Commonwealth of Virginia Public Drinking Water Annual Compliance Report and Summary for 2019
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Commonwealth of Virginia Public Drinking Water Annual Compliance Report and Summary For 2019 The Virginia Drinking Water Program: An Overview “The purity of the public water supply bears a most intimate relation to the health of the community … [and] … its vital importance to the people of Virginia cannot be too vigorously impressed.” Dr. Ennion G. Williams, M.D., former State Health Commissioner made this statement in his 1912 Annual Report to the Governor of Virginia. Drinking water remains vital today and is essential to life and health. Throughout history, Virginia has maintained a proactive public drinking water program. In 1974, Virginia enacted its first set of enforceable regulations, which established standards for drinking water quality, as well as design and operation criteria for drinking water systems. That same year, Congress passed, and President Ford signed into law, the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), which marked the beginning of the federal government’s efforts to establish enforceable national drinking water regulations. Since 1974, Virginia has continued to update its regulations to incorporate federal rules and improve the protection of public health. Under the 1986 Amendments to the SDWA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set national limits on contaminant levels in drinking water to ensure that it is safe for human consumption. These limits are known as Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) and Maximum Residual Disinfectant Levels (MRDLs). For some regulations, EPA established treatment techniques in lieu of an MCL to control unacceptable levels of contaminants in drinking water. The EPA also required that public water systems (PWSs) monitor their drinking water for contaminants and report their monitoring results to the state. Generally, water systems serving larger populations have more frequent monitoring and reporting requirements than systems serving smaller populations. In addition, EPA requires PWSs to notify the public when they have violated these regulations. The 1996 Amendments to the SDWA require states to submit to EPA an annual report of violations and to make the annual report available to the public. In accordance with this requirement, the Virginia Department of Health, Office of Drinking Water developed this Annual Compliance Report to provide a clear and understandable explanation of all violations for 2019. Annual State PWS Report Virginia submits quarterly data to the Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS/FED), an automated database maintained by the EPA. The data submitted include, but are not limited to: PWS inventory information; the incidence of MCL, MRDL, monitoring, and treatment technique violations; and information on enforcement activity related to these violations. Section 1414(c)(3) of the Safe Drinking Water Act requires states to provide EPA with an annual report of the primary drinking water standard violations. This report provides the numbers of violations in each of six categories: MCLs, MRDLs, treatment techniques, variances and exemptions, significant 1 monitoring violations, and significant consumer notification violations. Data retrieved from SDWIS form the basis of this report. Public Water System A PWS (called a “waterworks” in Virginia) is defined as a system that provides piped water for human consumption (drinking, food preparation, dishwashing, bathing, showering, hand washing, teeth brushing, and maintaining oral hygiene) to at least 15 service connections or 25 or more individuals for at least 60 days each year. There are three types of waterworks: community (operated by cities, towns, mobile home park owners to serve residents in those communities); nontransient noncommunity (operated by schools and factories to serve students, teachers, and employees while they are at the school or factory); and transient noncommunity (operated by restaurants, campgrounds, the state – rest stops – to serve people that use the facilities on a periodic basis) which have their own source of water supply. This report covers all three types of waterworks unless specified otherwise. Maximum Contaminant Levels Under the SDWA, the EPA sets national limits on contaminant levels in drinking water to ensure that the water is safe for human consumption. These standards are known as MCLs. Maximum Residual Disinfectant Levels The EPA sets national limits on residual disinfectant levels in drinking water to reduce the risk of exposure to disinfectant byproducts, which form when chemical disinfectants for either primary or residual treatment are added to the drinking water. These limits are known as MRDLs. Treatment Techniques For some regulations, EPA establishes treatment techniques in lieu of an MCL to control unacceptable levels of certain contaminants. For example, treatment techniques have been established for viruses, some bacteria, and turbidity. Variance and Exemptions In Virginia, the State Health Commissioner (Commissioner) may grant a waterworks a variance from a primary drinking water regulation if the characteristics of the raw water source that is reasonably available to the waterworks owner do not allow the waterworks to meet the MCL. To obtain a variance, the waterworks owner must agree to install the best available technology, treatment techniques, or other means of limiting drinking water contamination that the Commissioner finds are available (taking costs into account), and the Commissioner must find that the variance will not result in an unreasonable risk to public health. The variance shall be reviewed not less than every five 2 years to determine if the waterworks remains eligible for the variance. The Commissioner may also grant an exemption temporarily relieving a waterworks of its obligation to comply with an MCL, treatment technique, or both if the waterworks’ noncompliance results from compelling factors (which may include economic factors) and the waterworks was in operation on the effective date of the MCL or the treatment technique requirement. The Commissioner will require the waterworks owner to comply with the MCL or treatment technique as expeditiously as practical, but not later than three years after the otherwise applicable compliance date. Monitoring A waterworks owner is required to monitor and verify that the levels of contaminants present in the drinking water do not exceed the MCL or MRDL. If a waterworks owner fails to test the drinking water as required or fails to report the test results correctly to the VDH, a monitoring violation occurs. Significant Monitoring Violations For this report, significant monitoring violations, with rare exceptions, occurs when the waterworks does not collect samples or does not report results to VDH during the compliance period. Consumer Notification The owner of every community waterworks is required to directly deliver to its consumers an annual drinking water quality report known as the Consumer Confidence Report (CCR). This report is to include some educational material, and provide information on the source water, the levels of any detected contaminants, and compliance with drinking water regulations. Significant Consumer Notification Violations For this report, a significant public notification violation occurred if the owner of a community waterworks completely failed to provide its consumers the required annual drinking water quality report. Public Notice Violations The Public Notification Rule requires all waterworks owners to notify their consumers any time a waterworks violates a national primary drinking water regulation or has a situation posing a risk to public health. Notices must be provided to every consumer and not just the billing consumer. 3 Obtaining a Copy of the 2019 Annual Compliance Report As required by the SDWA, Virginia has made the 2019 Annual Compliance Report available to the public. Interested individuals may review a copy of the 2019 Annual Compliance Report for Virginia by accessing the VDH, Office of Drinking Water’s website at: http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/drinking-water/office-of-drinking-water/virginia-annual-pws-compliance-report/ Telephone: (804) 864-7500 Fax Number: (804) 864-7520 E-mail: [email protected] Address: Virginia Department of Health 109 Governor Street, 6th Floor Richmond, Virginia 23219 Contact Name: Maya Whitaker 4 STATISTICS RELATING TO VIRGINIA’S ANNUAL COMPLIANCE REPORT CALENDAR YEAR 2019 Submitted to EPA, July 2020 Statistics ► Number and Type of Waterworks in Virginia ■ 1,101 Community Waterworks (38.6% of total waterworks) ■ 522 Nontransient Noncommunity Waterworks (18.3% of total waterworks) ■ 1,226 Transient Noncommunity Waterworks (43% of total waterworks) ■ 2,849 Total number of waterworks in the Commonwealth ► Approximately 7,569,575 People Are Served by all Types of Waterworks in Virginia ► 569 Waterworks Reported Violations in Calendar Year 2019 ► 217 Waterworks Reported More than One Violation in Calendar Year 2019 ► Approximately 631,716 People Were Served by Waterworks Reporting Violations ► Number of Sanitary Surveys Made at Waterworks in Calendar Year 2019 ■ 1,396 Scheduled Sanitary Surveys ■ 321 Special Sanitary Surveys ■ 3 Complaint Sanitary Surveys ► 4,090 Technical Assistance Contacts Were Made during Calendar Year 2019 ► 1,326 Violations Were Reported for Calendar Year 2019 ► 2,280 Waterworks Reported No Violations during Calendar Year 2019 SAFE DRINKING WATER INFORMATION SYSTEM EPA REGION: 3 2019 ANNUAL PWS COMPLIANCE REPORT SUMMARY PRIMACY AGENCY: VA # of Resolved # of PWS in Violation Category