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Water Headlines for June 18, 2007Benjamin H. Grumbles Water Headlines is a weekly on-line publication that announces publications, policies, and activities of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Water. In This Week’s Water Headlines:
New Products Released to Help Small Systems Meet Regulations Controlling Arsenic in Drinking WaterEPA has released eleven Arsenic Rule Compliance Success Stories, a series of case studies highlighting public water system experiences in meeting the revised drinking water standard. These community and non-residential water systems utilized innovative or lower cost approaches to meeting the revised 10 ppb maximum contaminant level for arsenic. The lessons learned from these utilities will assist the 1,700 public water systems still seeking a sustainable Arsenic Rule compliance solution. Water systems need to be aware of the potential impacts that treatment changes can have on their ability to provide safe drinking water. EPA has also developed a new fact sheet to helps owners and operators understand and respond to issues that may arise with arsenic and their distribution system when treatment is installed or modified. Arsenic is a naturally occurring contaminant that may increase a person’s risk of getting cancer if consumed regularly over a long period of time. In 2001, EPA lowered the MCL for arsenic in drinking water from 50 to 10 ppb to further protect public health. The Arsenic Rule Compliance Success Stories and the fact sheet Arsenic and Your Distribution System may be viewed online at http://www.epa.gov/safewater/arsenic/compliance.html. EPA Seeks Drinking Water Utilities for Contaminant Warning System Pilot ProjectsEPA is requesting applications for drinking water contamination warning system demonstration pilots as part of the Agency’s Water Security (WS) initiative. A contaminant warning system uses advanced monitoring technologies/strategies and enhanced surveillance activities to collect, integrate, analyze, and communicate information to provide a timely warning of potential water contamination incidents in order to minimize public health and economic impacts. Applications must address specified monitoring and surveillance components, a consequence management plan, and a review and evaluation plan. EPA anticipates that approximately $31 million will be available to fund up to four cooperative agreements for these demonstration pilots, depending on Agency funding levels and other applicable considerations. The federal portion for each cooperative agreement is anticipated to range between $3 million and $12 million and awardees will have to provide a minimum 20 percent cost-share/match of the total project cost. Applications will be accepted only from local governments or institutions (either public or private nonprofit organizations) that operate community water systems serving at least 750,000 people. Applications through grants.gov must be received by 11:59 pm (EDT) on August 10, 2007. The Request for Applications and additional information on the WS initiative is available at http://cfpub.epa.gov/safewater/watersecurity/initiative.cfm. Watershed Academy June 21st Webcast to feature STORET—EPA’s repository of water quality monitoring dataOn June 21st, EPA’s Watershed Academy will host a Webcast on water quality data STOrage and RETrieval (STORET) system. Speakers will provide an overview of the STORET program and discuss the importance of data management to watershed protection. They will provide a quick primer on how to access data from the STORET system and use that data to characterize a watershed. Future developments in STORET – in particular, those relevant to watershed organizations -- will also be discussed. For more information or to access archived audio versions of past Webcasts, please visit www.epa.gov/watershedwebcasts. Subscribe to Water HeadlinesPlease forward this message to your friends and colleagues who share an interest in water-related issues and would like to hear from EPA’s Office of Water. To subscribe to the Water Headlines listserve: Send an email message, leave the subject line blank, and address it to: In the body of the message write: Subscribe Water Headlines first name last name (Please leave one blank space between each word, do not include any other message, and use your actual name- i.e. Subscribe Water Headlines Robert Jones)
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