WaterNews for April 9, 1998

WaterNews is a weekly on-line publication that announces publications, policies, and activities of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Water.

EPA published a Notice of Data Availability for the Stage I Disinfection Byproducts (DBP) rule in the March 31, 1998 Federal Register (63 FR 15673) that is available on the Internet at http://www.epa.gov/safewater/mdbp/noda2.html. The 1996 Amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act require EPA to promulgate, by November 1998, rules simultaneously to increase public health protection from disinfection byproducts and the microbial pathogens that disinfectants are used to control. In November 1997, EPA published a Notice that described new data EPA had received since these two rules were proposed in 1994, along with information concerning the July 1997 recommendations of the Federal Advisory Committee on Microbial-Disinfections/Disinfection Byproducts on key issues related to the proposed rules (Stage 1 DBPR at 62 FR 59387, November 3, 1997; IESWTR at 62 FR 59485, Nov. 3, 1997 or on the Internet at http://www.epa.gov/safewater/mdbp/nodas.html).

Since the November 1997 Notice, EPA has received more new information on health effects. As a result of this new health effects information, the March 31 Notice indicates that EPA is considering several revisions to the 1994 proposal. The revisions involve a change in the potential cancer risk that can be attributed to exposure from DBPs in chlorinated water, and increases in the (non-regulatory) Maximum Contaminant Level Goals for two DBPs. However, the drinking water standards (Maximum Contaminant Levels) contained in the 1994 proposal and confirmed in the 1997 FACA process will not change.

The new notice is open for comment until April 30, 1998. Read the notice online (http://www.epa.gov/safewater/mdbp/dis. html) or request a copy from the Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 800-426-4791. Send written comments to: DBP NODA Docket Clerk, Water Docket (MC-4101), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 401 M Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20460. Submit electronic comments to ow-docket@epamail.epa.gov. Please use an unencrypted ASCII or Word Perfect format.

Marine Pollution Control in the Caribbean

EPA's Office of Water and Office of International Activities, in coordination with other Federal agencies, are preparing for a June 1998 meeting to conclude negotiations on an international agreement to prevent, reduce, and control marine pollution from land- based sources and activities in the Wider Caribbean Region (WCR). The agreement, under the coordination of the United Nations Environment Program's Caribbean Regional Coordinating Unit in Kingston, Jamaica, will be a new protocol to the Cartagena Convention, adopted in 1983 for the protection of the marine environment of the WCR. The WCR, with over 30 different governments, includes the Gulf of Mexico and East Coast of Florida, as well as the insular Caribbean, Central America and the North Coast of South America.

The United States position for the negotiations, led by EPA, is to create a level playing field in the WCR through the establishment of performance-based control measures. These performance measures will be developed on a source-specific basis following the evaluation of the most appropriate prevention, reduction, and control technologies available in the WCR. The first sources to be addressed, based on an evaluation of pollutant loadings in the WCR, will be domestic sewage and agricultural runoff. EPA's Office of Water has provided significant technical support to the countries of the WCR throughout the development of the land-based protocol and hopes to work with the Region to begin implementation later this year as part of the celebration of the International Year of the Ocean. For more information on the agreement, contact Tim Kasten at 202-260-5700.

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