§300j–13 Source water quality assessment

Summary

Within 12 months after August 6, 1996, the Administrator must publish guidance, after public notice and comment, to help States that run public water programs set up source water assessment programs. A State must have an approved assessment program before it can adopt the special monitoring changes under section 300g–7(b). States must map the boundaries of the areas that feed each public water system using available hydrogeologic and related information. They must also, as much as practical, find where regulated contaminants (and any unregulated contaminants the State picks that might threaten health) come from so they can judge how vulnerable each water system is. States must send their assessment program to the Administrator within 18 months after the guidance is issued. If the Administrator does not disapprove it within 9 months after submission, it is treated as approved. Once approved, the State must start work right away and finish by a timetable that allows no more than 2 years after approval (the Administrator can add up to 18 more months and must consider available funds under section 300j–12). The Administrator must also, as soon as practical, run a demonstration project with other federal agencies for assessing and protecting source waters for big cities and on Federal lands. States may use existing studies and programs (like vulnerability studies, wellhead protection, pesticide plans, watershed work, and pollution control plans) to avoid duplication. States must make the assessment results available to the public.