Small Water Systems Urge EPA To Revisit SDWA Affordability Clauses

摘要

Small drinking water utilities are asking EPA and Congress to re-examine and clarify controversial language in the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) that provides states the authority to grant variances to systems that cannot afford to comply with drinking water standards, spurred by recent concerns about difficulties meeting the disinfection byproducts standard. SDWA allows regulators to grant variances to small public water systems when they cannot afford to comply with a primary drinking water standard as long as an "alternate" technology or compliance schedule would provide the maximum contaminant removal that is affordable and still protective of public health, even if that alternative does not remove the contaminant to the degree specified by SDWA regulations. "Affordable" is defined as exceeding 2.5 percent of a community's median household income (MHI).