new section addressing nonpoint.
source pollution. Section 319 established a
three-stage process whereby States could
receive grant funding to address nonpoint source
pollution. States were: (1) required to conduct
statewide assessments of their waters to identify
those that were either impaired (did not fully
support State water quality standards) or
threatened (presently meet water quality
standards but are likely not to continue to meet
water quality standards fully) because of
nonpoint sources; (2) required to develop
nonpoint source management programs to
address the impaired or threatened waters
identified in their nonpoint assessments; and (3)
entitled to receive annual grants from EPA to
assist them in implementing their nonpoint
source management programs once the
assessments and programs had been approved
by EPA.
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EPA has now approved the assessments and
management programs for all States and
Territories. Many States are in the process of
revising their management programs. Through
FY 1997, a total of nearly $571.5 million has
been awarded to the States and Territories under
Section 319. A small portion of the annual
Section 319 appropriation is set aside for Indian
Tribes. The Tribal allocation is limited by
statute to one third of one percent of the national
appropriation. To date, 10 tribes have obtained
approval of their nonpoint source assessments
and management programs and are receiving
319 funding to help implement their NFS
programs. The current national guidance for this
program was released in May, 1996.
In 1990, as part of the Coastal Zone Act
Reauthorization Amendments, Congress
required all States (29) with Federally approved
Coastal Zone Management Act programs to
develop coastal nonpoint source programs.
These programs, currently being jointly
approved by EPA and NOAA (the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration),
provide for implementation within coastal
watersheds of management measures specified
by EPA and incorporate policies and
mechanisms, enforceable at the State level, to
ensure implementation of the specified
measures.
2. Haw Can the Nonpoint Source Program ,
Assist States and Localities in Conducting
Local Source Water Protection Assessments?
Some assessment activities may be eligible for
Section 319 funding. In addition, the
assessments developed for the NPS programs
should serve as valuable sources of information
and data about land-based pollution sources
which may now or in the future contribute to the
contamination of drinking water intakes and
wells, as well as identify both surface waters
known or suspected of being contaminated by
NPS pollution. In most States, the NPS
assessments have been incorporated into the
National Water Quality Inventory (305(b)
Report) and are consequently updated
periodically as part of each State's overall water
quality assessment effort.
3. How Can the Nonpoint Source Program
Assist States and Localities in Implementing
Local Source Water Protection Programs?
The technical guidance document, Guidance
Specifying Management Measures For Sources
of Nonpoint Pollution in Coastal Waters (EPA,
Office of Water, 840-B-92-002, January 1993)
developed by EPA for the coastal nonpoint
source program, constitutes the most
comprehensive and up-to-date national
summary of management measures for
preventing and reducing NPS impacts on
surface and ground waters, and is applicable to
inland as well as coastal nonpoint sources
(agriculture, forestry, urban runoff, marinas,
hydromodification, wetlands protection). The
guidance should prove valuable to States and
localities in developing programs and strategies
to protect drinking water sources from land-
based contaminants. Furthermore, the Section
319 funds awarded to States to assist them in
implementing their NPS management programs
can be used, and have been used, to implement
measures to protect drinking water sources
where such activities are described or
referenced in the State's NPS management
program. Roughly half of each State's 319
grant award is passed through to local groups
and organizations for on-the-ground
implementation activities. Additionally, the
enforceable policies and mechanisms
incorporated in State coastal NPS programs
might well be utilized as an additional tool to
achieve implementation of Source Water
Protection Programs hi coastal areas.
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4. How Can Finished Local Source Water
Assessments Assist State and Local Nonpoint
Source Programs?
As mentioned above in section (2), NFS
assessments are periodically updated as part of
the National Water Quality Inventory. Federal,
State and local assessment resources are
typically insufficient to address all waters.
Consequently, these updates must make use of
information and data from many different
organizations and agencies. Information and
data from finished source water assessments
would be very helpful for most States in
improving and expanding coverage of State
water quality assessments. Better and more
comprehensive assessment information and data
would then make possible more effective and
efficient use of Federal, State and local
resources to improve and protect both surface
and ground water for all uses.
J. Who Are the Key Decision Makers for
Nonpoint Source Programs at the State and
Local Levels?
Each EPA Region has a NFS Coordinator who
is familiar with the NFS programs for each of
the States, Territories and Tribes in that Region
and the 319 funding process for those States,
Territories and Tribes. In each State, the lead
agency for nonppint source pollution is , .
designated by the Governor. There is a
nonpoint source coordinator in each State lead
NFS agency responsible for managing the
State's NFS program. In most States, this
Coordinator is located in the State's water
quality agency. In several States the NFS
Coordinator is located in the State's
conservation agency and in one State (TN) the
NFS Coordinator is located hi the State
agricultural agency. Increasingly, decisions
about funding and program priorities are made
by a broad-based NFS Task Force representing
State agencies as well as other stakeholders at
the State and local levels. For more information
visit EPA's homepage
[http://www.epa.gov/owow/nps/].
Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL)
Program
1. What is the Total Maximum Daily Load
(TMDL) Program?
The Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL)
Program under section 303(d) of the Clean
Water Act is the technical backbone of the
watershed protection approach. Under section
303(d), States are required to identify waters
that do not meet water quality standards, even
after the implementation of nationally required
levels of pollution control technology, and to
develop TMDLs for those waters, with
oversight from EPA. The law also requires
States to establish a priority ranking for their
waters needing TMDLs. TMDLs allocate
pollutant loadings to pollution sources hi a
watershed, and provide a basis for identifying
and establishing controls to reduce both point
and nonpoint source pollutant loadings.
2. How Can the TMDL Program Assist States
and Localities in Conducting Local Source
Water Assessments?
State lists that identify waters needing TMDLs,
and TMDLs developed for specific water
bodies, are a useful source of information for
the development of source water assessments.
Section 303(d) lists identify waters not meeting
water quality standards due to a particular
pollutant or stressor; this type of information
will be helpful for identifying contaminants of
concern for source waters. TMDLs for
particular water bodies generally provide more
detailed information about the sources of the
pollution and actually can be used to develop
allocation scenarios for pollutant loadings
among pollution sources in a watershed.
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3. How Can the TMDL Program Assist States
and Localities in Implementing Local Source
Water Protection Programs?
The TMDL Program is a planning program mat
identifies waters still needing attention to meet
water quality standards. The TMDLs provide a
basis for allocating pollutant loadings among
pollution sources in a watershed. For a source
water serving as a public water supply, the data
developed as part of the TMDL assessment for
that water provides a basis for implementing
local Source Water Protection Programs and
other programs.
4. How Can Finished Local Source Water
Assessments Assist State TMDL Programs?
State TMDL Programs are required to use all
"existing and readily available" information in
developing section 303(d) lists and Source water
assessments may provide additional data upon
which to base listing decisions and also to
develop TMDLs for a particular water body.
For example, since TMDLs are developed for
specific pollutants or stressors, identification in
source water assessments of contaminants of
concern in a particular SWPA would be helpful
to State TMDL Programs.
J. Who are the Key Decision Makers in the
TMDL Program at the State and Local
Levels?
State TMDL Programs are generally managed
by State water quality agencies. At the local
level, a variety of stakeholders may be involved
including loqal and regional governing
agencies, point sources, fanners, foresters, land
developers, city and State planners, and local
environmental organizations. For more
information visit EPA's homepage
[http://www.epa.gov/owow/tmdl/index.html].
National Estuary Program
1. What is the National Estuary Program?
In 1987, Congress established the National
Estuary Program (NEP) as part of the Clean
Water Act. The NEP's mission is to protect and
restore the health of estuaries while supporting
economic and recreational activities. To achieve
this, EPA helps create local estuary programs
(referred to as "NEPs") by developing
partnerships between government agencies that
oversee estuarine resources and the people who
depend on the estuaries for their livelihood and
quality of life. These groups plan and
implement programs according to the needs of
their own areas. To date, 28 local programs are
demonstrating practical and innovative ways to
revitalize and protect their estuaries.
A major benefit of the NEP is that it brings
communities together to decide the future of
their local estuaries. The NEP combines the
work of many groups. Each local program
consists of representatives from government
agencies responsible for the estuary's health and
productivity, and from the community-citizens,
business leaders, educators, and researchers.
The multi-interest working committees and an
overall management conference address
characterization (biological, geophysical,
chemical, and social parameters) of the estuary
and its watershed, the priority problems for the
estuary, actions to correct the priority problems,
and ways to finance the actions. As a result of
this work, detailed comprehensive management
plans are produced by all programs. The newest
source water concerns of many of the 28 NEPs
fall into four categories:
• Community sustainability including
adequate source water supply and supply
expansion capacity - growth in many coastal
communities has already exceeded existing
supplies, and many others are near capacity.
Traditional dependence on shallow aquifer
sources in many coastal areas is ending
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because of naturally poor water quality,
saltwater intrusion, or contamination from
onsite disposal. The economic and
environmental impacts associated with
managing shortages and funding new sources
are significant. Local and regional
assessments must be conducted to assist
coastal communities with planning their
future growth.
• Impacts of over-pumping - in addition to
water quality degradation which can result
from over pumping, wetlands and other vital
wet habitats can be adversely affected (e.g.
the Florida Everglades) by lowering of the
water table.
• Activities in recharge areas - coastal
communities most often do not control the
water quality of the deep supply aquifers.
With assessments in hand, local and State
officials can plan together to protect recharge
areas.
• Upstream withdrawals and discharges -when
coastal communities use surface water for
supply or to supplement ground sources, they
must depend upon users throughout the
watershed to ensure adequate quantity and
quality.
2. How Can the NEPs Assist States and
Localities in Conducting Source Water
Protection Assessments?
The NEPs have local government
representatives on the various committees which
may have identified source water assessment
and protection as a priority issue. Each NEP has
engaged multiple stakeholders interested hi
source water including, governmental agencies,
citizens, land owners and scientists. During
development of their comprehensive
conservation and management plans, most NEPs
have identified priority problems threatening the
estuary. Many of these problems may threaten
local source water. States and localities can get
a head start on their own source water
assessments by using the information compiled
by the NEP.
3. How Can the NEPs Assist States and
Localities in Implementing Local Source
Water Protection Programs?
Most NEPs currently include partners such as
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA). NOAA's programs
associated with the Coastal Zone Management
and Marine Protected Areas Act include
protection efforts for surface waters. The
various State and local committees working on
these programs are existing venues which
should welcome additional source water
protection efforts and partners.
Integrating Source Water Protection Programs
together with NEPs will bring to the attention of
the various stakeholders in the estuary's
watershed the importance of targeting source
waters as high priority areas for protection.
This will strengthen teamwork between the
public and private sectors at the Federal, State,
tribal and local levels to achieve the greatest
environmental improvements with the resources
available. This integration can result in cost
savings by leveraging and building upon the
financial resources and the willingness of the
people with interests hi the estuary's watershed
to take action. 'Through improved
communication and coordination, State and
local Source Water Protection Programs can
reduce costly duplication of efforts and
conflicting actions.
4. How Can Finished Source Water ,
Assessments Assist Individual NEPs?
Most of NEPs are concerned about source water
protection. The inherent vulnerability of
drinking water sources in coastal areas to over
use and contamination has been amplified by
the rapid growth seen in these areas. The
finished source water assessments will provide
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valuable information to the NEPs and their
stakeholders, enabling the evaluation of efforts
undertaken by the local programs to reduce
threats to source waters.
5. Who are the Key Decision Makers for the
NEP at State and Local Levels ?
EachNEP establishes a management conference
which includes a policy committee,
management committee, scientific/technical
advisory committee, and a citizens advisory
committee. Committee representatives include
individuals from EPA and other Federal
agencies, State, regional, and local government
agencies, environmental groups, educational
institutions, local industries, and the general
public. To locate contacts for a specific
program, consult the National Estuary Program
Homepage
[http://www.epa.gov/owow/estuaries/nep.html],
or call the State coastal or marine affairs
agency, or call the main National Estuary
Program office at 202/260-1952.
Clean Lakes Program
1. What is the Clean Lakes Program?
The Clean Lakes Program is one of the earliest
programs to use the watershed protection
approach in monitoring and restoration activities
to control a wide range of pollution sources. The
program has provided more than $145 million
over 20 years under Clean Water Act section
314 to support grants and cooperative
agreements for priority lake monitoring,
assessment, and protection projects in all areas
of the country. This support has included
statewide assessments of lake conditions, Phase
I projects for initial identification of water
quality problems and solutions for specific
lakes, Phase II projects for implementation of
lake restoration and protection activities, and
Phase III post-restoration monitoring projects.
EPA has been encouraging States to use section
319 nonpoint source funds to support lakes-
related work that was previously done under the
Clean Lakes Program, as there has been no
appropriation for the program since 1994. For
more information on the Clean Lakes Program
and other lakes information, visit its Internet
homepage at:[ http://www.epa.
gov/OWOW/lakes/lakes.html].
2. How Can the Clean Lakes Program Assist
States and Localities in Conducting Local
Source Water Assessments?
Many lake assessment and restoration activities
have been conducted under the Clean Lakes
Program and information from these studies
could be useful in developing source water
assessments for specific lakes used as source
waters. Clean Lakes Program statewide lake
assessments and Phase I studies for particular
lakes may be of greatest help in assessing lake
conditions. Phase II projects support
implementation efforts and are sometimes
followed by Phase III post-restoration
monitoring projects. A particular lake may have
only a Phase I project completed or in some
cases may have all three phases completed.
3. HOMV Can the Clean Lakes Program Assist
States and Localities in Implementing Local
Source Water Assessment Programs?
The information developed in Clean Lake
Program projects may assist States and localities
in implementing source water assessment
programs. As indicated above, EPA has been
encouraging States to use section 319 nonpoint
source funds to support lakes-related work that
was previously done under the Clean Lakes
Program.
4. How Can Finished Local Source Water
Assessments 'Assist State Clean Lakes
Programs?
New analyses conducted for lakes under the
Source Water Assessment Program could better
characterize the vulnerability of important lakes,
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and thereby reinforce the need for additional
lake restoration and protection activities. The
identification and documentation of these
vulnerabilities will hopefully spur action at the
local and State level. Some of these needs can
be addressed through section 319, CWAState
Revolving Funds, State-funded lake programs
and other sources of funding.
5. Who are Key Decision Makers in the Clean
Lakes Program at the State and Local
levels?
State lake programs are generally managed by
State water quality agencies. At the local level,
a variety of stakeholders may be involved
including local and regional government
agencies, lake associations and lakeshore
residents, local environmental and other
organizations, and many others. For more
information visit EPA's homepage
[http://www.epa.gov/owow/lakes/].
Wetlands Program
1. What is the Wetlands Program?
The U.S. EPA, in partnership with other Federal
agencies, and State, local, and tribal
governments is responsible for restoring and
maintaining the chemical, physical, and
biological integrity of the nation's waters, which
include wetlands. Section 404 of the Clean
Water Act, which is jointly administered by the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and EPA,
establishes a program to regulate the discharge
of dredged or fill material into waters of the
U.S. While the Section 404 program commonly
regulates the discharge of dredged or fill
material on a case-by-case basis, provisions
found within this authority can allow for the
regulation of aquatic resources in a more
comprehensive manner. Some examples
include watershed planning, special area
management planning and advanced
identification.
EPA's Wetlands Program has made efforts to
integrate wetlands protection into existing EPA
programs (e.g., Section 401 certification,
Section 305(b)). In addition, some States have
developed or are developing State Wetlands
Conservation Plans (SWCPs) which provide a
framework for integrating wetland programs
across many State programs. The EPA
Wetlands Program has experience in providing
assistance for the development of
comprehensive wetlands plans, participating in
efforts to develop such plans, and reviewing
plans for other State and local programs.
2. How can wetlands protection assist States
and localities in conducting local Source
Water Assessments?
Wetland protection programs often need to
assess the overall health of
watershed/ecosystems in order to estimate the
impacts of proposed man-made changes to
wetlands and other waters. Assessments
undertaken by Federal, State, and local
governments for the purpose of protecting
wetlands can provide information that may be
useful for source water assessments.
3. How can wetlands protection assist States
and localities in implementing local Source
Water Protection Programs?
Wetlands can provide a wide range of different
functions and benefits to local communities
including the interception and filtration of
pollutants thereby improving source water
quality. Integrating wetlands protection into
Source Water Protection Programs can bring to
the attention of stakeholders the importance of
targeting wetlands and source waters as high
priority areas for protection. Through improved
communication and coordination, State and
local Source Water and Wetland Protection
programs can reduce costly duplication efforts
and conflicting actions.
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4. How can finished Source Water Assessments
assist Wetlands Protection?
Finished source water assessments can provide
valuable information as to the need for wetlands
protection and/or restoration activities. These
assessments can identify areas where wetlands
are valuable and should be protected as well as
areas where the enhancement or restoration of
wetlands can provide important functions in the
watershed (e.g., improve water quality).
Wetlands may be lower cost alternatives to
water treatment. Protection or restoration of
wetlands will likely reduce impacts to source
water. Restoring wetlands often reduces the
potential for impacts to source waters.
J. Who are the key decision makers for
Wetlands Protection at the State and local
levels?
Key decision makers include EPA Regions,
State/Tribal and local natural resources/water
agencies. For more information visit EPA's
homepage
[http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/].
The NPDES Program and Source Water
Protection
1. What is the National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System (NPDES) Program?
Under the authority of the Clean Water Act, the
NPDES program regulates point source
discharges to surface waters such as wetlands,
lakes, rivers, estuaries, bays, and oceans. Point
source discharges include wastewater from
industrial processes, effluent from municipal
wastewater treatment plants, industrial and
municipal stormwater, combined sewer
overflows, and sanitary sewer overflows. The
NPDES program also regulates biosolids (the
semi-solid residue from wastewater treatment
processes) to ensure that they are handled
properly and manages the national pretreatment
program to reduce the level of pollutants
discharged by industrial facilities into municipal
sewage systems.
Permits regulate discharges with the goal of
ensuring protection of human health and aquatic
life. If regulated facilities fail to comply with
the provisions of their permits, they may be
subject to enforcement actions. EPA and the
States use a variety of techniques to monitor
permittees' compliance status, including on-site
inspections and review of data submitted by
permittees.
2. How can the NPDES program assist States
and localities in conducting local Source
Water Assessments?
A State Source Water Assessment Program is
required to delineate the boundaries of the areas
providing source waters for public water
systems, to identify sources of contaminants that
could threaten public water systems, and assess
the susceptibility of the systems to such
contamination. The NPDES program could
assist States and localities in a number of ways
to conduct source water assessments.
In 1994, the Office of Wastewaiter Management
developed the "NPDES Watershed Strategy" as
a first step toward fully integrating the NPDES
program into a broader watershed management
approach. This strategy promotes establishment
of statewide watershed management
frameworks that delineate watersheds and sub-
watersheds (including both surface water
drainage areas and connections to aquifers) and
coordinate water management program
activities around these watersheds.
Approximately 25 States have developed or are
developing statewide watershed management
frameworks. To the extent that a SWPA would
include an entire watershed or sub-watershed,
the State Source Water Protection Program
would benefit from participating in the
framework development and delineation
processes.
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Recently, the NPDES program has initiated
discussions on development of a single
mechanism (a "watershed permit") that could
address multiple pollutant sources within a
watershed. A framework for "watershed
permitting" is the next logical step in fully
integrating the NPDES program within an
overall watershed approach. Implementation of
a watershed permit would necessarily involve a
process of local watershed monitoring,
assessment, and planning to determine
appropriate, enforceable, local control actions
(including nonpoint source controls). Source
water assessments can and should be a part of
such an overall watershed assessment and
planning effort. Also, the NPDES program has
convened a Federal Advisory Committee to
advise EPA on strategies to control urban wet
weather point sources (i.e., stormwater,
combined sewer overflows, sanitary sewer
overflows). EPA, in cooperation with the Urban
Wet Weather Flows Federal Advisory
Committee, is developing a document providing
guidance on local watershed assessment and
planning that may be useful for source water
assessments.
Finally, monitoring requirements associated
with the NPDES program provide a number of
opportunities for obtaining data useful for
source water assessments. Permits may contain
effluent, ambient, and biosolids monitoring
requirements that would be critical in
identifying the presence and origin of
contaminants in a delineated SWPA. EPA and
the Urban Wet Weather Federal Advisory
Committee are developing recommendations
and guidance on coordinating watershed
monitoring data within the framework of a
watershed plan. The final document can and
should consider source water assessment needs
when providing guidance on monitoring for
watershed planning and assessment and
recommendations for monitoring requirements
for NPDES permits.
3. How can the NPDES Program assist States
and localities in implementing local Source
Water Protection Programs?
As noted in the response to question 2, the
NPDES program, particularly as it operates
within the context of a watershed management
framework, can provide valuable information
for conducting the delineation and assessment
portions of a Source Water Protection Program.
NPDES also can partner with a Source Water
Protection Program to create a forum for
watershed delineation and assessment.
As States and localities move beyond the
assessment phase to implementation of source
water protection measures, NPDES permits will
be key measures for ensuring control of
contaminants that could threaten PWSs. The
NPDES program provides enforceable
regulatory requirements that can be designed to
meet the goals of a Source Water Protection
Program. Regulation of individual wastewater
discharges and of the use and disposal of
biosolids are critical means of ensuring
attainment of water quality standards applicable
to public water supplies and other source water
protection goals. In addition, the concept of a
"watershed permit" may provide the means for
aggregating contaminant assessments and
requirements for point and nonpoint source
control measures on a watershed basis in order
to achieve these goals.
4. How can finished local Source Water
Assessments assist the NPDES program?
Permit writers often must determine where
water quality-based permit limits are needed
and then develop limits based upon sparse data.
Finished source water assessments can provide a
means to collect information from other existing
data sources on ambient levels of contaminants,
and significant potential sources of
contaminants developed in the assessment itself,
that could be used to assess the need for permit
limits for individual contaminants and to
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calculate such limits. Also, the conditions in a
"watershed permit" would be based, in part, on
the information gathered in a source water
assessment and goals identified as a result of the
source water assessment.
5. Who are the key decision-makers for the
NPDESprogram at the State and local
levels?
There are 43 States and territories authorized to
implement the NPDES program. In these
States, the program generally is implemented by
the State water quality agency. Typically, this
agency also is responsible for water quality
planning, setting water quality standards, and
enforcement, all programs with critical links to
the NPDES program. In States and territories
that are not authorized to implement the NPDES
program, EPA is the permit-issuing authority.
In these States, EPA works closely with State
agencies that implement related programs.
In addition to State authority, cities with
municipal wastewater treatment plants covered
by the pretreatment program are authorized to
establish pretreatment requirements to deal with
local pollution problems. These requirements
reduce the level of pollutants discharged by
industry into municipal sewage systems.
Sole Source Aquifer Protection Program
1. What is the Sole Source Aquifer Protection
Program?
The Sole Source Aquifer Protection Program is
authorized under Section 1424(e) of the Safe
Drinking Water Act. The provision allows EPA
to declare that an aquifer is a "sole or principal
drinking water source" for an area if
contamination of the aquifer could create a
significant hazard to public health. A sole
source aquifer designation can be initiated by a
petition submitted to EPA from any interested
party, such as a public water purveyor, local
health department, or an environmental group.
Following a designation, federal financially
assisted projects proposed over the aquifer are
subject to EPA review. EPA can negotiate
modifications to improve a project or even deny
funds to a project which poses a significant risk
to public health by contamination of the sole
source aquifer.
2. How can the Sole Source Aquifer Protection
Program assist States and localities in
conducting Source Water Assessments?
The hydrogeologic and water usage information
assembled by EPA during the designation
process can aid in defining protection areas and
determining the susceptibility of water supplies.
Project reviews can be a source of information
on potential contaminant sources within
SWPAs.
3. How can the Sole Source Aquifer Protection
Program assist States and localities in
implementing local Source Water Protection
Programs? .
A designation can increase community
awareness on the use, value, and vulnerability of
aquifers which helps build support for
developing and implementing various ground
water protection efforts. Project reviews can
often lead to direct technical assistance by
identifying specific activities or practices that
may lead to ground water contamination. In
addition, technical assistance usually involves
site-specific coordination of ground water
protection activities between State and local
environmental and public health protection
agencies. Since the program focuses
specifically on ground water arid can cover
many types of activities that may impact ground
water quality, it offers an added level of
protection for projects which might not be fully
addressed through normal federal
environmental/public health impact evaluations.
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4. How can finished local Source Water
Assessments assist Sole Source Aquifer
Protection Programs?
The information from source water assessments
can be used to help evaluate whether an area
meets SSA designation criteria, and can provide
useful information for project reviews, such as
the location of delineated SWPAs, potential or
existing sources of contamination, and local
variations in aquifer susceptibility.
5. Who are the key decision makers in the Sole
Source Aquifer Protection Program at the
State and local levels?
Although project review authority cannot be
delegated, EPA collaborates with state and local
entities, such as health, environmental and
planning agencies, to help evaluate whether
proposed federally-assisted projects may
endanger drinking water supplies and.to develop
appropriate and cost-effective mitigation
measures. In most cases, the key decision
makers are the state and local agencies or
organizations that petition EPA for an SSA
designation.
Other EPA Programs That Will Be Described
Here in Chapter 5.
Pesticide State Management Plan (SMP)
Program
Pollution Prevention Program
Radiation Program
RCRA Subtitle C Program
RCRA Subtitle D Program
Superfund Program
Toxic Substances Control Program
Underground Storage Tank Program
Emergency Planning and Community Right-
To-KnowAct(EPCRA)
B. Linkages to Other Federal Programs
Most resource based Federal programs have
some involvement in water protection issues.
The key to a successful State and local effort is
to build partnerships which direct available
resources towards the specific task of
protecting drinking water sources. Some of the
Agencies with the program level involvement
include:
U.S. Department of Agriculture;
U.S. Department of the Interior;
U.S. Department of Defense;
U.S. Department of Energy;
U.S. Department of Transportation;
A detailed description of the various program
level activities and contact information will be
available through OGWDW homepage.
(Http://www.epa.gov/OGWDW/swp.html.)
OGWDW s homepage also provides links to
available Internet information about Federal
programs which may be relevant to State
program development and implementation.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has
several programs and significant resources that
can be used to advance State and local source
water efforts. For example, the Farm Service
Agency (FSA) administers the Conservation
Reserve Program which provides for protection
of environmental sensitive acreage. States can
use this program to enroll land that impacts
drinking water supplies. Further, FSA can help
States identify already enrolled land which falls
within delineated areas. Designated wellhead
protection areas already receive special
consideration. In addition, by designating
certain geographic areas as Conservation
Priority Areas (CPA), States can ensure that all
cropland within that area is eligible for
enrollment in the CRP. Another provision of
the CRP, the Conservation Reserve Enrollment
Program (CREP), allows States to target CRP
enrollments to address high priority resources
such as delineated source water protection areas.
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The primary contacts for program information
are available through State and County Farm
Service Agency Offices.
(http:.//wwwaix.fsa.usda.gov/areamap.html)
The Department of the Interior has several
organizational units which directly or indirectly
influence the management of surface and
ground water. Activities range from
investigative research to program planning and
data management. Particularly relevant to the
assessment process is the U.S. Geological
Survey's mission to collect, evaluate and
disseminate water availability, quantity and use
information. U.S.G.S. has offices in every State
and has interdisciplinary teams of scientists and
technicians who can assist States with source
water assessments. Federal matching .funds are
usually available to match funding from State
and local governments, including State
revolving funds. Several studies involving
source water area delineation and susceptibility
analysis have been completed and fact sheets
are available on request. The list of USGS State
Representatives is on the Internet at
[Http://water.usgs.gov/public/staterep.html].
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a
national wetlands inventory project and can
provide maps and digital wetlands data. Over
20,000 maps have been digitized and are
available to the public through the Internet
from the National Wetlands Inventory's web
site [http://www.nwi.fws.gov]. The National
Wetlands Inventory Regional Wetland
Coordinators located in the Fish and Wildlife
Service Regional Offices are the contacts for
wetland mapping or digitizing activities. Other
relevant agencies within DOI include Bureau of
Land Management (BLM), the National Park
Service (NPS), the Regional Aquifer System
Analysis (RASA) program, Bureau of
Reclamation, and Office of Surface Mining
OSM). For example, many Park Service Units
have extensive surface and ground water data
and operate GIS systems that can facilitate the
interpretation and availability of such data.
Implementation of Department of Defense
environmental activities is largely carried out by
the four military services ~ Army, Navy, Air
Force and Marines. States can coordinate their
source water activities through DOD's
Environmental Quality Centers. The services
have extensive data on existing sources of
contamination associated with defense activities
and bases and can work with the States to
identify potential sources. Many bases have
their own water supplies and have already
implemented extensive wellhead protection
activities.
The Department of Transportation (DOT)
plans for and implements projects to mitigate
any adverse effects on public health and the
environment as a result of air, highway or rail
travel and infrastructure. The Federal Aviation
Administration has efforts underway to
encourage airports to use best management
practices when using aircraft and de-icing
agents. Also within DOT, The Federal Highway
Administration has erosion control guidelines
and is developing joint FHWA/EPA training in
erosion control and non-point source pollution.
The Department of Energy regulates all
national defense -related uses of radioactive
materials at its sites. DOE sites prepare Annual
Site Environmental Reports and annual
environmental monitoring reports which contain
detailed environmental information. Each DOE
site has a program in place for ground water and
surface water protection from radiological
contamination. State agencies seeking
information on source water ait DOE sites can
contact the DOE Operations Office or the DOE
area Office with responsibility for a given site.
Names and phone numbers are available
through the DOE Homepage at
http://www/doe.gov.
EPA has asked its other Federal partners to
assist States as they implement the new
provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act.
EPA is also encouraging Federal agencies to use
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the information developed through SWAPs to
target and prioritize their efforts and available
funding to these areas.
EPA is collating information provided by other
Federal Programs for use by States as they
develop and implement their source water
programs. Specifically, agencies have been
asked to identify:
• The activities and programs that have the
strongest bearing on source water
assessments and protection;
• How the agency can assist States implement
source water assessment and protection
programs?
• How source water assessments can be useful
to the Agency's efforts and priority setting
efforts;
• Who should States contact within the agency
to coordinate source water activities;
• Who are other Stakeholder's with a primary
interest in the agency's activities?
This information will be made available to
States on the OGWDW homepage with links to
other Internet resources. Examples of the kind
of information available are provided for the
National Wetlands Inventory and the U.S.
Geological Service, and the Forest Service.
Resources Available From The U.S. Geological
Survey For Assisting States With Source Water
Assessments
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has offices
in every State and has interdisciplinary teams of
scientists and technicians who can assist States
with source-water assessments. Federal
matching funds are usually available from the
USGS to match funding from State and local
governments, including the State Revolving
Funds. Several studies involving source area
delineation and susceptibility analysis have been
completed; and fact sheets are available on
request,
1. Activities of USGS With Strongest Bearing
on Source-Water Assessment:
The following USGS programs can provide
useful information for source water
assessments:
• Federal-State Cooperative Program-
Administered locally, this is a broad-based
Federal-State partnership, with matched
funding, that addresses needs for data and
water studies of interest at both the State and
the Federal level.
• USGS Drinking Water Initiative—
Coordinated at Headquarters, this program
seeks to apply USGS data and expertise to
drinking-water related issues.
• National Water Quality Assessment
(NAWQA)—Federally funded
comprehensive water-quality studies of 55
major watersheds nationwide.
• National Stream-Quality Accounting
Network (NASQAN)—Collects water
quality data at fixed sites on major rivers
nationwide.
• National Water Quality Laboratory-
Provides analyses of a full range of
contaminants, with extremely low detection
limits, for detection of trends invisible when
normal detection limits are used.
• Toxic Substances Program—Specific studies
on fate and transport of toxic materials.
• Data collection, storage, and retrieval—The
USGS routinely collects and stores a vast
amount of data on streamflow, aquifers, and
water quality.
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• Geographic Information Systems (GIS)—
Most spatial data at USGS are stored in
digital form, and can be used in a GIS.
2. How the USGS Can Assist States in
Designing and Implementing Source-
Water Assessment and Protection Programs:
• Delineation—USGS can delineate drainage
areas for surface water and contributing
areas for wells. For larger drainage basins,
delineations are already available in USGS
hydrologic unit maps.
• Identification of significant potential sources
of contamination—Some USGS GIS layers
are available showing certain types of
potential sources of contamination. USGS
can also work with States to produce the
required maps.
• Susceptibility analysis—USGS can use
existing and new studies of watersheds,
aquifers, land use, and contaminant fate and
transport to determine susceptibility of
drinking water sources to contamination.
The USGS can also sample streams and
wells to determine occurrence patterns and
trends in contaminant concentrations. Such
studies in Washington and New Jersey have
resulted in savings, in the form of monitoring
waivers, that more than covered the cost of
the studies.
• Implementation and protective measures—
USGS can participate hi scientific review of
source-water protection plans.
3. How State Assessments can be useful to
USGS: .
Assessments can help to identify priority areas
with specific water-quality problems that
require additional study.
4. USGS contacts:
For National inquiries related to drinking water,
contact
Glenn Patterson, USGS
Drinking Water Coordinator
412 National Center
Reston,VA 20192
Phone 703-648-6876
Fax 703-648-5722
E-mail gpatteir@usgs.gov
For inquiries related to a particular State, use
these contacts, which are kept in an updated list
at http://water.usgs.gov/public/staterep.html
5. USGS primary partners at the State and
local level:
State and local government agencies dealing
with water issues
State Geologists
Water Resources Research Institutes
Other Federal agencies (Slate and local
offices)
Indian Tribes
Universities
Intergovernmental and public partnerships
on water and environmental issues
6. Other stakeholders with an interest in USGS
activities:
The public
Environmental and Industry groups
Consulting firms
Congress
Professional organizations
National Wetlands Inventory
U.S. Fish and Wildlife, DOI
Information on how to order wetland maps and
digital data would be useful to the States
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because wetlands are important in maintaining
and protecting surface water quality.
1) How can the National Wetlands Inventory
assist States implement source water
assessment and protection programs?
Answer: The National Wetlands Inventory
Project provides maps and digital
wetland data that provides the site
specific classification and locational
information communities need to
protect the wetlands that are
protecting, maintaining, and
improving their surface water quality.
Wetland maps are a prerequisite for
watershed planning. Draft or final
maps are available for 88 percent of
the conterminous United States, 30
percent of Alaska and all of Hawaii.
Ordering information for paper maps
is available by calling 1-800-USA-
Maps.
2) How can State Assessments be useful to the
National Wetlands Inventory?
Answer: Assessments would identify key areas
where there is a need to complete or
update wetland mapping or digitizing
of existing maps so they can be made
available over the Internet.
3) Who should States contact at the National
Wetlands Inventory with which to coordinate
source water assessments?
Answer: The National Wetlands Inventory has
Regional Wetland Coordinators
located in the Fish and Wildlife
Service Regional Offices.
4) Who are your primary partners at the local
level?
Answer: The National Wetlands Inventory's
primary funding support has been at
the Federal and State levels. Some
funding has been provided by water
boards such as Denver, cities such as
Portland and New York, counties in
Virginia and North Carolina,
universities, utility companies, and
Indian Tribes.
State Contacts
Arizona Game & Fish
Colorado Division of Wildlife
Delaware Dept. of Natural Resources and
Environmental Control
Florida Dept. of Environmental Regulation
Florida Dept. of Natural Resources
Georgia Dept. of Natural Resources
Hawaii Office of Environmental Quality
Illinois Natural History Survey
Indiana Dept. of Natural Resources
Maine Office of GIS
Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources
Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources
Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources
Nebraska Conservation Survey Division
New Jersey
New York Wildlife Resources Center
North Carolina Center for Geographic
Information & Analysis
North Carolina Dept. of Natural Resources
Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources
Oregon Dept. of Energy
South Carolina Land Resources Commission
South Carolina Water Resources Commission
South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency
Utah
Virginia Dept. of Conservation & Recreation
Virginia Dept. of Game & Inland Fisheries
Washington Dept. of Ecology
Washington Dept. of Natural Resources
Washington Dept. of Wildlife
West Virginia Dept. of Water Resources
Wyoming Game & Fish
Wyoming Dept. of Environmental Quality
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5) Who are other Stakeholder's -with a primary
interest in yaw Agency's activities?
Answer:
U.S. Air Force
U.S. Air National Guard
U.S. Army
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
U.S. Coast Guard
U.S. Navy
U.S. Dept. of Agriculture-Forest Service
U.S. Dept. of Agriculture-Soil Conservation
Service
U.S. Dept. of Commerce-National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
U.S. Dept. of Energy
U.S. Dept. of Interior-Bureau of Land
Management
U.S. Dept of Interior-Bureau of Reclamation
U.S. Dept. of Interior-Fish and Wildlife Service
U.S. Dept. of Interior-National Biological
Service
U.S. Dept. of Interior-National Park Service
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
U.S. Dept. of Transportation
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Appendix A
Outreach Process for Notice and
Comment by Stakeholders
• Final Guidance for State Source Water Assessment and Protection Programs (including Source Water
Petition Programs) will be published on or before August 6,1997.
• Stakeholder Meetings To Assist EPA With the Draft and Final Guidance:
• Prior to Publishing the Draft Guidance in 1997
- National Stakeholders Meeting — National Organizations of States, Water Suppliers and
Environmentalists, Others (January 7/8,1997)
- 2 Large System Seminars - (systems serving over 50,000 people) ( December, 1996 in
Tempe, Arizona, and January, 1997 in Portland, Oregon )
- March 13/14 meeting of the National Drinking Water Advisory Council's Working
Group on Source Water Protection.
• Between Publishing the Draft and Final Guidance in 1997
- 15-20 EPA Regional Stakeholder Meetings (April and May, 1997)
- 1 large systems seminar (April, 1997)
- Early June meeting of the National Drinking Water Advisory Council's Working Group
on Source Water Protection.
- Late June meeting of the NGA, ASIWPCA, GWPC, ASDWA, ECOS, NASDA on
source water assessment and protection program issues.
We will post availability of the Draft guidance and announce the meetings on EPA's Internet homepage cited in the
introduction to this guidance. Below is our tentative schedule for producing the required source water assessment
and protection guidance.
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SDWA Assessment and Protection Guidance
Tentative Schedule for Production in 1996 and 1997
DATE
OCTOBER 11
OCTOBER 14 -16
NOVEMBER 6
NOVEMBER 15
DECEMBER 1
DECEMBER 28
JANUARY7/8
JANUARY 17
April 4, 1997
APRIL -MAY, 1997
JUNE 13, 1997
AUGUST 6, 1997
OR BEFORE
EPA ACTION
Send Draft Discussion Guide to ASDWA, ASIWPCA and GWPC Lead
Committee Chairs Asking For Comments by November 15
ASDWA Meeting Discussion
Regional Branch Chiefs Meeting
State Comments Back
Comments by other Reviewers
Send Discussion Guide to All Stakeholders for the January 7/8,
National Stakeholders Meeting
1997
National Stakeholders Meeting
Deadline for any Additional Written Comments from the Stakeholders
Meeting
Draft Guidance Released
Regional Stakeholders Meetings
Final Comments from Everyone :
- Including Regional Summaries of Stakeholder's Meetings
(1 Summary Per Region)
Final Version Mailed to Stakeholders
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Appendix C
Enhancing Topographic Delineations for
Source Water Protection Areas
As States delineate SWPAs for surface-water
based sources of drinking water, they may want
to consider using buffer/setback zones, time-of-
travel zones and/or use modeling techniques.
While these are not delineation techniques, they
can assist States in defining "critical areas" for
management actions. Below is information that
can assist States in using these techniques.
Buffers/Setbacks
A typical buffer/setback zone for source water
protection is a strip of vegetated land generally
SO to 400 feet hi width along the shore of a
stream or reservoir that is upstream of a public
water supply intake. Analogously a
buffer/setback can be delineated for a reservoir.
Determination of the width of buffer zones is
often based on consideration of such factors as:
the topography of the land, the local land uses,
the political and legal feasibility of setting aside
such buffers, slope, size of the stream and land
ownership rights.
Surface water buffer zones and setbacks are
often used as a means of reducing the adverse
impacts of runoff on drinking water sources.
The primary purpose of buffers/setbacks is to
filter sheetflow and, to a lesser extent,
encourage increased ground water infiltration.
Buffer zones ("green areas") may be intended to
serve several functions such as: wildlife habitat,
stream bank integrity, protection of hyporheic
zone for aquatic life, residential or commercial
exclusion or source water protection.
Time-of-Travel
States may delineate SWPAs for spill and other
emergency response activities. The following
describes the use of time-of-travel studies for
defining SWPAs for emergency planning. In
this method, the time of travel (TOT) of flow in
a stream is calculated between the drinking
water intake and a poirit(s) upstream. This
method does not actually result in a SWPA
delineation; rather, the method is based on the
length and velocity of a stream between the
point of interest and an upstream monitoring
location. It is the stream-flow travel time
between those two points that provides the
opportunity for managers to respond to a
contamination event. Use of this method would
be of greatest importance for drinking water
utilities tapping rivers or reservoirs designated
for commercial transport or other industrial and
municipal wastewater discharges. Water quality
flow models have been used to estimate the
travel time for a potential spill in a river to reach
a drinking water intake and to estimate the level
of contamination at the intake. These models
provide a means through which specific
hydrologic, geographic, and water quality
parameters can be factored into a determination
of the necessary size of a SWPA upstream from
a drinking water intake.
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Modeling
Ground water discharge and surface runoff
models may also be used to assess the potential
impact of individual contaminant sources, and
to identify watershed areas with the greatest
potential impact on source water quality.
Modeling can be used in conjunction with
source water assessments to enhance source
water quality protection efforts.
A variety of models have been developed to
assess the impact of changing land use on
surface water quality. Simpler models require
less detailed, site-specific hydrologic
information and provide more generalized and
descriptive output. More complex models
require more extensive input data and provide
output with greater predictive capability and site
specificity. Site specific output can provide
locations of contamination sources and yield
relatively accurate predictions of variable flows
and water quality at any point in a watershed.
Contaminant source loading models estimate
chemical loading rates to surface water. These
methods are most useful for estimating variation
in loading rates as a function of changing land
uses within the watershed. For example, as
shown in Figure C-l, land may be divided into
residential, commercial-, industrial-, and
agricultural-use parcels. If agricultural land is
subdivided by soil type, crop type, and land
management practice, the nonpoint source
loading rates for runoff, sediment yield, and
ground-water discharge may be estimated for
each parcel type. These parcel estimates are
summed to obtain the total loading rate for the
watershed or watershed areas.
Figure C-l. Land Use Parcels
Several States, local governments, water
suppliers, and watershed management
authorities have begun modeling to identify
those land uses that have the greatest potential
impact on source water quality. Modeling can
identify areas within die watershed that should
.be incorporated into the SWPA. Modeling can
also be used to assess the impact of differing
land management strategies within the SWPA to
foster more effective source water protection.
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Appendix D
Conjunctive Delineation of the Zone of
Ground Water Contribution and the Area of
Surface Water Contribution to
Public Water Systems
There are numerous hydrogeologic settings
where there is a significant hydraulic connection
between a stream or lake and an underlying
aquifer. Alluvial sand and gravel deposits
•within the floodplains and terraces of river
valleys typically function as high yield aquifers
and are commonly used to produce municipal
supplies. Ground water in these deposits
typically exhibits a strong degree of hydraulic
connection with the stream. Along many
reaches, stream water routinely moves between
the aquifer and the stream.
Ground water that occurs in fractured rocks in
mountainous areas is also typically strongly
connected to streams. Most of the flow in a
mountain stream results from ground water
discharge. Most of the water that infiltrates into
fractured rocks above the stream valley will
eventually discharge to the stream. To establish
a Source Water Protection Area (SWPA) to
protect public water supplies (PWSs) from all
significant potential sources of contamination, it
is important to determine if the PWS is
providing water from both ground water and
surface water sources.
Conjunctive delineation of (SWPAs) is the
integrated delineation of the zone of ground-
water contribution and the area of surface-water
contribution to a public water supply. States
that choose to consider the hydraulic connection
between ground water and surface water when
delineating a SWPA, will afford themselves the
opportunity to reduce contamination from
ground-water and from surface-water sources.
1. Considerations for Conjunctive
Delineation for Systems Primarily
Supplied By Surface Water
• Contaminants in ground water may
ultimately be discharged into surface water.
As ground water flows towards discharge
points, the water is exposed to processes that
provide some degree of in-situ remediation
for many contaminants. Thus, the longer the
ground-water travel time between the site of
contaminant entry to an aquifer and the site
of potential discharge to surface-water, the
more likely that such contaminants will be
remediated before discharge.
• The water supplied by a surface-water intake
may have a significant ground-water
component. In some locations, during part
of the year, a major component of (and
possibly all) surface water is ground water
base flow. The USGS has estimated that
about 40 percent of stream baseflow in the
United States is ground water.
• The region (in the absence of engineered
surface-water diversions) of surface-water
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contribution to a drinking-water intake is the
total watershed area uphill of the surface-
water intake. The region contributing
ground water is the entire portion of the
ground-water basin upgradient of the
surface-water intake. Complete protection of
the intake should encompass these two
regions. However, sources of contamination
entering the ground water at a significant
distance from an intake, may undergo in-situ
remediation that is sufficient for the ground
water to meet drinking-water standards at the
intake.
• Although the geographic location of a
surface-water divide may approximately
coincide with that of a ground-water divide
in an underlying water-table aquifer,
colocation frequently does not occur.
Absence of colocation results naturally,
reflecting the hydraulic properties of the
aquifer, distribution of recharge, etc.
Divides may also fail to coincide as the
result of discharge from large-capacity wells,
or the artificial recharge of large volumes of
water to the aquifer. Additionally, seasonal
changes in the position of ground-water
divides is not unusual. States making the
initial assumption that ground-water and
surface-water divides approximately
coincide, may want to consider further
hydrogeologic investigation to determine if
this assumption is correct. This is
particularly important where wells are
located near enough to ground-water divides
to cause displacement of the divide (the
divide will be moved away from a pumping
well.)
For further discussion of conjunctive delineation
of SWPAs, the reader is referred to the
document "Delineation of Source Water
Protection Areas for Critical Use Sites In Or
Near Surface Water; A Conjunctive Approach
for Ground Water and Surface Water: A Guide
for Managers" (in progress, 1997).
2. Considerations for Conjunctive
Delineation for Systems Primarily
Supplied By Ground Water
• The water supplied by a PWS well often
includes a surface water component.
• During periods of high streamflow, surface
water will migrate into ground water, the
higher the stream stage, the further the
potential migration of stream water. Streams
that are "perched" (streams above the
saturated zone) may leak water and
contaminants through the unsaturated zone to
an underlying unconfined aquifer.
• The pumping of wells in the vicinity of
surface water may induce infiltration of the
surface water into the ground-water and
subsequently into the pumping well.
• A component of the water discharged by a
well whose wellhead protection area
(WHPA) intersects a stream in good
hydraulic connection with the aquifer, will
usually have a shorter travel time than the
time-of-travel designated in the State/local
wellhead protection program.
• A conjunctively delineated SWPA for a PWS
well could include, 1) the WHPA plus the
entire watershed area upstream of the
intersection of the WHPA and the stream, or
2) the WHPA plus the entire watershed area
upstream of the intersection of the WHPA
and the area where there is significant
surface water discharge to ground water.
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Appendix E
Potential Sources of Contamination Found in
Wellhead Protection Areas and
in Watersheds
Wellhead Protection Areas
Airports
Animal burial areas and feedlots
Asphalt plants
Auto repair shops
Boat yards
Car washes
Cemeteries
Chemical manufacture, storage, and application
(pesticides, fungicides, fertilizers, etc.)
Construction areas
Dry cleaning establishments
Educational institutions (labs, lawns, and
chemical storage areas)
Electrical and electronic products and
manufacturing
Fire training facilities
Foundries
Fuel storage systems
Furniture and wood strippers and refinishers
Gasoline stations
Ground water and surface water interactions
Hazardous waste management units
Household hazardous products
Irrigation
Jewelry and metal plating
Laundromats
Machine and metalworking shops
Manufacturing and distribution sites for
cleaning supplies
Manure spreading and pits
Medical institutions
Mining and mine drainage
Municipal incinerators
Municipal wastewater and sewer lines
Municipal landfills
Natural leaching (uranium and radon gas)
Paint shops
Petroleum products production, storage, and
distribution centers
Photography establishments and printers
Pipelines (oil, gas, and coal slurry)
Railroad tracks and yard maintenance
Recycling reduction facilities
Research laboratories
Road de-icing activities (road salt)
Road maintenance depots
Salt-water intrusion and brackish water
upconing
Scrap and junkyards
Septic systems, cesspools, and water softeners
Septic lagoons and sludge
Sewer lines
Stormwater drains and retention facilities
Swimming pools (chlorine)
Toxic and hazardous spills
Transfer stations
Wells (operating and abandoned)
Wood preserving facilities
Watersheds
Airports
Agricultural crop land use/pesticide/herbicide
use
Concentrated animal facilities of
chemicals/toxic materials
De-icers (applications on roadways and parking
lot
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Watersheds (cont)
Disposal of municipal/industrial refuse in
conveyance channel
Dumping
Erodible soils
Fires
Geologic hazards such as earthquakes, floods,
landslides, etc.
Grazing
Ground water which influences surface water
quality
Hazardous waste disposal facilities
Industrial area runoff
Logging
Military Installations .
Mine runoff
Pipelines (petroleum and chemical)
Reclaimed water for irrigation
Recreational use
Seawater intrusion
Septic tanks, systems
Solid waste disposal facilities
Steep slopes
Storage Facilities (Petroleum and chemical)
Superfund Sites
Traffic and Transportation accidents/spills
Urjban runoff
Wastewater treatment plants
Wastewater collection systems
Wildlife (e.g. concentrations of geese)
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Appendix F
Factors to Consider When Doing An Adequate
Contamination Source Inventory and
Adequate Susceptibility Analysis
States, or their entities delegated to do
assessments or portions of assessments, will be
accomplishing contamination source inventories
and susceptibility analyses for each delineated
SWPA. States will have to consider many
factors when considering a class of land uses or
a site. Below is a listing of factors that States
should consider.
For Ground Water and Surface Water
Sources of Drinking Water
• Land-use zoning
• Existing best management practices or
controls
• Surface water/ground water interaction
• Has any on-site landfilling, land treating, or
surface impounding of waste, other than
landscape waste or construction and
demolition debris taken place, and will such
circumstances continue?
• Are there any sand and gravel excavations
which expose the water table and are used
for illicit dumping?
• Are there major transportation corridors
(roads, railroads, airports) where potential
spills of hazardous substances or petroleum
products might contaminate the drinking
water source?
• Sludge disposal areas
• Are there utilities right-of-ways using
pesticides?
• Are there permitted wastewater discharges
(NPDES) which are of concern?
Are there agricultural, landscaping, or golf
course activities which might lead to releases
of nutrients (fertilizers, manure) or pesticides
to ground water or stormwater runoff?
Are there concentrated releases of nitrogen
to ground water from agricultural practices,
landscaping practices, or dense
developments relying on cesspools or septic
systems?
Are there portions of the SWPA with high
percentages of impervious surfaces which
might lead to increased stonnwater runoff
and decreased ground water recharge?
Location of stormwater discharges? Are
there any discharges directly into a surface
water supply or near a well?
Are there road salt storage areas?
Are there activities which involve the use,
handling, or disposal of hazardous
substances or petroleum products?
Are there any on-site piles of special or
hazardous waste present, will such
circumstance continue, and is there piling of
other wastes which could cause
contamination of ground water?
Are there any underground storage tanks
present at the site, and will such
circumstances continue?
Is the use and management of above ground
tanks consistent with best management
practices?
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Has any on-site release of any hazardous
substance or petroleum taken place which
was of sufficient magnitude to contaminate
ground waters (known Federal or State
hazardous waste sites)?
Has any situation(s) occurred at this site
which resulted in a "release" of any
hazardous substances or petroleum?
Have any hazardous substances or
petroleum, which were released, come into
direct contact with the ground surface at this
site? (Note—do not automatically exclude
paved or otherwise covered areas that may
still have allowed chemical substances to
penetrate into the ground).
Have any of the following actions/events
been associated with the release(s) referred
to above?
- Hiring of a cleanup contractor to
remove obviously contaminated
materials including subsoils
- Replacement or major repair of
damaged facilities
- Assignment of in-house maintenance
staff to remove obviously contaminated
materials including subsoils
- Designation of the release as
"significant"
- Reordering or other replenishment of
inventory due to the amount of
substance lost
- Temporary or more long-term
monitoring of ground water at or neat
the site
- Stopped the use on an on-site or nearby
water well because of offensive
characteristics of the water
- Coping with fumes from subsurface
storm drains or inside basements, etc.
- Signs of substances leaching out of the
ground along the base of slopes at other
low points on or adjacent to the site
- On-site release(s) that may have been of
sufficient magnitude to contaminate
ground waters.
Water quality monitoring and use
assessments (305(b) Report)
• Hydrogeologic sensitivity
• Probable sources and causes of use
impairments (305(b) Report)
• Well integrity
• Natural sources of contamination
Additional Factors For Surface Water
Sources of Drinking Water
• Steep slopes
• Clay content of soils or soils that are highly
erodible (critical areas)
• Endangered ecosystems
• Recreational areas (campgrounds/trailer
parks or greenway trails nearby a reservoir or
tributaries)
• Tributaries or areas of a reservoir with high
bacterial readings
• Land uses (that may not have zoning)
• Biological steam or lake assessments (305(b)
Report)
• Modeling
• Upstream NPDES discharges
• Has any on-site landfilling, land treating, or
surface impounding of waste, other than
landscape waste or construction and
demolition debris taken place, and will such
circumstances continue?
• Is the use and management of containers and
above ground tanks consistent with best
management practices?
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Appendix H
TIMETABLE FOR CERTAIN ACTIONS
UNDER THE 1996 SDWA AMENDMENTS
EPA ACTION ITEM
DATE DUE
CITE
Drinking Water State Revolving Fund
Guidelines for State Revolving Fund
Approve Grant Agreements with States
Report to Congress — Needs Survey
Conduct a needs survey for Indian Tribes, and evaluate
the public water systems on Tribal lands that pose the
greatest threat to public health
Develop allotment formula for States based on Needs
Survey
Publish guidelines for small system water
conservation programs
Determine if States have met capacity development
requirements for the purpose of withholding SRF
funds
Report to Congress — Transfer of Funds
Determine 'State compliance with 'Operator
Certification requirements for SRF withholding
determinations
Report to Congress -- Evaluation of effectiveness of
State loan funds
Audit all State loan funds
unspecified — EPA
released final guidelines
2/28/97
unspecified
February, 1997, and
every 4 years thereafter
February, 1997 and every
4 years thereafter
For FY'98 and annually
August, 1998
Start in FY'99
August, 2000
February, "2001 \
Submit with FY'2003
budget
"Periodically"
1452(g)(3)
1452(a)(l)(A)
1452(h)
1452(i)(4)
1452(a)(l)
(D)(ii)
1455(a)
1452(a)(l)(G)
302(b)
1419(b)
1452(r)
1452(g)(4)
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EPA ACTION ITEM
DATE DUE
CITE
Contaminant Selection and Standard Setting Authority
Publish a list of contaminants not subject to any
proposed or final national primary drinking water
regulation (must include sulfate)
Make determinations of whether or not to regulate at
least 5 contaminants from above list
Propose MCLG and national primary drinking water
regulation for any contaminant selected from above
Final MCLG and rule
Publish remaining MCLGs and promulgate national
primary drinking water regulations for contaminants
listed in the 1986 SDWA: aldicarb, atrazine, nickel,
radionuclides
Review and revise national primary drinking water
standards, as appropriate
Review and concur with State determinations on the
use of alternatives to filtration for systems with
undeveloped, uninhabited watersheds '.
Promulgate a regulation for filter backwash recycling
within the treatment process of a PWSS, unless
addressed in SWTR '•
February, 1998, and
every 5 years thereafter
August, 2001, and every
5 years thereafter
August, 2003
February, 2005
unspecified
Every 6 years
unspecified
August, 2000
1412(b)(l)(B)
(0
1412(b)(l)(B)
(ii)(I)
I412(b)(l)(E)
1412(b)(l)(E)
1412(b)(2)
1412(b)(9)
1412(b)(7)
1412(b)(14)
Arsenic, Sulfate, Radon, Disinfection Byproducts
Develop plan for additional research on cancer risks
from exposure to low levels of arsenic (consult with
NAS, other stakeholders)
Propose standard for arsenic
Promulgate final standard for arsenic
Complete sulfate study with CDC to establish a
reliable dose-response relationship
Contract with NAS to conduct peer-reviewed risk
assessment on radon
February, 1997
January 1, 2000
January 1, 2001
February, 1999
unspecified, but timely
completion to allow for
following item
1412(b)(12)
(AXii)
1412(bX12)
(AXiv)
1412(b)(12)
(AXv)
1412(b)(12)(B)
1412(b)(13XB)
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EPA ACTION ITEM
Publish health risk reduction benefits and cost analysis
for potential radon standards
Propose radon standard
Promulgate final radon standard
Promulgate with final an alternative MCL and publish
guidelines for multi-media mitigation measures if
MCL for radon "is more stringent than necessary to
reduce the contribution to inside air"
Approve/disapprove radon mitigation programs
Review State radon mitigation programs
Promulgate Interim Enhanced Surface Water
Treatment Rule
Promulgate Stage I Disinfectants and Disinfection
Byproducts Rule
PROMULGATE FINAL ENHANCED SURFACE
WATER TREATMENT RULE
Promulgate Stage II Disinfection Byproducts Rule
GROUND WATER DISINFECTION RULE:
ISSUE REGULATIONS REQUIRING
DISINFECTION FOR ALL PUBLIC WATER
SUPPLY SYSTEMS, INCLUDING SURFACE
WATER SYSTEMS AND "AS NECESSARY"
GROUND WATER SYSTEMS, AND
PROMULGATE CRITERIA FOR
DETERMINING WHETHER TO REQUIRE IN
GROUND WATER SYSTEMS
DATE DUE
February, 1999
August, 1999
August, 2000
August, 2000
Within 180 days of
receipt.
Every 5 years
November, 1998
November, 1998
November, 2000
May, 2002
"After August, 1999"
By May, 2002
CITE
1412(b)(13)(C)
1412(bX13)(D)
1412(b)(13)(E)
1412(b)(13)(F)
1412(b)(13)(G)
1412(b)(13)(G)
1412(b)
1412(b)
1412(b)
1412(b)
1412(b)(8)
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EPA ACTION ITEM
DATE DUE
CITE
Public Notification/Consumer Awareness
Regulation for Public Notification
Annual Report on summarizing and evaluating State
compliance reports
Regulation on Consumer Confidence Reporting
Unspecified
July 1, 1998-first annual
August, 1998
1414(c)(2)(A)
1414(c)(3)(B)
1414(c)(4)(A)
Monitoring
Review and revision of existing requirements for not
fewer than 12 contaminants — CMR
Issue guidelines for alternative monitoring
requirements - PERMANENT (PMR)
Review and may approve alternative monitoring
requirements for a State not exercising primary
enforcement authority
Issue a list of no more than 30 contaminants to be
monitored by PWSs and to be included in national
occurrence data base
Establish National Occurrence Database. Periodically
solicit recommendations for inclusion of additional
contaminants
Issue regulations establishing criteria for a monitoring
program for unregulated contaminants
Review new analytic methods and may approve more
accurate, cost-effective methods
August, 1998
August, 1997
First every 3 years, then
every 5 years
August, 1999, then every
5 years
August, 1999
unspecified
unspecified
1445(a)(l)(D)
1418(b)(2)(A)
1418(b)(4)
1445(a)(2XB)
1445(g)
1445(aX2)(A)
1445(i)
Drinking Water Studies and Research
Develop study plan to support development of the
DBPs/microbial pathogen rules (hi consultation with
the Secretaries of HHS and Agriculture)
Implement M/DBP research consistent with plan
Conduct waterborne disease occurrence studies for at
least 5 major U.S. communities or PWSs
Conduct studies to identify subpopulations at greater
risk and report to Congress
Prepare a report with CDC on findings of waterborne
disease occurrence studies
February, 1997
unspecified
August, 1998
August, 2000, and
periodically
August, 2001
1458(c)
1458
1458(dXD(A)
1458(aX2)
1458(d)(l)
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EPA ACTION ITEM
Conduct research on the mechanisms by which
chemicals cause adverse effects and on new
approaches for studying the adverse effects on
complex mixtures in drinking water
Establish a national training and public education
campaign to educate professional health care providers
and the general public about waterborne disease and
symptoms (with CDC)
Develop a strategic plan for drinking water research
and transmit this plan to Congress
DATE DUE
unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
CITE
1458(b)
1458(d)
Sec. 202 of Title
2
Capacity Development and Operator Certification
Complete review of existing State capacity
development efforts and publish information to assist
States and PWSs with capacity development efforts
Publish guidance describing legal authorities and other
means to ensure new CWSs and NTNCWSs
demonstrate capacity (developed in consultation with
the States)
Provide initial funding for "1 or more" university-
based environmental finance centers for activities that
provide technical assistance to State and local officials
in developing PWS capacity
Establish a national PWS capacity development
clearinghouse
Initiate partnership with States, PWSs, and the public
to develop information for States on recommended
operator certification requirements
Publish information on recommended operator
certification requirements, resulting from partnership
with States, public water systems, and the public
Publish guidelines specifying minimum standards for
certification and recertification of operators (in
cooperation with States)
Provide Operator Certification reimbursement grants
to States
February, 1997
August, 1998
unspecified
unspecified
February, 1997
February, 1998
February, 1999
unspecified
1420(dX2)(A)
(0
1420(d)(4)
1420(gXi)
1420(g)(2)
1420(d)(2)(A)
(ii)
1420(d)(2)(B)
1419(a)
1419(d)(l)
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EPA ACTION ITEM
DATE DUE
CITE
Source Water Protection
Guidance to Slates for developing source water
assessment programs
Guidance to States to assist in developing source water
petition programs
Approval of State programs for source Water
assessments
Conduct a demonstration project on the most effective
and protective means of assessing and protecting
source waters serving large metropolitan areas and
located on Federal lands
August, 1997
August, 1997
February, 1999
unspecified
1453(a)
1454(d)
1453(b)
1453(a)(5)
Small System Technology and Technical Assistance
Publish list of technologies that meet the SWTR for
systems serving 10,000-3,300 persons, 3,300-500
persons, and 500-25 persons
Publish information to assist States in developing
affordability criteria. Information to be developed in
consultation with States and Rural Utilities Service of
USDA
Publish list of technologies that achieve compliance
for existing rules (except SWTR) for systems serving
10,000-3,300, 3,300-500, 500-25
Publish guidance on variance technologies for existing
regulations for systems serving 10,000-3,300 persons,
3,300-500 persons, and 500-25 persons
Promulgate regulations for variances (in consultation
with States)
Review and approve State variances for systems 3,300
to 10,000
Review State variance programs to determine if the
variances granted by the State comply with the
requirements of SDWA
Make grants to universities to establish and operate
small public water system technology assistance
centers
August, 1997
February, 1998
August, 1998
August, 1998
August, 1998
unspecified
"periodically"
unspecified
1412(b)(4)(E)
(v)
1415(e)(7)(B)
1412(b)(4)
(E)(iii)
1412(b)(15)
1415(e)(7)(A)
1415(e)(9)
1415(e)(8)(A)
1420(f)(l)
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EPA ACTION ITEM
DATE DUE
CITE
Miscellaneous
Guidance establishing procedures for State application
for ground water protection grants
Evaluate State ground water protection programs.
Report to Congress
Award Wastewater Grants to Colonias
Consult on and Award Rural Alaska and Alaska
Native Grants
Grants to States for water supply systems and source
water quality protection programs for navigable waters
August, 1997
August, 1999
unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
1429(b)
1429(e)
307(b)
303(d)
401(a)
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Appendix T
Glossary Of Terms
Community Water System. A public water
system that serves at least 15 service
connections used by year-round residents of the
area served by the system or regularly serves at
least 25 year-round residents.
Class V UIC Rule. A rule under development
covering wells not included in Class I, II, III or
IV in which nonhazardous fluids are injected
into or above underground sources of drinking
water.
Non-Community Water System. A public
water system that is not a community water
system. There are two types of NCWSs :
transient and non-transient
Comprehensive State Ground Water
Protection Program. The program consists of
a set of six strategic activities which foster more
efficient and effective ground water protection
through more cooperative, consistent, and
coordinated operation of all relevant Federal,
State and local programs within a State. The
activities include establishing goals, setting
priorities, defining authorities, implementing
programs, coordinating information collection
and management, and operating public
education and participation activities.
Conservation Easements. Easements are an
interest in land that entitles a person to use the
land possessed by another (affirmative
easement), or to restrict uses of the land subject
to the easement (negative easement). A
conservation easement restricts the owner to
uses that are compatible with conservation
environmental values. Easements are governed
by State laws and thus there are variations
among the States in how they are administered.
Contamination Source Inventory. The
process of identifying and inventorying
contaminant sources within delineated SWPAs
through recording existing data, describing
sources within the SWPA, targeting likely
sources for further investigation, collecting and
interpreting new information on existing or
potential sources through surveys, and verifying
accuracy and reliability of the information
gathered.
Drinking Water State Revolviing Fund. The
Fund provides capitalization grants to States to
develop drinking water revolving loan funds to
help finance drinking water system
infrastructure improvements, source water
protection, to enhance operations and
management of drinking water systems, and
other activities to encourage public water
system compliance and protection of public
health. j
Ground Water Disinfection Rule. Under
Section 107 of the SDWA Amendments of
1996, the statute reads,"... the Administrator
shall also promulgate national primary drinking
water regulations requiring disinfection as a
treatment technique for all public water systems,
including surface water systems, and, as
necessary, ground water systems."
Maximum Contaminant Level! (MCL). In the
SDWA, an MCL is defined as "the maximum
permissible level of a contaminant in water
which is delivered to any user of a public water
system."
Operator Certification. Certification of
operators of community and nontransient,
noncommunity water systems as required by a
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State implementing an EPA approved Water
Operator Certification Program.
Primacy State. State that has the responsibility
for ensuring a law is implemented, and has the
authority to enforce the law and related
regulations.
Regional Stakeholder Meetings for Source
Water Protection. EPA's Regional office's
meetings with stakeholders interested and
involved in source water protection.
Sole Source Aquifer Designation. The surface
area above a sole source aquifer and its recharge
area.
Source Water Protection Area. The area
delineated by the State for a PWS or including
numerous PWSs, whether the source is ground
water or surface water or both, as part of the
State Source Water Assessment Program
approved by EPA under Section 1453 of the
SDWA.
Subwatershed. A topographic boundary that is
the perimeter of the catchment area of a
tributary of a stream.
State Source Water Petition Program. A
State program implemented in accordance with
the statutory language at Section 1454 of the
SDWA to establish local voluntary incentive-
based partnerships for source water protection
and remediation.
State Management Plan (SMP) Program. A
State management plan under FIFRA required
by EPA to allow States (e.g. States, tribes and
U.S. territories) the flexibility to design and
implement approaches to manage the use of
certain pesticides to protect ground water.
Surface Water Treatment Rule. The rule
specified maximum contaminant level goals for
Giardia lamblia, viruses and Legionella, and
promulgated filtration and disinfection
requirements for public water systems using
surface water sources or by ground water
sources under the direct influence of surface
water. The regulations also specified water
quality, treatment, and watershed protection
criteria under which filtration may be avoided.
Transient/Non-Transient Non-Community
Water Systems. Water systems that are non-
community systems: transient systems serve 25
of the same nonresident persons per day for
more than 6 months per year; nontransient
systems regularly serve at least 25 nonresident
persons per day for more than 6 months per
year. Transient non-community systems
typically are restaurants, hotels, large stores, etc.
Non-transient non-community systems typically
are schools, offices, churches, factories, etc.
Underground Injection Control Program.
The program is designed to prevent
underground injection which endangers drinking
water sources. The program applies to injection
well owners and operators on Federal facilities,
Native American lands, and on all U.S. land and
territories.
Watershed. A topographic boundary area that
is the perimeter of the catchment area of a
stream.
Watershed Approach. A watershed approach
is a coordinating framework for environmental
management that focuses public and private
sector efforts to address the highest priority
problems within hydrologically-defined
geographic areas, taking into consideration both
ground and surface water flow.
Watershed Area. A topographic area that is
within a line drawn connecting the highest
points uphill of a drinking water intake, from
which overland flow drains to the intake.
Wellhead Protection Area. The surface and
subsurface area surrounding a well or well field,
supplying a public water system, through which
contaminants are reasonably likely to move
toward and reach such water well or well field.
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Appendix J
Requirements and EPA Guidance for
Implementing Section 1453 of the Act for State
Source Water Assessment Programs
The statute says the States must:
1. "Submit ( a Source Water Assessment Program) to the Administrator within 18 months after the
Administrator's guidance is issued..."
Each State must include in their Submittal the following:
Description of public participation in development of program plan
Delineation Policy and Processes
Inventory and Susceptibility Analysis Policy and Processes
Big Water Bodies — Delineation, Inventory and Susceptibility
How assessments will be made available to the public
Timetable and Phasing plan for assessments to be completed.
Descriptions of programs for State and local prevention program efforts, i.e., whether and to
what extent prevention programs will be developed and implemented
Each State should include:
• State Program Goal (s)
• State and Local Roles/responsibilities
- Delegation or No Delegation
- If Delegation, to whom?
- What is delegated ?
• Policy and processes for coordination of State programs with each other
• Description of how Program will be financed.
• Process for reporting final assessments to EPA
• Process for updating assessments
• Policy/processes planned for coordination with Tribes, other States, Federal agencies, and other
countries (if applicable)
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2. "Delineate the boundaries of the assessment areas in such State from which one or more public water
systems in the State receive supplies of drinking water, using all reasonably available hydrogeologic
information on the source of the supply of drinking water in the State and the water flow, recharge,
and discharge and any other reliable information as the State deems necessary to adequately
determine such areas.."
Each State should:
• Use approved State Wellhead Program for Ground water systems
• If without an approved Wellhead Program, establish delineation policies for Ground Water
systems
• Establish topographic delineation policy for all surface water based systems and for surface
water/ground water combination systems.
3. "Identify for contaminants regulated under this title for which monitoring is required under this title
(or any unregulated contaminants selected by the State, in its discretion, which the State, for purposes
of this subsection, has determined may present a threat to public health), to the extent practical, the
origins within each delineated area of such contaminants to determine the susceptibility of the public
water systems n the delineated area to such contaminants..."
Each State must:
• Establish policy for these actions in SWPAs
• Define which contaminants will be the focus of inventories and susceptibility analyses
• Define what are "significant potential sources" of contaminants
• Use approved State Wellhead Protection Program for Ground water systems
• If without an approved Wellhead Protection Program, establish inventory and susceptibility
analysis policies and processes for Ground Water systems
• Establish policies and processes for surface water based systems of all sizes
• Define Susceptibility analysis: definitions must include hydrogeology and/or hydrology and be
for the purpose of determining the susceptibility of the State's PWSs to contamination from
inventoried sources
4. ( a State's program) " be deemed approved 9 months after the date of such submitial unless the
Administrator disapproves the program as provided for in Section 1428 (c)."
5. "Begin implementation of the program immediately after its approval."
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6. "Make the results of .the source water assessments conducted under this subsection available to the
public."
Each State must:
• Describe policy and processes for making the assessments available.
Each State should:
• Describe how they will create understandable assessments.
Map delineations
Map or list significant potential sources of contamination that are inventoried
• Describe the susceptibility analysis in a form understandable to the public
7. "To the maximum extent feasible,... establish procedures, including but not limited to the
establishment of technical and citizens advisory committees, to encourage the public to participate in
developing the... source water assessment programs under Section 1453. Such procedures shall
include notice and opportunity for public hearing on the Sate program before it is submitted to the
Administrator."
Each State must:
• Conduct adequate public participation including establishing a technical committee, a citizens
committee and a set of public hearings.
Each State should:
• Consider other methods to increase public participation.
• Get consideration in the approval process for having accomplished these actions when
developing or implementing its Wellhead Protection Program and/or Watershed Approach..
8. "States shall begin implementation of the program immediately after its approval, the
Administrator's approval of a State program under this subsection shall include a timetable,
established in consultation with the State, allowing not more than 2 years for completion after
approval of the program."
Each State must:
• Complete the assessments in the timetable that is in an approved State Program.
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Appendix K
List of Acronyms
ASDWA Association of State Drinking Water Administrators
ASIWPCA Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators
CERCLA Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act
CMR Chemical Monitoring Reform
CSGWPP Comprehensive State Ground Water Protection Program
CWS Community Water System
CWA Clean Water Act
DBP Disinfection By-Products
DWSRF Drinking Water State Revolving Fund
ECOS Environmental Council of the States
EPCRA Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act
FEFRA Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act
GIS Geographic Information System
GWDR Ground Water Disinfection Rule
GWPC Ground Water Protection Council
IUP Intended Use Plan
MCL Maximum Contaminant Level
NASDA National Association of State Departments of Agriculture
NGA National Governors' Association
NEP National Estuary Program
NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NPDES National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
NPS Nonpoint Source Program
NWAP National Watershed Assessment Project
ORSANCO Ohio River Valley Water and Sanitation Commission
PWS Public Water System
PWSS Public Water Supply Supervision Program
RCRA Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
SDWA Safe Drinking Water Act
SDWIS Safe Drinking Water Information System
SRF State Revolving Fund
SWAP Source Water Assessment Program
SWPA Source Water Protection Area
SWP Source Water Protection
SWQPPP Source Water Quality Protection Partnership Petitions
SWTR Surface Water Treatment Rule
TAD Technical Assistance Document
TMDL Total Maximum Daily Loading
TOT Time-of-Travel
UIC Underground Injection Control
USDA U.S. Department of Agriculture
UST Underground Storage Tank
WHP Wellhead Protection Program
WHPA Wellhead Protection Area
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