US EPA ANNOUNCES THE UCMR 5 FINAL RULE AND PUBLIC WEBINAR MEETINGS
PRE-PUBLICATION NOTICE
Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the Fifth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 5) to establish nationwide monitoring for 29 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and lithium in drinking water. This action is essential to addressing the public health and environmental risks of PFAS in drinking water and marks a significant milestone in EPA’s PFAS Strategic Roadmap (https://www.epa.gov/pfas/pfas-strategic-roadmap-epas-commitments-action-2021-2024). EPA uses the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule to monitor for priority unregulated contaminants in drinking water every five years.
The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), as amended by America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018, now requires all drinking water systems serving between 3,300 and 10,000 people to participate in UCMR and specifies that a representative sample of systems serving fewer than 3,300 people participate, subject to the availability of appropriations and sufficient laboratory capacity. If the necessary funds are appropriated, the UCMR 5 will significantly expand the number of small drinking water systems participating in the program, which should provide more Americans with a better understanding of potential contaminants in their drinking water. The rule requires participating drinking water systems to collect samples from 2023-2025 and report final results through 2026.
EPA is providing this document solely for the convenience of interested parties https://www.epa.gov/dwucmr/fifth-unregulated-contaminant-monitoring-rule. While EPA has taken steps to ensure the accuracy of this “pre-publication” Internet version of the final rule, the official version will be published in a forthcoming Federal Register publication, which will appear on the Government Printing Office’s website (https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/fr), and on Regulations.gov (https://www.regulations.gov) in Docket No. EPA-HQ-OW-2020-0530. Once the official version of this document is published in the FR, this pre-publication version will be removed from EPA’s webpage and replaced with a link to the official version.
PUBLIC WEBINAR MEETING DETAILS (DATES TO BE DETERMINED)
EPA will hold multiple webinar meetings for stakeholders in 2022. Dates and times of the upcoming meetings will be posted on EPA’s website at: https://www.epa.gov/dwucmr/unregulated-contaminant-monitoring-rule-ucmr-meetings-and-materials. Stakeholders who have participated in past UCMR meetings and/or those who register to use SDWARS will receive notification of these events. The purpose of the meetings are to discuss key aspects of the UCMR 5 final rule (https://www.epa.gov/dwucmr/fifth-unregulated-contaminant-monitoring-rule), including a general introduction to the UCMR program, the PWSs subject to UCMR 5 monitoring and the monitoring requirements, ground water representative monitoring plans, the contaminants to be monitored, laboratory approval and analytical methods, reviewing the functions of the Safe Drinking Water Accession and Review System (SDWARS), and best practices for sample collection. EPA anticipates hosting meetings focused on implementation planning in spring 2022, and meetings focused on SDWARS and sample-collection in fall 2022.
Registrants will receive confirmations and further webinar information via email. Questions regarding webinar registration should be emailed to [email protected].