This article discusses small-system variances (SSVs) that were created with the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments in response to requests by financially strapped small towns for relief from the mounting costs of complying with an aggressive 1986 rulemaking
schedule directing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) to regulate
no fewer than 25 contaminants every three
years. Unlike relatively short-lived exemptions,
which require eventual compliance with a maximum contaminant level
(MCL), SSVs allow utilities to avoid meeting
an MCL for the lifespan of the variance
technology, subject to state review every
five years. Under national affordability criteria
established in 1998, USEPA has always
identified affordable compliance technologies
for the three categories and so has never
identified any SSV technologies (SSVTs). The proposed revisions
to the affordability criteria, however,
are intended to result in the identification
and use of SSVTs, starting with the recently
finalized Stage 2 Disinfectants/Disinfection
Byproducts Rule (D/DBPR).
| Edition : | Vol. 98 - No. 8 |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 90 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 9 |
| Published : | 08/01/2006 |
