EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) is urging the agency to make its processes for evaluating which contaminants may need regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) more efficient and transparent by streamlining the timing of various regulatory processes, better explaining the agency's decision-making process and scaling back the number of contaminants it considers for regulation to between 20 and 50. SDWA requires EPA to develop periodically a list of contaminants not currently subject to drinking water standards, and then make determinations for at least five contaminants as to whether they should be regulated. The agency published Feb. 4 in the Federal Register a draft of its fourth candidate contaminant list (CCL) which included 100 chemicals or chemical groups and 12 microbial contaminants. Forty items on the draft list were carried over from the CCL3 after the agency failed to make a determination on them.
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