Bob Crossen is Senior Managing Editor for WWD. Crossen can be reached at [email protected]
We are now three months into 2022, and it is around this time that we begin to look toward Water Week in Washington for updates on regulations, legislation and any other federal policies that would impact the industry at large.
In my eyes, there are four core items to keep in mind as we head into the second quarter of 2022: Lead & Copper Rule Revisions guidance, the newly announced U.S. EPA Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Initiative – Water and Wastewater Sector Action Plan, updates on appropriations for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding, and inevitable PFAS regulations. In this issue, we share some resources on LCRR as well as a press release on the ICS Cybersecurity Initiative for the water sector and a column on PFAS MCLs in Pennsylvania.
But this is not the end of WWD’s coverage of these issues. Throughout the first quarter of the year, we have published articles and exclusive video interviews with industry leaders on the topics above. In February, we published a video interview with Greg Baird from BlueConduit on LCRR lead service line replacement and in March we published two videos on PFAS regulations updates, treatment and mitigation strategies. Access all of these interviews and more at bit.ly/wwdweeklydigest.
In regards to PFAS, there are two things I think are critically important to note. First, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has allocated $10 billion to address PFAS in drinking water and wastewater that will be accessible through the State Revolving Funds. This is an incredibly useful resource for communities that need to upgrade facilities, and there are some other grant programs that can be leveraged, as well. For more on that, check our website for our video interview with Labella Associates about funding for PFAS removal.
The second is the discussion on detection and treatment levels. As it stands now, 75 parts per trillion is being used in some state cases — such as Pennsylvania — but there has also been discussions of detection and treatment to parts per quadrillion levels. Naturally, there is a concern with this given the speed of the science and the technology available to detect to this level.
There is still a long way to go before anything is final and compliance is necessary on this front, but we will continue to cover this topic and provide resources and information on public comment periods as they arrive.
