[Federal Register: June 19, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 118)]
[Notices]               
[Page 41717-41718]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr19jn02-65]                         

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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[FRL-7233-9]

 
National Drinking Water Advisory Council: Request for Nominations 
to Contaminant Candidate List Working Group and Small Systems 
Affordability Working Group

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency.

ACTION: Notice; request for nominations to the Drinking Water 
Contaminant Candidate List Working Group and Small Systems 
Affordability Working Group of the National Drinking Water Advisory 
Council.

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SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing the 
formation of a Drinking Water Contaminant Candidate List (CCL) Working 
Group and Small Systems Affordability Working Group of the National 
Drinking Water Advisory Council (NDWAC), and soliciting nominations to 
these working groups. The Advisory Council was established to provide 
practical and independent advice, consultation, and recommendations to 
the Agency on the activities, functions, and policies related to the 
implementation of the Safe Drinking Water Act as amended.
    Any interested person or organization may nominate qualified 
individuals for membership on the working groups. Nominees should be 
identified by name, occupation, position, address and telephone number. 
To be considered, all nominations must include a current resume 
providing the nominee's background, experience and qualifications.

Drinking Water Contaminant Candidate List Working Group

    The CCL serves as the primary source of priority contaminants for 
the Agency's drinking water program. The current version of the list is 
divided among priorities for drinking water research and those 
contaminants which are priorities for consideration for Agency 
determinations of whether or not to regulate specific contaminants. The 
list is comprised of both chemical and microbial contaminants that are 
known or anticipated to occur in public water systems, and may have 
adverse health effects, and which at the time of publication are not 
subject to any proposed or promulgated National Primary Drinking Water 
Standards. The first CCL contained 50 chemical and 10 microbial 
contaminants/groups and was developed based on the review of readily 
available information on

[[Page 41718]]

potential drinking water contaminants and recommendations by technical 
experts.
    EPA recognized the need for a more robust and transparent process 
for identifying and narrowing potential contaminants for future CCLs 
and now plans to develop a new risk based priority setting process 
based upon consideration of the recommendations made by the National 
Research Council (NRC) in its 2001 report, ``Classifying Drinking Water 
Contaminants for Regulatory Consideration.'' The process is expected to 
allow the drinking water program to identify those contaminants that 
pose the greatest risk to persons served by public water supplies. The 
process will be utilized for selecting contaminants for future CCLs.
    The NRC recommended that the CCL be developed in a two step 
process. Under the NRC-recommended approach, the ``universe'' of 
potential drinking water contaminants is identified by considering many 
possible categories and sources of contaminants. The first step 
involves narrowing down the ``universe'' to a preliminary CCL (PCCL) 
using screening criteria and expert judgment. The second step involves 
the use of a decision process and expert judgment to select high 
priority contaminants for CCL from the PCCL. The NRC-recommended 
decision process for step 2 involves use of a prototype classification 
approach based on predictive features and attributes of contaminants. 
The NRC also recommends using virulence factor activity relationships 
(VFAR) to identify microbiological contaminants. VFAR is analogous to 
quantitative structure activity relationships used for chemical 
contaminants. It relies on new genetic and proteomic analytical 
approaches to identify indicators or predictive factors of potentially 
virulent pathogens for inclusion on a CCL.

Small Systems Affordability Working Group

    EPA recognizes the special challenges faced by small water systems 
and is committed to using the suite of tools and mechanisms provided 
under the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) amendments (including the 
small system affordability provisions of the Act) to help minimize the 
financial impact that new regulations will have on small drinking water 
systems. Small systems are being asked--in some cases for the first 
time--to grapple with a whole new set of public health challenges. In 
doing so, they face considerable financial challenges. In its FY 2002 
Appropriations Report Language, Congress directed EPA to review the 
Agency's affordability criteria.
    EPA currently uses an affordability threshold of 2.5% of median 
household income. EPA's national-level affordability criteria consist 
of two major components: an expenditure baseline and an affordability 
threshold. The expenditure baseline (derived from annual median 
household water bills) is subtracted from the affordability threshold 
(a share of median household income that EPA believes to be a 
reasonable upper limit for these water bills) to determine the 
expenditure margin (the maximum increase in household water bills that 
can be imposed by treatment and still be considered affordable). EPA 
compares the cost of treatment technologies against the available 
expenditure margin to determine if an affordable compliance technology 
can be identified. If EPA cannot identify an affordable compliance 
technology, then it attempts to identify a variance technology. 
Findings must be made at both the Federal and State level that 
compliance technologies are not affordable for small systems before a 
variance can be granted.
    As part of the Agency's review of affordability, a number of areas 
will be explored. The Agency will evaluate alternatives to the median 
as the income level for the affordability threshold. The Agency will 
evaluate alternatives to using 2.5% as the income percentage for the 
affordability threshold. The Agency will evaluate methods to account 
for the cost of new rules. The Agency will investigate whether separate 
criteria should be developed for ground and surface water systems. The 
EPA will evaluate the impact of financial assistance programs on 
affordability. The Agency is also receptive to other approaches to 
reviewing the present affordability criteria.

Submitting Nominations

    In view of the importance of these actions for the drinking water 
program, the Agency is seeking further public input on each of these 
important issues by establishing working groups of the National 
Drinking Water Advisory Council (NDWAC). Consistent with that 
commitment, EPA will work with the NDWAC to convene a panel of 
nationally recognized technical experts to study these issues further 
and is seeking nominations for these working groups through this 
notice.
    The criteria for selecting working group members are that working 
group members are recognized experts in their fields; that working 
group members are as impartial and objective as possible; that working 
group members represent an array of backgrounds and perspectives 
(within their disciplines); that the working group members are 
available to participate fully in the review, which will be conducted 
over a relatively short time frame (i.e., within approximately 4-5 
months); and that the results of the review be made publicly available 
for comment. Working group members will be asked to attend a series of 
meetings (approximately three) over the course of 4-5 months, 
participate in the discussion of key issues and assumptions at these 
meetings, and review and finalize the products and outputs of the 
working group. The working group will make a recommendation to the full 
NDWAC. The NDWAC will, in turn, make a recommendation to EPA.
    Nominations for both working groups should be submitted to EPA no 
later than July 5, 2002. Nominations for the CCL-2 Working Group should 
be submitted to Dr. Jitendra Saxena, Designated Federal Officer, NDWAC 
Working Group, EPA, Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water (4607M), 
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20460. Nominations for 
Small Systems Affordability Working Group should be submitted to Mr. 
Amit Kapadia, Designated Federal Officer, NDWAC Working Group at the 
same address. Given the delays associated with mail due to extra 
security, it is recommended that a copy of the nominations be sent by 
e-mail to saxena.jitendra@epa.gov and kapadia.amit@epa.gov. The Agency 
will not formally acknowledge or respond to nominations.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. Jitendra Saxena by e-mail or call 
(202) 564-5243, Mr. Amit Kapadia by e-mail or call (202) 564-4879.

    Dated: June 13, 2002.
Cynthia C. Dougherty,
Director, Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water.
[FR Doc. 02-15461 Filed 6-18-02; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P