Dec. 21, 2000—In January 2001, certain water suppliers will begin monitoring drinking water for specific contaminants not regulated by EPA.
EPA will use the results of these tests to determine if drinking water standards are necessary for any of these contaminants.
This week, EPA finalized a rule that slightly changes the list of contaminants for which systems monitor and finalizes analytical methods used to test for certain contaminants in drinking water.
The new rule contains:
� A new list of contaminants for which public water systems must monitor;
� Analytical methods for some of these contaminants;
� Requirements for all large public water systems (PWS), and a representative sample of small PWS, to monitor for those contaminants on the list for which methods have been promulgated;
� Requirements to submit the monitoring data to EPA and the States for inclusion in the National Drinking Water Contaminant Occurrence Database; and
Requirements to notify consumers of the results of monitoring.
For information on the rule, as well as a list of the water suppliers that will participate in the program, please see http://www.epa.gov/safewater/ucmr.html.
