The
National Environmental Training Center for Small Communities (NETCSC)
offers this helpful list of
rules and policies which describes applicable regulations; the
size of communities affected; specific rules for different size communities;
and current, upcoming, and future Safe Drinking Water Act and Clean Water
Act regulatory dates.
Download
the Small
Systems Compliance Chart
linked to the button below
by using Adobe Acrobat Reader®, free software that lets you
view and print Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files. Download
Adobe Acrobat Reader® for free here.
(Note: This chart has been updated, September 2005.)
Also
see Managing a Small
Drinking Water System: A Short Course for Local Officials
.
Safe Drinking Water Act
The two major federal statutes governing water are the SDWA and the CWA.
In general terms, the SDWA addresses drinking water, discharges to groundwater,
and the water systems that deliver drinking water to the public.
The SDWA is the primary federal law that ensures the quality of Americans'
drinking water. Under SDWA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) sets standards for drinking water quality and oversees the states,
localities, and water suppliers who implement those standards.
Clean
Water Act
The CWA is the counterpart to the SDWA. It regulates wastewater discharges,
supports the creation and rehabilitation of wastewater treatment plants,
and protects surface water.
Some overlap obviously exists between these two statutes. However, as
a basic rule, the SDWA is concerned with public health associated with
safe drinking water while the CWA has a broader goal of water clean enough
to fish and swim in.
Definitions
of Rule and Policy Stages
• Recent rule is a rule, statute, or policy recently
promulgated, for which at least one major compliance deadline has already
passed.
• Current rule is a rule, statute, or policy finalized
with multiple deadlines that had not passed as of January 1, 2003.
• Future rules are proposed statutes, rules, guidelines,
or policies that have not yet been finalized, but that will likely affect
small communities when they are finalized.
If you need to know what national water and wastewater regulations affect small communities, here is an easy way to find out. Following is a list of Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and Clean Water Act (CWA) rules and policies that may affect smaller communities.
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