Recent changes to the federal drinking water standard for arsenic (As (MCL) reduced from 50 to 10 µg/L) are challenging drinking water suppliers, state regulatory agencies, municipal purveyors, and even homeowners to comply with the new standard.

There are a number of major regulatory barriers posed by this project, including:

• availability of cost-effective arsenic removal technologies
• environmental impacts to surface water, groundwater, and landfills by the generated waste from various arsenic treatment technologies
• feasibility to measure reliably and consistently to the lower Federal mandate of 10 ppb
• training for small-system operators for implementing and maintaining treatment units
• little guidance exists on the use of system management in lieu of treatment

EPA developed a lower MCL based on NAS health studies, which confirmed carcinogenic effects to humans exposed to low levels of arsenic in drinking water. This is a multibillion-dollar problem affecting millions of people who currently drink water that exceeds the new arsenic standard. Treatments themselves may pose environmental impacts.

The arsenic standard affects many regions of the country, particularly the Great Lakes regions, the Rocky Mountain region, the Southwest, and New England. Industries and segments of the population affected by the problem include public and non-public water supplies, single-family homeowners, treatment and remediation industries, wastewater utilities, and landfill operators. This issue has broad national applicability, because the regions, states, and populations affected are in all segments of the country. In addition, all state drinking water regulatory programs will be affected.

ITRC plans to approach this problem through outreach efforts providing easily accessible treatment training, both for operators and for individual well owners, providing comparative technology evaluations for regulators, and evaluating the applicability and effectiveness of alternative compliance monitoring and in-system blending as treatment alternatives.

ITRC state involvement will include running and participating on the team, contributing pilot study areas, hosting technical demonstrations, liaison with drinking water organizations, and outreach efforts.

The team plans to produce case studies, technology overview and technical/regulatory documents, training, and finally recommendations to EPA on Best Available Technology (BAT) designations.

Because water suppliers are just now dealing with the arsenic rule, we anticipate an increase in activity in the water industry from now until at least 2007 and probably considerably beyond. We plan that the initial year will be focused on outreach to interested parties, scoping and development of the long-term schedule, and initial development of report contents and outlines.

Chuck Pippen (NC) is the team leader.

For more information, read the team's FYPP project proposal.