EPA makes data available on Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule

Aug. 21, 2002

EPA is sharing its working data generated by the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule to evaluate and prioritize contaminants on the Drinking Water Contaminant Candidate List.

August 21, 2002 -- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses data generated by the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR) to evaluate and prioritize contaminants on the Drinking Water Contaminant Candidate List, a list of contaminants EPA is considering for possible new drinking water standards.

Additional information on the rule is available on the UCMR main page at http://www.epa.gov/safewater/ucmr.html.

The data associated with the revised UCMR (1999) is meant to assist the administrator in determining whether or not to regulate a certain contaminant. It was designed as a national exposure study.

Therefore, EPA pointed out that extreme caution should be used in any interpretation of the data which contains only a subset of the entire database. The monitoring is scheduled during the period from 2001 until 2003. So, any interpretation of data before all the data are collected (probably mid-2004) can lead to false conclusions, EPA said.

Data you can download are available in Microsoft Excel Pivot Tables. They will be periodically uploaded to include the latest approved UCMR samples data.

To access the files, visit http://www.epa.gov/safewater/standard/ucmr/ucmrgetdata.html.