Community water systems serving more than 3300 people must complete risk and resilience assessments and emergency response plans, announced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on March 27.
The certification process, which is under the America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018, is included here. Fifty percent of all community water systems serving 3301 to 50,000 people are groundwater-supplied, and one-fourth of systems serving more than 50,000 people rely on groundwater.
Each community water system affected by the law must submit certification that it has completed a risk and resilience assessment:
- For systems serving 100,000 or more, they must do so by March 31, 2020
- For systems serving 50,000 to 100,000 they must do so by December 31, 2020
- For systems serving 3300 to 50,000 they must do so by June 30, 2021.
Each system must also certify within six months of the assessment certification that it has completed an emergency response plan.
Risk assessments must address the risk from malevolent acts and natural hazards, resilience of its facilities and automated systems, monitoring practices, financial capability, chemical use processes and handling, and operation and maintenance, as well as identify its capital and operational needs.
Emergency response plans must address system resilience improvements, equipment to deliver safe water in the event of an emergency, steps to minimize the impact of an emergency, and steps to enable detection of acts or events that threaten system security or resilience.
Community water systems must coordinate with local emergency planning committees in preparing their risk assessments and plans, which are to be revised every five years.
The EPA document outlining the requirements is available
here.