EPA Releases Interim Guidance on Drinking Water Contamination Warning Systems

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Water Security Initiative has released two interim guidance documents on drinking water contamination warning systems.

The “Interim Guidance on Developing an Operational Strategy for Contamination Warning Systems” will assist utilities with developing standard operating procedures for the monitoring and surveillance components of a contamination warning system. The Interim Guidance on Developing Consequence Management Plans for Drinking Water Utilities will aid utilities with developing plans for validating, responding to and recovering from a contamination incident in the drinking water distribution system.

These guidance documents reflect lessons learned from EPA’s implementation of a comprehensive drinking water contamination warning system pilot in Cincinnati.

EPA also is releasing a detailed report, “Cincinnati Pilot Post-Implementation System Status,” which describes enhancements associated with the pilot in the areas of online water quality monitoring, consumer complaint surveillance, public health surveillance, contaminant sampling and analysis, physical security and consequence management.

These documents, along with additional information about the Water Security Initiative, are available at http://cfpub.epa.gov/safewater/watersecurity/initiative.cfm.

Source: EPA