National Primary Drinking Water Regulations; Arsenic and Clarifications to Compliance and New Source Contaminants Monitoring: Delay of Effective Date

Today's action delays the effective date of the arsenic in drinking water regulation published on January 22, 2001 (66 FR 6976), to February 22, 2002. The effective date for the arsenic regulation was previously delayed 60 days on March 23, 2001 (66 FR 16134), to May 22, 2001. The effective date for clarifications to compliance and new- source contaminants monitoring in the January 22 arsenic regulation remains unchanged as January 22, 2004. On March 20, 2001, EPA's Administrator publicly announced that the Agency would take steps to reassess the scientific and cost issues associated with the arsenic rule published on January 22, 2001, and seek further public input on important issues with that rule. On April 23, 2001, EPA published in the Federal Register (66 FR 20580) a proposal to delay the effective date of the arsenic rule for an additional nine months in order to conduct reviews of the science and costing analysis and make the results available for public review. Today's action extends the effective date for the arsenic rule from May 22, 2001, to February 22, 2002, in order to conduct the reviews described in the April 23, 2001 Federal Register (66 FR 20580). For now, the current standard of 50 <greek-m>g/L remains the applicable arsenic drinking water standard until the 2006 compliance date for the January 2001 final rule.