Drinking Water: Stronger Efforts Essential for Small Communities to Comply with Standards
RCED-94-40
Published: Mar 09, 1994. Publicly Released: Mar 14, 1994.
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Highlights
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed small community water systems' compliance with drinking water regulations, focusing on: (1) cost-effective and alternative management approaches for improving small water systems' regulation compliance; (2) the barriers that prevent the effective use of these alternative approaches; and (3) the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) efforts to remove any barriers and promote alternative approaches at the national level.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Environmental Protection Agency | The Administrator, EPA, should revise EPA drinking water program priorities to place greater emphasis on developing and implementing viability programs. |
Closed – Implemented
The newly reauthorized Safe Drinking Water Act requires states to develop viability programs for both new and existing systems. Specifically, states must obtain the legal authority or other means to ensure that all new systems demonstrate the technical, managerial, and financial capacity to comply with the regulations. States must also develop and implement a strategy to assist existing systems in acquiring and maintaining the technical, managerial, and financial capacity necessary for compliance. EPA is planning to develop information, in consultation with the states, to assist them in meeting these requirements.
|
| Environmental Protection Agency | The Administrator, EPA, should work with the cognizant committees of Congress to develop a detailed funding strategy to accompany the EPA proposed requirement that states develop viability programs for small systems. |
Closed – Implemented
The newly reauthorized Safe Drinking Water Act requires states to develop viability programs and allows states to use a portion of their state revolving funds for this purpose. The act also limits the amount of funding that states will receive in future years if they do not meet requirements for viability programs.
|
| Environmental Protection Agency | The Administrator, EPA, should revise its public water supply supervision grant formula to remove any disincentives for states to reduce the number of water systems in the long term. |
Closed – Implemented
In 1994, EPA permanently revised the grant formula to stabilize funding levels at 95 percent of each state's prior-year allotment to mitigate any penalty that existed for states that consolidated their systems. EPA officials noted that this change applies to all future years if no major reduction in total appropriations of grant funds occurs.
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Cost effectiveness analysisEnvironmental policiesstate relationsPollution monitoringPotable waterSafety standardsState programsWater pollutionWater treatmentContaminants