By Steven M. Siros

On October 23, 2018, President Trump signed into law America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 which, in addition to authorizing federal funding  for water infrastructure projects, also requires drinking water systems serving more than 3,300 people to test for unregulated contaminants pursuant to U.S. EPA’s Unregulated Contaminants Monitoring Rule (UCMR).  Prior to this new law, only drinking water systems that served more than 10,000 people were required to monitor for unregulated contaminants.  Contaminants covered by the UCMR include PFOA, PFOS, 1,2,3-TCP, hexavalent chromium and 1,4-dioxane.  This new testing requirement, which goes into effect in 2021, is expected to add more than 5,000 drinking water systems to the list of systems that are required to test for these unregulated contaminants. 

The challenge that continues to be faced by drinking water systems across the country is what to do if these contaminants are in fact found in the drinking water supply.  As their name would imply, U.S. EPA has yet to set drinking standards for these contaminants although many states and local entities continue to enact a patchwork of regulatory requirements often without regard to the technical feasibility of treating these chemicals and/or the health risks actually posed by these chemicals.  Unfortunately, until such time as U.S. EPA takes action to enact a federal standard, the regulated community will continue to be subject to this regulatory quagmire and now, with the new testing requirements, more drinking water systems will be forced to struggle with this issue without any clear regulatory guidance.