Keynote Address to the National Rural Water Association Regulatory Symposium

Washington, DC - November 16, 2001

Delivered by G. Tracy Mehan, III

Assistant Administrator for Water, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Thank you for this opportunity to address the National Rural Water Association (NRWA) Symposium. It is indeed a pleasure to be here. The issues you are addressing in this symposium - - on health risks, regulatory benefits and costs - - are key to each of EPA's water programs. It is important that all of us in the clean and safe water business step back and take a strategic view of emerging trends and overriding issues. This symposium is an excellent forum to raise issues, stimulate debate, and promote possible new approaches for consideration. So, I welcome the opportunity to share with you my thoughts on these timely topics.

Your agenda today lays out a robust set of issues which provide a useful framework for addressing the challenge of setting appropriate national standards for drinking water contaminants. As your topics make clear, in developing National Primary Drinking Water Standards, EPA must:

• identify health effects, including those affecting sensitive populations;
• determine acceptable risks and risk trade-offs;
  
  
• attempt to quantify benefits;
  
  
• calculate costs based on appropriate treatment technologies and other factors;
  
  
• and make affordability determinations for large and small water systems.
  
  

All of these elements contribute to the over-riding public health objective of ensuring all Americans receive safe drinking water. And survey data has shown that the American public consistently ranks safe drinking water among its top environmental and health concerns.

Addressing the issues of risks, benefits, and costs became very real for me, very quickly, as I started work at EPA amid the already highly visible and contentious debate about the standard for arsenic in drinking water. Of course, the very issues of concern to NRWA members - - regarding small systems affordability and the scientific appropriateness of the drinking water standard - - were the same concerns which caused EPA Administrator Whitman to decide to revisit the arsenic standard last spring.

Perhaps paramount among these issues is the importance of sound science in addressing health effects and assessing risks from contaminants in order to set appropriate national standards as required by the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). For the arsenic standard, we now have a strong validation, through a National Academy of Sciences' study, that good science supports the 10 parts per billion standard. Quite frankly I came to Washington expecting a less protective number might be appropriate. But the science, as presented by the NAS, made me realize we need to be where we are now.

One of the most pressing public health challenges of the day is the development and implementation of an effective strategy and program for addressing microbial contamination in drinking water. Concern about future increases in microbial contamination and the emergence of new microbial threats create a need to develop such a strategy based on sound science. The strategy must incorporate the several emerging drinking water regulations aimed at limiting exposures to harmful microbes as well as the numerous programs and regulations, mostly found under the Clean Water Act, that attempt to reduce the sources of microbial contamination. I am committed to ensuring that the Clean Water Act tools re effectively utilized to protect sources of drinking water. A "program integration team effort" in the Office of Water is taking steps to make the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act programs work together more efficiently and effectively at the national, state, and local levels. This effort will require considerable input from you and our other partners and many stakeholders in order to be effective for the long-term.

Even with sound science to support a maximum contaminant level established by a drinking water rule, we are faced with the question of small systems affordability for meeting that standard. The Administrator and I are committed to addressing this issue of affordability, not only for arsenic, but for future rules as well. For the arsenic rule, we recognize that nearly 97 percent of the water systems affected by this rule are systems serving fewer than 10,000 people each. We intend to work closely with states and small systems to identify ways to reduce arsenic levels at a reasonable cost to taxpayers by utilizing all the tools Congress has made available.

I will personally be assessing how EPA makes its affordability determinations, including the Agency's use of median household income in our formula for affordability determinations. I also will engage a wide range of expertise to assess the best approaches for addressing long-term affordability, as well as cumulative costs, under the SDWA.

Through SDWA, Congress has given us a suite of tools for addressing small systems' compliance with drinking water standards. To help small systems meet the new arsenic standard, EPA plans to invest $20 million over the next two years to research and demonstrate cost-effective technologies and approaches. For arsenic and other contaminants, EPA will provide technical assistance and training to operators of small systems. We look to continue our close relationship with NRWA and its excellent grassroots level network to coordinate support to small systems.

EPA also will work with small communities to maximize financial support under EPA's State Revolving Fund and under the Rural Utilities Service programs of the Department of Agriculture.

We know that funding for an effective infrastructure is key. From an industry-wide perspective, the most significant component is infrastructure repair and replacement. Simply put, the pipes are wearing out. While there has been some debate about the exact magnitude of this investment need, there is no question that the gap is quite large. This Administration is committed to working with all parties to develop and implement a plan addressing this funding issue in order to attain the goal of having effective and sustainable local water systems.

In addition, the system level investment must provide service to a growing population - - growth that is greatest in some of the most water-short regions - - and must also ensure regulatory compliance with SDWA. While this compliance component can be significant for an individual system, at the industry level it is dwarfed by the

Our solutions will have to be multi-faceted with federal, state and local, public and private investment of time, energy, resources, research and, perhaps most needed, innovative thinking and bold actions. Our investments must explore approaches such as asset management, innovative rate structuring, and new models of organization.

The Agency is considering setting up a blue ribbon panel to tap into the full range of expertise and ideas on how best to meet this investment challenge for both water and wastewater systems. Together we can successfully address it. I especially want NRWA members to know that the voices of small communities will be heard on the panel.

Given these challenges of addressing growth, repair, replacement, and compliance, we see a drinking water industry with some entities most likely lacking the capacity necessary to sustain quality service at reasonable rates. As cost pressures mount, as operations become more complex, and as customer demands increase in degree and scope, some water systems will find it increasingly difficult to succeed financially, to meet water quality goals consistently, or even to sustain operations.

I expect most water systems will do a good job, but many will seek help, and some will even seek to combine with other systems. We are already seeing a trend toward consolidation in the industry. Some NRWA members are good models of how this can be a successful path to sustainability. I expect this trend will continue. Local communities, associations, states, and EPA must work together to see that appropriate consolidation is one of the tools available to water suppliers.

In addition to addressing standards, treatment, and funding, we also need to focus on the long-term preservation and protection of the sources of our drinking water supplies. Source water protection for drinking water is analogous to watershed management and pollution prevention on the waste water side of the house. We must have a long-term time horizon and identify and protect both current supplies and those waters that are not currently being used for drinking water but have the potential to be critical sources in the future. We cannot afford to further limit our available water resources as a result of contamination that can be prevented with strong local source water protection actions.

Through Source Water Protection Programs, states and water systems are working to assess the potential contamination sources unique to each water system. As these assessments are put into the hands of the public, we should expect greatly increased requests, at all levels, for further efforts to protect source waters. Meeting those requests will be a major challenge not only for the drinking water suppliers but for the myriad of upstream, and up-gradient, owners and operators of facilities and operations, both public and private, that these as

Contamination prevention is not only an effective public health protection barrier, it is one of our most cost-effective. It is therefore critical that we work together to move from the assessment phase into the risk management phase.

The key vehicle in achieving further protection of drinking water sources will be the Clean Water Act. A challenge for the drinking water industry is to be an advocate for protection of drinking water sources through the many regulatory and non-regulatory programs of the Clean Water Act. Examples include:

• working with State agencies responsible for establishing water quality standards to consider drinking water as a priority use for surface waters;
• establishing water quality criteria for contaminants of concern to downstream drinking water providers;
  
  
• ensuring that States consider drinking water protection as a priority when scheduling and setting total maximum daily loads (TMDLs); and
  
  
• working with other State agencies, as well as federal agencies, to determine whether drinking water sources are impacted by upstream (or up-gradient) agricultural sources, and then advising on development and implementation of programs to address Combined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and other sources.
  
  

These Clean Water Act programs provide what we see as "low hanging fruit", which I strongly encourage you to harvest in support of your local source water protection efforts.

In addition to addressing health risks through SDWA rules and through source water protection, there is one final set of risks I would like to mention before I leave you today: the risks posed by potential terrorist attacks on our drinking water systems. Due to the events of September 11th, our Administration is now, quite literally, a "war government" engaged in a new and unprecedented struggle against worldwide terrorism. My principal focus now is on the safeguarding of our nation's water resources infrastructure against potential terrorist attacks . We must ensure that Americans can count on the provision of clean and safe water and effective wastewater treatment. Governor Whitman and EPA are committed to this necessary endeavor. The federal government is only one soldier in the fight. Everyone in this room is a combatant in the cause of protecting our homeland and its invaluable infrastructure, a priceless investment in our nation's waters and the health of our citizens.

At EPA we are rapidly taking steps to ensure that all drinking water providers, as well as operators of publicly owned treatment works (POTWs), possess the tools to assess, minimize and respond to significant threats to the safety of our nation's drinking water and wastewater treatment facilities. Although various kinds of threats potentially exist, the old-fashioned physical threats predominate.

In our efforts on counter-terrorism, we are working on five specific fronts: tools, training, secure information, an expanded knowledge base, and networking.

We are developing tools to safeguard water in concert with numerous partners, public and private. These include:

• Immediate Notices sent to all utilities and local law enforcement outlining security measures to be put in place expeditiously.
  
  
• Initiating cross–checks of utility employees with the FBI's watch lists.
  
  
• developing tools for Vulnerability Assessments, Remediation Plans, and Emergency Operations Plans for drinking water systems.
  
  

We are developing training packages and train-the-trainer programs starting this month for:
utilities, including general managers; security officers and consultants;
States; and Tribes. The training includes a webcast next month and an on-line course in February.

We are pursuing rapid information sharing for alerts of threats, notices of vulnerability, and incidents using the FBI's secure information system to notify all drinking water utilities as well as a Virtual Center to coordinate among utilities, EPA Regions, States, and local emergency and drinking water contacts.

We are improving knowledge by pushing new and ongoing research and analysis for a better understanding of the range of potential contaminants and how to respond to them.

Lastly, we are improving networks. EPA realizes that the safeguarding of the nation's drinking water is not entirely in our hands. We will continue to improve coordination, dialogue, and information dissemination with other Federal Agencies, with the EPA Regions and States, and with the principal water organizations responsible for front line defense.

Recently, Governor Whitman announced the formation of a Water Protection Task Force to help federal, state and local partners expand their tools to safeguard the nation's drinking water supply from terrorist attack. This task force will expand EPA's service to community water systems and wastewater systems, while intensifying our security efforts.

We hope our efforts will help you in your planning, preparedness, and vigilance against terrorism.

Now more than ever, the public is looking to us, both government agencies and private sector entities providing public services, to ensure a line of defense against risks which the public itself cannot control. We must earn their trust through our counter terrorism efforts, our regulation of drinking water contaminants, our protection of source waters, and our public communication and education. By carrying out our respective roles in a consultative and coordinated fashion, we can ensure the safety and security of America's drinking water. In this way we can help secure for the American public some of the blessings afforded by a democratic society.

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