Online information about regulations and guidelines can help communities plan

By Pam Kasey
NETCSC Contributing Writer

The need for small communities to plan for the future was a prominent theme that emerged during the 2002 Environmental Training Institute for Small Communities, sponsored by the National Environmental Training Center for Small Communities (NETCSC). During the luncheon panel discussion, Mark Richardson, senior technical assistance provider for the Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC) in Sacramento, California, listed planning as one of the three biggest challenges small communities face in water and wastewater management. Panelist Bill Urbigkit, director of public works for the city of Riverton, Wyoming, echoed Richardson’s thoughts: "Long-term planning, in my view, is invaluable."

Planning, however, depends on a thorough understanding of rules and regulations in a constantly changing regulatory climate. Community drinking water in particular is now subject to a steady stream of new regulation; at the same time, evolving wastewater requirements, while fewer, go deep.

Trainers, technical assistance providers, and community planners cannot escape the need to be familiar with current and upcoming rules for water and wastewater. Because most new regulation comes as the result of years of public dialog, the broad outlines of impending rules, and often some of the details, may be anticipated by planners. However, staying informed can mean a significant and ongoing time investment.

To help with this process, NETCSC has gathered information about evolving water and wastewater regulations and guidelines in one place on its Web site. Its "Regulatory Update" pages, located at www.nesc.wvu.edu/ netcsc/netcsc_regs.html, provide a list of water and wastewater rules and guidelines that affect small communities, with links to EPA and other sources online. We present here a brief overview of the current regulatory picture. For more information about any of the regulations and guidelines described, please visit NETCSC’s Web site.

Drinking water

The 1996 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) restructured national efforts to ensure quality water supplies; 2002 saw another important SDWA amendment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is implementing the amendments through rules and guidelines that affect public notification practices, a wide variety of drinking water contaminants, and treatment and distribution. Communities of all sizes across the nation will feel the effects of these amendments for years to come.

Some SDWA requirements are primarily administrative. EPA quickly came out with rules and guidelines to ensure competent operation of drinking water facilities and to secure consumers’ right to know what is in their drinking water. The 1998 Consumer Confidence Reports Rule, the 1999 Operator Certification guidelines, and the 2000 Public Notification Rule required operational changes at the local and state levels. The 2000 Minor Revisions to the Lead and Copper Rule were also largely administrative in nature.

More recently, SDWA amendments coming out of the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 require drinking water systems
to assess their vulnerability to intentional disruption of the drinking water supply and to prepare or revise emergency response plans accordingly. EPA and other organizations
(including NETCSC) are generating tools and guidelines to address these needs.

Most SDWA regulation, though, has to do with the water itself. For example, radionuclides and arsenic in drinking water were covered by new rules in 2000 and 2002, and a radon rule is under discussion. Awareness of the full
range of contaminants and treatment practices under EPA scrutiny is essential for community planning.

Planners can be informed well in advance of new treatment requirements by following EPA’s process of contaminant-by-contaminant regulation. Future regulation is likely to occur as a result of the Contaminant Candidate List (CCL). First published in the federal register in 1998 and scheduled for update every five years, the CCL inventories substances for which EPA is tracking occurrence, identifying up-to-date analytical methods and treatment options, and researching health effects, on the way to making regulatory determinations. Planners whose drinking water sources include substances on the CCL may be subject to future regulation.

Drinking water planning is simplified by an understanding that remaining SDWA-driven regulation falls together into what is known as the Microbial and Disinfection Byproducts Rule cluster. Recognizing a trade-off in drinking water quality between pathogens and disinfection byproducts, EPA is gradually introducing a suite of rules aimed at balance between the two.

Increasingly refined detection and removal techniques for microbes, especially Cryptosporidium and Giardia lamblia, and for disinfection byproducts like trihalomethanes and
haloacetic acids, are going to require many systems to invest significantly in testing and system upgrades. The Stage 1 Disinfection Byproducts Rule, the Filter Backwash
Recycling Rule, and the Long-term 1 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule have deadlines coming up in 2003 and 2004. Still in draft, though, are Stage 2 and Long-term 2 Rules, as well as a Groundwater Rule. Looking ahead to Microbial and Disinfection Byproducts Rule cluster requirements yet to come will help planners make decisions that serve their communities in the long run.

Wastewater

The EPA relies on the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting program to manage wastewater pollution discharges; planners in communities that discharge wastewater to surface waters can expect their systems to be subject to new permitting requirements in the coming years.

One of the nation’s most intractable and expensive water quality problems, aging stormwater and wastewater infrastructure and the contaminated wet weather discharges that result, is coming under greater NPDES regulatory control. This process began in 1990 with Stormwater Phase I, which regulated systems serving 100,000 and more, and continued in 1994 with the Combined Sewer Overflow Control Policy. Stormwater Phase II rules continue the process by drawing in smaller Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems, often referred to as MS4s, that fall within census-defined "urbanized areas," as well as other systems that states choose to designate.

Wastewater systems may be affected by the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program as well. New or more stringent NPDES limits brought about by TMDL reductions may require additional wastewater treatment; systems discharging to water bodies that appear as impaired on their states’303(d) lists should be aware that their permit limits could become more stringent in the future.

Staying informed, looking ahead

Whether you’re a trainer or technical assistance provider or you’re directly involved in preparing for your own community’s future, an awareness of these rules underlies successful planning. The good news is that some of the new regulations and guidance will make the job of planning easier in the long run.

The upcoming requirements for drinking water vulnerability assessments will improve community planning capacities. EPA’s new Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems Manual and its recently released Voluntary Guidelines for Management of Onsite and Clustered (Decentralized) Wastewater Treatment Systems will also help communities plan and manage onsite wastewater systems. And additional sanitary sewer overflow regulations currently being considered may include capacity, management, operation, and maintenance requirements aimed at preventing large-scale system deterioration.

Click here to view a pdf chart of "Regulations and Guidelines Potentially Affecting Small Communities"

This planning emphasis is also a characteristic of GASB 34—the Governmental Accounting Standards Board’s Statement 34, Basic Financial Statements. It is intended to make financial statements better reflect the financial health of government offices."GASB 34," Mark Richardson acknowledged during his panel presentation, "is going to help trigger more informed planning and management." The aspect of GASB 34 most relevant to utilities is that it requires inclusion of the value of infrastructure assets on the balance sheet.

But the great majority of water and wastewater regulatory changes are simply part of the unending process of improving public health. Anyone involved in planning will be
most successful by becoming familiar with current regulations and at the same time looking ahead to those that are still in development. Consider NETCSC’s "Regulatory Update" Web page a training and reference tool that will make that preparation easier.

Those wanting to learn more should attend NETCSC’s 2003 Environmental Training Institute for Small Communities set for July 29 to August 1 in Morgantown, West Virginia,
where classroom training on these rules will be held. Trainers and technical assistance providers who attend will have access to the workshop’s PowerPoint® materials for use in their own regulatory update presentations. If you cannot attend the 2003 Institute, however, do visit
NETCSC’s "Regulatory Update" Web pages
(www.nesc.wvu.edu/netcsc/netcsc_regs.html) for more detailed information about regulations and policies affecting small communities.

Editor’s Note: NETCSC is interested in receiving your feedback about our "Regulatory Update" Web pages so that we can make this resource as useful as possible for trainers, technical assistance providers, and planners at all levels of understanding. Please call (800) 624-8301 or (304) 293-4191 and speak to Craig Mains (ext. 5583) or John Hoornbeek (ext. 5579). You may also contact them via e-mail at cmains@mail.wvu.edu or jhoornbe@mail.wvu.edu.