Federal Register/Vol. 66. No. 103/Tuesday, May 29, 2001/Notices
29129
EPA816-Z-01-006
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
AGENCY
[FRL-€984-2]
Notice of Availability of Funds for
Source Water Protection
AGENCY: Environmental Protection
Agency.
ACTION: Notice.
SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) seeks proposals from
organizations interested in working with
communities across the nation that are
served by public water systems with
highly or moderately susceptible
drinking water sources to protect their
sources of drinking water from
contamination using a resource-based or
geographic/regional-based approach. All
communities involved in this effort
should have completed source water
assessments.
EPA is providing this financial
support to provide training and
technical assistance on innovative
approaches that will assist communities
across the country in establishing
sustainable efforts to address the
obstacles to preventing contamination of
their water resources and lowering the
susceptibility of source waters through
a resource-based or geographic regional-
based planning approach.
EPA is currently funding an
organization with a national network of
field technicians assisting communities
with watershed or resource-based
planning to protect their water supplies.
However. EPA is very interested in
funding training and technical
assistance across the country of
innovative types of approaches that can
be sustained by community efforts to
i prevent contamination of drinking water
j sources. EPA will award one grant that
j would complement the field technician
! approach.
I DATES: All project proposals must be
received by EPA no later than June 28,
2001.
ADDRESSES: Send five paper copies of
the complete proposal to: Debra
Gutenson (4606), Office of Ground
Water and Drinking Water, U. S. EPA,
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW,
Washington, DC 20460; and an
electronic copy of the completed
proposal to gutenson.debra@epa.gov.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Debra Gutenson, (202) 260-2733.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background
What Is a State or Tribal Source Water
Assessment?
As mandated by the Safe Drinking
Water Act Amendments of 1996, a
state's source water assessment
identifies the area that supplies water to
each public drinking water system
within the state, inventories the
significant potential sources of
contamination, and analyzes how
susceptible the drinking water source is
to contamination (often referred to as a
"susceptibility determination"). An
assessment is complete when the results
are made widely available to die public.
The Amendments allocated funding to
states to complete source water
assessments for all 170,000 public water
systems. The results of these
assessments are to be provided to each
water supplier and made widely
accessible to the public by 2003 (a few
states are scheduled for completion in
2004). EPA is also helping Tribes
complete source water assessments of
public water supplies in Indian
Country.
The assessments are intended to give
communities the information that they
need to make informed decisions to
prevent contamination of their drinking
water sources.
What Is a Highly or Moderately
Susceptible Drinking Water Source?
There is a high degree of flexibility in
how a state determines the
susceptibility of its public water
systems. EPA is providing this funding
to focus on highly or moderately
susceptible drinking water sources.
Therefore, the organization receiving
this funding would need to work with
the state source water programs to
identify those public water systems or
areas of the state that the state
determines are highly or moderately
susceptible to contamination and would
most benefit from source water
contamination prevention planning and
actions on a resource-based or
geographic/regional-based scale.
What Is Source Water Contamination
Prevention?
Source water contamination
prevention is the establishment of
sustainable local programs that lower
the risk of contaminants of concern
entering waters serving as public
drinking water supplies. Building upon
State or Tribal source water
assessments, more communities will be
examining what actions are necessary to
prevent contamination of their sources
of drinking water from the identified
potential threats, and thereby lower the
susceptibility of their water supply to
contamination, planning is a critical
first step so that a community or a group
of communities can use their limited
resources to most effectively target
sources of contamination that pose the
highest or most immediate threats.
Many communities need assistance
working through the planning process.
Implementing planned actions is the
next step and communities also need
assistance to develop sustainable efforts
to initiate and/or maintain lowered
susceptibility of their water supplies.
Ideally, communities with public
water systems that share the same
resource or common threats would work
together to identify their needs and
jointly set priorities. Some basic
planning elements include:
—An analysis of the state or tribal
source water assessment for the
systems involved in the planning.
—Identification of preventive action
priorities and recommended
management measures for addressing
them, including costs.
—Identification of an approach for
determining the effect of the proposed
priority actions on lowering the
threats to source waters.
—Identification of alternative water
supplies which would be needed in
the case of emergencies (contingency
planning).
Many communities also need
assistance in implementing their
priority preventive actions so a
community has the capacity to maintain
these actions once outside assistance is
complete. Preventive actions might
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Federal Register/Vol. 66, No. 103/Tuesday, May 29, 2001/Notices
include land acquisition, land use
ordinance establishment, leaky
underground gas tank removal from
sensitive areas, implementing best
management practices on agricultural
lands, relocation of high-risk threats, or
other management measures.
Additionally, many communities
need assistance in locating funding
sources for implementing and
sustaining management measures once
such preventive measures are identified.
There are many federal, state and non-
governmental sources of funding that
may be available.
What Is "Resource-Based or
Geographic/Regional-Based" Source
Water Contamination Prevention?
A resource-based or geographic/
regional-based approach to source water
contamination prevention promotes
partnerships between public water
systems that share a common source
(river, lake, spring or aquifer), share
common political or geographical
borders (counties or planning districts),
or face common contaminant threats.
The approach encourages joint
contamination prevention of water
supplies through a single planning and
prioritization process. A single water
system might also benefit from a
resource-based or geographic/regional-
based approach if the community
cannot adequately prevent
contamination of its drinking water
source without collaborating with
communities Ln the same watershed or
recharge area that may have more
control over potential threats to the
water supply.
While similar, a resource-based or
geographic/regional-based approach is
distinguished from watershed planning
by focusing also on ground water areas
that may not coincide with a watershed
boundary. It is distinguished from
traditional wellhead protection
planning by broadening the scope from
the traditional water system-by-system
planning approach to planning on a
shared resource scale that is based on
natural geological and hydrological
boundaries. However, a resource-based
or geographic/regional-based approach
is not necessarily the same as large
aquifer-wide planning (such as the
Edwards aquifer) or a large watershed
(e. g. Mississippi basin). These large
scales often are beyond the scope of
what is realistic or necessary for
preventing contamination of sources of
drinking water.
Why Is EPA Limiting the Focus to Highly
or Moderately Susceptible Source
Waters, and Using a Resource-Based or
Geographic/Regional-Based Approach ?
There are over 170,000 public water
systems in the United States. While
States have resources through the State
Revolving Fund Programs, EPA has
limited discretionary resources to help
local communities implement source
water contamination prevention for all
of these systems' sources of drinking
water. EPA believes that communities
with public water supplies that are most
susceptible to contamination should be
the communities first targeted for
assistance to identify and implement
preventive management measures to
protect their drinking water sources.
EPA is also trying to encourage a
resource-based or geographic/regional-
based approaches to source water
contamination prevention as an
alternative to the traditional water
system-by-system wellhead protection
approach. This "multi-system" planning
and action process can be more cost
effective because one contamination
prevention plan serves several systems.
Also, it can result in a level of
protection that is sometimes more
effective in lowering threats, since
threats to water quality are not always
close to the intake or wellhead.
Why Is EPA Looking for Innovative
Approaches in Addition to the National
Field Presence It Is Establishing?
EPA recognizes that there is no one
right approach to achieving source
water contamination prevention, and
wants to encourage innovative
approaches to establish sustainable local
efforts that deal with the variety of
factors affecting a community's success.
This funding will allow for training and
technical assistance of different
approaches that, after evaluation, may
be incorporated more broadly across the
country by the national field
technicians.
Funding Level and Statutory Authority
Funding is authorized under the Safe
Drinking Water Act 42 U.S.C. 300j-
l(c)(3)(C). Total funding available for
this proposal is 3398,000. EPA intends
to disburse these funds to one
organization.
Proposal Contents
Interested applicants should submit a
work plan that:
—Outlines the training and technical
assistance on innovative approaches
in assisting communities to engage in
community-based source water
contamination prevention planning
and priority action implementation
that could lead to sustained efforts
once outside assistance is complete.
Elements of training and technical
assistance should include: process for
choosing local communities or areas,
method for evaluation of state and
local source water assessment
information, development of a
contamination prevention plan,
methods of assisting communities
with innovative preventive
approaches that can be sustained, and
a process of evaluation for the
approaches used.
—Includes a budget of no more than
$398,000 for implementing the
approach over a two-year period.
—Provides biographies of the project
leaders.
Eligibility Criteria
The recipient organization must be a
not-for-profit organization, educational
institution, or public agency that meets
the following criteria:
—Experience providing technical
assistance to communities
implementing community-based
environmental programs that could
prevent contamination of drinking
water sources, ground water or
surface water quality.
—Experience working with
communities to do resource-based or
geographic/regional-based/watershed
or multi-jurisdictional planning, and
facilitating partnerships between
disparate stakeholders.
—Access to an established network
capable of working with communities
nationwide.
—Experience working with state
agencies.
—Experience handling large grants of
$200.000 or more, timely periodic
reporting of progress and displaying
the results of those grants to a wide
public.
EPA Project Proposal Evaluation
Criteria
EPA will evaluate all applicants based
on the following criteria:
—Clearly describes the training and
technical assistance that the
organization will provide on
innovative sustainable approaches
taken in a variety of regions across the
country to assist communities served
by public water systems that have
state-identified highly or moderately
susceptible source waters. Includes a
process for: choosing local
communities or areas, evaluating state
and local source water assessment
information, developing a
contamination prevention plan at the
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Federal Register/Vol. 66, No. 103 /Tuesday, May 29, 2001 /Notices 29131
geographic or regional level, assisting
communities with innovative
approaches or management actions
that can be sustained at the
community level, and evaluating the
approaches used. (50 points)
—Demonstrates knowledge of source
water contamination prevention and
ability to provide assistance to
communities to effectively prevent
contamination of their drinking water
supplies and address their highest
priority needs. (25 points)
—Describes approach to community
involvement in source water
contamination prevention planning.
(20 points)
—Leverages other resources as part of
the proposed approach. (5 points)
Application Procedure
Please submit five paper copies of a
proposal that includes a narrative work
plan and budget that does not exceed 10
single spaced pages, with one-inch
margins and 12-point font, stapled in
one corner with no binding. You may
also include up to 15 pages of
supplementary material, such as the
resumes and summaries of prior work.
Please also submit an electronic copy of
the completed proposal to Debra
Gutenson at
"Gutenson.Defara@epa.gov." After the
EPA review, the selected applicant will
be asked to submit an SF-424.
Schedule of Activities
This is the estimated schedule of
activities for review and award of
proposals:
—Day 30: Proposals due 30 days after
publication of Federal Register
notice.
—Day 44: All applicants notified of
government review status.
—Day 54: Selected applicant submits a
SF-424.
—Day 64: Selected application(s)
forwarded to EPA grants office.
—Day 94: Grants processing complete/
Congressional notifications.
Dated: May 15, 2001.
Cynthia C. Dougherty,
Director. Office of Ground Water and Drinking
Water.
[FR Doc. 01-13407 Filed 5-25-01: 8:45 ami
BILLING CODE 656O-50-P
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