Dan and Gerald,
The U.S.Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday unveiled a plan to help improve the quality of drinking water in the United States by protecting drinking water sources and tightening oversight of regulatory frameworks.
Drinking water quality has been a recent focus for communities, the agency and politicians in the wake of the Flint lead-tainted drinking water scandal In that case, the city swapped out a water supply it had been using safely for a new one that wasn’t treated properly and that exposed Flint residents, including young children and pregnant women, to toxic lead, leading to physical ailments and developmental difficulties.
The EPA said its Drinking Water Action Plan is aimed at helping all levels of government, utilities, community organizations and other stakeholders work together to increase the safety and reliability of drinking water. The planning document doesn’t come with any binding rules or regulations, but rather highlights what needs to be done.
“Ensuring that all Americans have access to safe drinking water is an absolute top priority for EPA,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a statement. “We must work collectively to seize opportunities for progress, partnership, and innovation in order to continue to provide our citizens with the safest drinking water in the world.”
According to the EPA, one important area to focus on is building capacity for water infrastructure financing and management in disadvantaged, small, low-income, economically stressed or environmentally overburdened communities. To that end, the agency recommended launching a national initiative to promote regional partnerships, updating and strengthening training programs for system operators, sharing best practices and establishing an online water funding portal.
It also said invested parties need to increase oversight of the Safe Drinking Water Act by including electronic reporting for SDWA compliance data, releasing triennial EPA reviews of state programs, and developing indicators to identify troubled systems.
Another priority should be strengthening source water protection by updating and acting on source water vulnerability assessments, building collaborative local partnerships for watershed protection, developing an initiative to enhance community resilience to climate and extreme weather events, launching source water monitoring pilot projects and promoting water efficiency and reuse.
The plan has already been met with approval from the Environmental Council of the States, which is composed of state environmental agency leaders.
Jeff
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