[Federal Register Volume 63, Number 25 (Friday, February 6, 1998)]
[Notices]
[Pages 6180-6181]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 98-3040]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[FRL-5963-5]


Notice of Public Meetings on Drinking Water Issues

    Notice is hereby given that the Environmental Protection Agency 
(EPA) is holding three series of public meetings for purposes of 
information exchange and technical discussion on issues related to the 
development of regulations to control microbial pathogens and 
disinfection byproducts in drinking water.
    The first series of meetings includes issues related to the 
development of the Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule 
(LT2ESWTR) and the Stage 2 Disinfectants/Disinfection Byproducts Rule 
(Stage 2 DBP). The Agency is developing this set of rules to take into 
account risk trade-offs between microbial contaminants and chemical 
byproducts of disinfection processes, as well as to consider the need 
for improved control in each of these areas. Information exchange and 
technical discussions in these meetings will address analysis of source 
water occurrence data and drinking water treatment plant and 
distribution system data collected under EPA's Information Collection 
Rule (ICR). Topics such as microbial and disinfection byproduct 
research, methods development, supplemental survey data or other 
related issues may also be discussed under this series of meetings. As 
part of this series, a public meeting is scheduled for February 18, and 
19 at the office of RESOLVE, 1255 23rd Street, NW, Suite 275, 
Washington, DC, that will include technical discussion on defining 
analyses of the ICR and plans to extract data from the ICR Federal 
Database to support those analyses. Discussions regarding data 
extraction planning will continue on February 20 at the EPA Systems 
Development Center, 200 North Glebe Road, Suite 300, Arlington, 
Virginia.
    The second series of meetings includes issues related to the 
development of the Ground Water Disinfection Rule (GWDR). The Safe 
Drinking Water Act as amended in 1996 directs EPA to promulgate 
regulations requiring disinfection ``as necessary'' for ground water 
systems. The intention of the GWDR is to reduce microbial contamination 
risk from public water sources relying on ground water. The rule will 
establish a framework to identify public water supplies vulnerable to 
microbial contamination and to develop and implement risk control 
strategies including but not limited to disinfection. This rulemaking 
will apply to all public water systems that use ground water, which 
includes noncommunity systems.
    The third series includes issues related to the development of the 
Long Term 1 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule (LT1ESWTR). 
Information exchange and technical discussions under this series of 
meetings will focus largely on microbial treatment improvements and 
controlling disinfection byproduct risk trade-offs for small systems 
(those serving fewer than 10,000 people), but may also address 
treatment for larger systems (e.g., issues related to Cryptosporidium 
inactivation). Other discussion topics

[[Page 6181]]

will also include issues related to the recycling of filter backwash 
with respect to all public water system sizes.
    Each of these series of meetings is anticipated to begin in and 
continue through this calendar year, and may run concurrently. EPA is 
hereby providing notice of and inviting interested members of the 
public to participate in the meetings. As with all previous meetings in 
this series, EPA is instituting an open door policy to allow members of 
the public to attend these meetings. To assist EPA in managing 
limitations on conference room seating, members of the public who are 
interested in attending meetings are requested to contact the following 
individuals:

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                  Rule                              Contact                          Phone #/E-mail             
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LT2ESWTR/Stage 2 DBP....................  Jini Mohanty...............  (202) 260-6415 mohanty.jini@epa-
mail.epa.gov.                           
GWDR....................................  Tracy Bone.................  (202) 260-2954 bone.tracy@epa-
mail.epa.gov.                           
LT1ESWTR................................  Valerie Blank..............  (202) 260-8376 blank.valerie-            
                                                                        @epamail.epa.gov.                       
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    Members of the public are requested to contact the people listed 
above also for further information about these or other meetings in 
these series or to be included on the mailing list to receive notice of 
further meetings in these series.

    Dated: February 3, 1998.
William R. Diamond,
Acting Director, Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water.
[FR Doc. 98-3040 Filed 2-5-98; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P