Inspector General Says EPA Inconsistent In SDWA Enforcement for Smaller Systems

摘要

The Environmental Protection Agency has inconsistently implemented its enforcement policy for small community drinking water systems in different regions and its actions warrant changes, the agency's Office of Inspector General said in a report released March 22. While the EPA successfully brought roughly 20 percent of the most serious small water entity violators of the Safe Drinking Water Act into compliance within a three-year period starting in 2011, that success rate was inconsistent across states, the report found. In states and territories examined by the inspector general-Texas, Kansas and Puerto Rico-enforcement techniques were either not used or weren't effective, and noncompliance resulted, it said.