The bill recognizes the importance of operator certification and training and requires that each State have a program as a condition of primary.

Technical assistance for small public water systems is currently provided by several Federal, State, and private organizations. The technical assistance ranges from simple advice offered over the phone to hands-on maintenance and repair of plant equipment. The Rural Development Administration (RDA) and the EPA fund "circuit rider" programs. The circuit riders visit individual sites and provide technical assistance to drinking water system operators.

Although there is a wide variety of assistance available to help small systems comply with regulations, the amount of assistance is extremely limited in comparison to the needs of the small systems. Small water systems accounted for 90% of the community water systems in violation of drinking water regulations in fiscal year 1991.

This bill recognizes the importance of providing technical assistance to small systems by reauthorizing the technical assistance subsection of the Act at $10,000,000 for each of fiscal years 1994 through 2000 and adding multi-State regional technical assistance to the list of technical assistance to enable the Administrator to distribute technical assistance funds to a wider range of technical assistance providers.

A new subsection is added to the section 1442 to address many questions regarding the role of drinking water in causing human disease. The ability to ascertain the ultimate safety of drinking water is hampered by inadequate information on the occurrence of contaminants in drinking water, by the lack of scientific data on the effects of low levels of chemicals, radiologics, and microbes known to be in water, and by the lack of methods and models to address these issues.

Research is needed to understand the risks from drinking water and to determine the most effective and economical means to treat it. The stakes to American water suppliers, and ultimately to the American people amount to billions of dollars. To avoid the cost of disease on the one hand and unnecessary regulations on the other, research must address the central issues with regard to the safety of drinking water, including:

The levels and national distribution of contaminants in drinking water that have effects on human populations;

The adverse health effects these agents cause and whether there are sensitive subpopulations;

The other sources of exposure for the hazardous contaminants found in drinking water and the contribution of drinking water to the overall exposure experienced by individuals; and The alternative strategies and relative risks, costs, and benefits of each strategy to provide safe drinking water to the public.

To address these issues, a research agenda is needed that will have maximum benefit to human health. The task of providing research knowledge in this field is compromised by the lack of funds to do a thorough job, the need to do it in a timely fashion, and the complexity of the task. This bill directs the research emphasis at EPA to proceed along two fronts.

The first is a highly focused, applied research program that uses present methodologies to address what appear to be the most significant drinking water quality issues. This research, authorized in the 1986 Amendments to the Act, is motivated and strongly influenced by the short-term needs of the regulatory arm of EPA.

The second focus is long-term research to reduce the uncertainties about the substances present in drinking water and the type and magnitude of effects they may cause. Emphasis is placed on studies to generate mechanistic effects data for developing biologically-based risk assessment models. EPA should direct a significant portion of its research budget to efforts designed to reduce uncertainties in risk assessment because inaccuracies and uncertainties in risk assessment methods have the potential of being dangerous to the public where important and competing risks to human health exist. For instance, if the risks from by-products of the disinfection process are grossly overestimated, regulatory actions may promote responses from water treatment suppliers (e.g. lowering the disinfectant or switching to another less effective one) that significantly increase the risk of waterborne infectious disease with few real benefits.

In addition to improving the understanding of chemical risks, there is a need to better understand microbial risks. Pathogenic and toxigenic microbiological agents in drinking water have long been known to cause disease and death in consumers. The introduction of water chlorination and the subsequent decline in the incidence of waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid fever, and gastroenteritis is one of the foremost public health achievements in all of human history. However, waterborne diseases are known to be caused by a much broader variety of organisms than previously thought.

In striking the balance between chemical and microbial risks, public health officials face a dilemma because the procedures for reducing one risk may actually increase another. Science alone cannot resolve this dilemma because sensitive policy judgments must be made. To make these judgments as sound as possible, policy makers should be given the best available scientific information and a decision-analytic framework in which to use the data. This bill directs EPA to conduct the social science research needed to develop such a framework considering the severity of health effects and their certainly, their timing and distribution in society.

A long period of time will be needed to perform the types of research outline in this subsection. The Administrator is to develop a strategy for conducting this research over 12-15 years and to report to Congress every three years.

SECTION 12. STATE DRINKING WATER PROGRAM FUNDING

Summary

Section 12 increases from $40 million to $100 million annually, the authorization for grants to States to operate the Public Water Supply Supervision (PWSS) program. It also requires EPA to develop a resource model to help determine the costs incurred by States in carrying out the Public Water System Supervision (PWSS) program. The resource model must be developed in co

operation with the States and must be completed within 60 days of enactment.

For any State in which the Administrator assumes primary enforcement responsibility, EPA may reserve from the funds made available under this section, an amount that is equal to that which would have been provided to the State under the PWSS grant. These funds are to be used by EPA to ensure a full and effective implementation of the PWSS program in the State. Should the funds made available to the Administrator under this provision be insufficient to run the State program, EPA may reserve from the State's SRF allotment, an amount that EPA determines is needed to operate an effective program in that State.

This section authorizes $20 million annually in fiscal years 1995 through 2000 for a State grants to aid in the development of comprehensive programs to protect ground water resources. Within one year of enactment, EPA is to establish application procedures and public guidance on the key elements of a State ground water protection program. Grants shall be awarded on the basis of the extent of the ground water resources in a State and the likelihood that the grant will result in sustained and reliable protection of ground water resources. Innovative programs proposed by the States to prevent ground water contamination may also receive grants. However, no grant may be awarded for projects to remediate ground water contamination. Grant awards must be coordinated with grants made under section 319(i) of the Clean Water Act and any other Federal grants related to ground water protection. States are required to provide a 50 percent match to cover the costs of the program and EPA must report to Congress every three years on the effectiveness of State programs funded under this subsection. Discussion

Strong and effective State drinking water programs are a key to successful implementation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Čurrently, 49 States have primacy enforcement responsibility (primacy) for the PWSS program. However, many States are struggling to provide adequate funding and personnel to administer the program, given the increased workload and State budget restrictions. Federal and State resources devoted to drinking water have increased in the past few years. In fiscal year 1988, State resources totaled $63 million and Federal grants $33 million. By fiscal year 1993, the resources had increased to $83 million in State funds and $60 million in Federal PWSS grants, for a total of $143 million.

However, the need for funds has increased even faster. Between 1988 and 1993, program needs at the State level increased more than 140 percent, far more than the 76 percent increase in funding. In its September 1993 report to Congress, EPA estimated that a total of $304 million is now needed to effectively implement drinking water programs in all States.

The shortfall between estimated needs and actual funding of $162 million in 1993 limits the ability of States to implement and enforce the drinking water program. For example, four States missed the December 31, 1992 deadline for adoption of rules concerning surface water treatment and total coliform bacteria. And California and Pennsylvania notified EPA that they could not

adopt a recent rule concerning lead and copper because of the high cost of administering it.

Funding shortfalls also restrict the ability of States to fashion programs that reflect local conditions and to provide technical and other assistance to water systems, including providing sufficient laboratory capacity to analyze monitoring samples.

Furthermore, as the drinking water program allows more flexibility to take account of local conditions, the need for additional State resources increases as case-by-case determinations for treatment systems, viability, and monitoring replace one national requirement.

the bill addresses the shortfall in State program funding, in two ways. Under Section 1443 of the Safe Drinking Water Act, EPA makes annual grants to each State with primacy to support State administration of its program to oversee compliance by local drinking water systems. These grants are called Public Water System Supervision (PWSS) grants. The bill increases the authorization for the PWSS grants to $100 million per year and keeps the current State matching requirement of 25 percent. This provision, if fully funded, will increased the Federal contribution to State programs by 67 percent over the fiscal year 1994 appropriated level of $60 million.

The bill also allows a State to use a portion of its SRF funds to supplement other State and Federal money in operating its drinking water program through fiscal year 1999. In fiscal year 1995, a State could choose to use SRF money to fund up to 50 percent of the difference between what is needed to operate an effective State program and what is available in the form of Federal grants under this Act and the State match.

In fiscal year 1996, 1997, and 1998, the State could use SRF funds to make up 100 percent of shortfall. In fiscal year 1999, the State could fund a maximum of 50 percent of the shortfall. This provision should help ensure adequately funded State programs during the period when States will be implementing a new variance program for small systems under Section 5 of the bill, submitting a Statewide alternative monitoring program under section 4 of the bill, implementing a review of small systems to determine their viability, and providing additional assistance to small communities. To assist in determining the cost to operate an effective program in each State, and thus the amount of funding available from the SRF, the bill requires EPA to develop a resource model to gauge program costs. The bill requires this model be developed with the active participation of the States. The model should use State estimates of the cost of implementing various facets of the program whenever possible, to allow for variations in program costs among the States.

Since the model will be needed by States to measure the shortfall for fiscal year 1995, the bill requires EPA to develop the model within 60 days of enactment. Furthermore, since program costs will vary over time as deadlines come due then pass, the resource model provides a more accurate means of gauging the true needs of the States.

In the case of the State which does not have primacy, the bill allows EPA to use that State's PWSS grant and SRF shortfall setaside to run the drinking water program in that State.

Ground Water Protection Grants

Some 38 percent of the community water systems in the country rely on ground water sources. This is especially true for smaller systems, where ground water supplies 83 percent of the systems serving populations of 10,000 or less.

Prevention of ground water contamination is a critical and cost effective means of ensuring supplies of clean drinking water. The current law recognizes the importance of ground water protection through such initiatives as the wellhead protection program, control of underground injection, and the sole source aquifer protection program.

This bill provides an additional tool to protect ground water by authorizing a new, optional State grant program to encourage States to develop coordinated, comprehensive ground water protection programs. Grants to the States must be coordinated with other grants relating to ground water protection, including grants made under section 106 and 319 of the Clean Water Act.

Application procedures will be described by EPA within one year of enactment and will include identification of key elements of a ground water protection program. The bill authorizes $20 million per year in fiscal years 1995 through 2000 for these grants.

In 1993, the EPA issued National Guidance for Comprehensive State Ground Water Protection Programs which provides for coordination among all Agency ground water work to protect the resource through pollution prevention. This guidance was developed after extensive consultation with the States and includes six strategic activities that States should include in their ground water protection programs. Grants to States made under this new authority may appropriately be directed toward carrying out the Guidance for Comprehensive State Ground Water Protection Programs.

Summary

SECTION 13. INFORMATION AND INSPECTIONS

This section of the bill amends section 1445 of the Safe Drinking Water Act to simplify procedures for obtaining information from public water systems and conducting inspections to determine compliance with the Act.

Discussion

Section 1445 of the Safe Drinking Water Act requires regulated entities to maintain records, provide information, and conduct monitoring. Section 1445 also authorizes the Administrator to conduct inspections in order to determine whether a regulated entity is complying with the Safe Drinking Water Act. In a State that has primary enforcement responsibility, the Administrator must first notify the State of any inspection.

Like other Federal environmental laws, the Safe Drinking Water Act creates a partnership between the Federal and State governments. With respect to enforcement, this partnership gives States