Public Notification
Requirements Focus Group August 28, 1997 Indianapolis, Indiana
August 28, 1997
Indianapolis, Indiana
Executive Summary
Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) sponsored this
focus group meeting to bring together water systems, states, and the public
to share experiences with the current public notification requirements.
It followed EPA's stakeholder meeting held on August 27. The hosts provided
a quick overview of the objective for the focus group meeting, which was
to gather information on participants' experiences on public notifications.
Meeting participants shared their experiences with the PN process and
voiced their concern regarding the new requirements. The discussions and
comments expressed by the participants can be grouped into seven categories:
education, notification, timing, planning, testing, the general public,
and the Consumer Confidence Report (CCR).
Commenters felt that it is crucial to keep the public well informed
and educated regarding drinking water issues, and to tie this wherever
possible to local issues and concerns. A suggestion was made that the
education process should start early in the school systems.
Other participants expressed frustration regarding the time it generally
takes State agencies to react to violations. When it takes a few months
to get information back on a water sample, credibility is greatly eroded.
In addition, publishing a notice in a newspaper is no longer free of charge,
and significant costs are incurred to issue public notices. Commenters
suggested that the water systems work with local health departments to
add credibility to their notices.
Currently, the notification process takes too long. By the time a water
system receives notification from the laboratory of the presence of a
contaminant over a certain threshold, the properties of the water within
a system would have changed. Most of the participants believed that the
24-hour notification requirement will not work. However, the participants
also believed that timely response is crucial if a contamination event
could jeopardize public health.
The participants, in general, want to see better coordination among
water systems, analytical laboratories, and State agencies. They believed
a "common sense" approach is needed when it comes to dealing with invalidated
samples (i.e., excluding them as violations).
It was further pointed out that it is valuable for water systems to
establish a good working relationship with the media. By having a good
working relationship, it would be possible for water systems to minimize
misinterpretation by the media regarding various non-threatening violations.
Many commenters agreed that the general public is uninformed about drinking
water. The CCR is an excellent opportunity to establish a rapport with
the public to let them know more about their water. A suggestion was made
to combine CCR and the annual PN into a single report and publish together.
Most agreed, however, that before this can be recommended that the combined
report not become too complex and costly.
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