Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Regulation for Public Water Systems; Amendment to the List 2 Rule and Partial Delay of Reporting of Monitoring Results

The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), as amended in 1996, requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to establish criteria for a program to monitor unregulated contaminants and to publish a list of contaminants to be monitored. In fulfillment of this requirement, EPA published Revisions to the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Regulation (UCMR) for public water systems on September 17, 1999 (64 FR 50556), March 2, 2000 (65 FR 11372) and January 11, 2001 (66 FR 2273), which included lists of contaminants for which monitoring was required or would be required in the future. EPA is taking direct final action to correct an omission in the January 11, 2001, List 2 UCMR concerning laboratory certification. This correction will automatically approve laboratories of public water systems, that are certified to conduct compliance monitoring using Method 515.3, to also use Method 515.4 for UCMR analyses. Additionally, EPA is delaying requirements for the electronic reporting of unregulated contaminant monitoring results until its electronic reporting system is ready to accept data. The January 11, 2001, List 2 UCMR requires certain public water systems to start reporting the results of their unregulated contaminant monitoring to EPA electronically by July 1, 2001. This rule notifies such public water systems that the electronic reporting system that EPA is developing to accept monitoring data is not ready and that EPA is removing the reporting requirement until it is available. This action does not delay or suspend the implementation of any of the requirements of the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Regulations for sample collection and analysis on the previously established schedule.