[Federal Register Volume 66, Number 103 (Tuesday, May 29, 2001)]
[Notices]
[Pages 29129-29131]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 01-13407]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[FRL-6984-2]


Notice of Availability of Funds for Source Water Protection

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) seeks proposals from 
organizations interested in working with communities across the nation 
that are served by public water systems with highly or moderately 
susceptible drinking water sources to protect their sources of drinking 
water from contamination using a resource-based or geographic/regional-
based approach. All communities involved in this effort should have 
completed source water assessments.
    EPA is providing this financial support to provide training and 
technical assistance on innovative approaches that will assist 
communities across the country in establishing sustainable efforts to 
address the obstacles to preventing contamination of their water 
resources and lowering the susceptibility of source waters through a 
resource-based or geographic regional-based planning approach.
    EPA is currently funding an organization with a national network of 
field technicians assisting communities with watershed or resource-
based planning to protect their water supplies. However, EPA is very 
interested in funding training and technical assistance across the 
country of innovative types of approaches that can be sustained by 
community efforts to prevent contamination of drinking water sources. 
EPA will award one grant that would complement the field technician 
approach.

DATES: All project proposals must be received by EPA no later than June 
28, 2001.

ADDRESSES: Send five paper copies of the complete proposal to: Debra 
Gutenson (4606), Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, U. S. EPA, 
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20460; and an electronic 
copy of the completed proposal to [email protected].

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Debra Gutenson, (202) 260-2733.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

What Is a State or Tribal Source Water Assessment?

    As mandated by the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996, a 
state's source water assessment identifies the area that supplies water 
to each public drinking water system within the state, inventories the 
significant potential sources of contamination, and analyzes how 
susceptible the drinking water source is to contamination (often 
referred to as a ``susceptibility determination''). An assessment is 
complete when the results are made widely available to the public. The 
Amendments allocated funding to states to complete source water 
assessments for all 170,000 public water systems. The results of these 
assessments are to be provided to each water supplier and made widely 
accessible to the public by 2003 (a few states are scheduled for 
completion in 2004). EPA is also helping Tribes complete source water 
assessments of public water supplies in Indian Country.
    The assessments are intended to give communities the information 
that they need to make informed decisions to prevent contamination of 
their drinking water sources.

What Is a Highly or Moderately Susceptible Drinking Water Source?

    There is a high degree of flexibility in how a state determines the 
susceptibility of its public water systems. EPA is providing this 
funding to focus on highly or moderately susceptible drinking water 
sources. Therefore, the organization receiving this funding would need 
to work with the state source water programs to identify those public 
water systems or areas of the state that the state determines are 
highly or moderately susceptible to contamination and would most 
benefit from source water contamination prevention planning and actions 
on a resource-based or geographic/regional-based scale.

What Is Source Water Contamination Prevention?

    Source water contamination prevention is the establishment of 
sustainable local programs that lower the risk of contaminants of 
concern entering waters serving as public drinking water supplies. 
Building upon State or Tribal source water assessments, more 
communities will be examining what actions are necessary to prevent 
contamination of their sources of drinking water from the identified 
potential threats, and thereby lower the susceptibility of their water 
supply to contamination. Planning is a critical first step so that a 
community or a group of communities can use their limited resources to 
most effectively target sources of contamination that pose the highest 
or most immediate threats. Many communities need assistance working 
through the planning process. Implementing planned actions is the next 
step and communities also need assistance to develop sustainable 
efforts to initiate and/or maintain lowered susceptibility of their 
water supplies.
    Ideally, communities with public water systems that share the same 
resource or common threats would work together to identify their needs 
and jointly set priorities. Some basic planning elements include:

--An analysis of the state or tribal source water assessment for the 
systems involved in the planning.
--Identification of preventive action priorities and recommended 
management measures for addressing them, including costs.
--Identification of an approach for determining the effect of the 
proposed priority actions on lowering the threats to source waters.
--Identification of alternative water supplies which would be needed in 
the case of emergencies (contingency planning).

    Many communities also need assistance in implementing their 
priority preventive actions so a community has the capacity to maintain 
these actions once outside assistance is complete. Preventive actions 
might

[[Page 29130]]

include land acquisition, land use ordinance establishment, leaky 
underground gas tank removal from sensitive areas, implementing best 
management practices on agricultural lands, relocation of high-risk 
threats, or other management measures.
    Additionally, many communities need assistance in locating funding 
sources for implementing and sustaining management measures once such 
preventive measures are identified. There are many federal, state and 
non-governmental sources of funding that may be available.

What Is ``Resource-Based or Geographic/Regional-Based'' Source Water 
Contamination Prevention?

    A resource-based or geographic/regional-based approach to source 
water contamination prevention promotes partnerships between public 
water systems that share a common source (river, lake, spring or 
aquifer), share common political or geographical borders (counties or 
planning districts), or face common contaminant threats. The approach 
encourages joint contamination prevention of water supplies through a 
single planning and prioritization process. A single water system might 
also benefit from a resource-based or geographic/regional-based 
approach if the community cannot adequately prevent contamination of 
its drinking water source without collaborating with communities in the 
same watershed or recharge area that may have more control over 
potential threats to the water supply.
    While similar, a resource-based or geographic/regional-based 
approach is distinguished from watershed planning by focusing also on 
ground water areas that may not coincide with a watershed boundary. It 
is distinguished from traditional wellhead protection planning by 
broadening the scope from the traditional water system-by-system 
planning approach to planning on a shared resource scale that is based 
on natural geological and hydrological boundaries. However, a resource-
based or geographic/regional-based approach is not necessarily the same 
as large aquifer-wide planning (such as the Edwards aquifer) or a large 
watershed (e. g. Mississippi basin). These large scales often are 
beyond the scope of what is realistic or necessary for preventing 
contamination of sources of drinking water.

Why Is EPA Limiting the Focus to Highly or Moderately Susceptible 
Source Waters, and Using a Resource-Based or Geographic/Regional-Based 
Approach?

    There are over 170,000 public water systems in the United States. 
While States have resources through the State Revolving Fund Programs, 
EPA has limited discretionary resources to help local communities 
implement source water contamination prevention for all of these 
systems' sources of drinking water. EPA believes that communities with 
public water supplies that are most susceptible to contamination should 
be the communities first targeted for assistance to identify and 
implement preventive management measures to protect their drinking 
water sources.
    EPA is also trying to encourage a resource-based or geographic/
regional-based approaches to source water contamination prevention as 
an alternative to the traditional water system-by-system wellhead 
protection approach. This ``multi-system'' planning and action process 
can be more cost effective because one contamination prevention plan 
serves several systems. Also, it can result in a level of protection 
that is sometimes more effective in lowering threats, since threats to 
water quality are not always close to the intake or wellhead.

Why Is EPA Looking for Innovative Approaches in Addition to the 
National Field Presence It Is Establishing?

    EPA recognizes that there is no one right approach to achieving 
source water contamination prevention, and wants to encourage 
innovative approaches to establish sustainable local efforts that deal 
with the variety of factors affecting a community's success. This 
funding will allow for training and technical assistance of different 
approaches that, after evaluation, may be incorporated more broadly 
across the country by the national field technicians.

Funding Level and Statutory Authority

    Funding is authorized under the Safe Drinking Water Act 42 U.S.C. 
300j-1(c)(3)(C). Total funding available for this proposal is $398,000. 
EPA intends to disburse these funds to one organization.

Proposal Contents

    Interested applicants should submit a work plan that:

--Outlines the training and technical assistance on innovative 
approaches in assisting communities to engage in community-based source 
water contamination prevention planning and priority action 
implementation that could lead to sustained efforts once outside 
assistance is complete. Elements of training and technical assistance 
should include: process for choosing local communities or areas, method 
for evaluation of state and local source water assessment information, 
development of a contamination prevention plan, methods of assisting 
communities with innovative preventive approaches that can be 
sustained, and a process of evaluation for the approaches used.
--Includes a budget of no more than $398,000 for implementing the 
approach over a two-year period.
--Provides biographies of the project leaders.

Eligibility Criteria

    The recipient organization must be a not-for-profit organization, 
educational institution, or public agency that meets the following 
criteria:

--Experience providing technical assistance to communities implementing 
community-based environmental programs that could prevent contamination 
of drinking water sources, ground water or surface water quality.
--Experience working with communities to do resource-based or 
geographic/regional-based/watershed or multi-jurisdictional planning, 
and facilitating partnerships between disparate stakeholders.
--Access to an established network capable of working with communities 
nationwide.
--Experience working with state agencies.
--Experience handling large grants of $200,000 or more, timely periodic 
reporting of progress and displaying the results of those grants to a 
wide public.

EPA Project Proposal Evaluation Criteria

    EPA will evaluate all applicants based on the following criteria:

--Clearly describes the training and technical assistance that the 
organization will provide on innovative sustainable approaches taken in 
a variety of regions across the country to assist communities served by 
public water systems that have state-identified highly or moderately 
susceptible source waters. Includes a process for: choosing local 
communities or areas, evaluating state and local source water 
assessment information, developing a contamination prevention plan at 
the

[[Page 29131]]

geographic or regional level, assisting communities with innovative 
approaches or management actions that can be sustained at the community 
level, and evaluating the approaches used. (50 points)
--Demonstrates knowledge of source water contamination prevention and 
ability to provide assistance to communities to effectively prevent 
contamination of their drinking water supplies and address their 
highest priority needs. (25 points)
--Describes approach to community involvement in source water 
contamination prevention planning. (20 points)
--Leverages other resources as part of the proposed approach. (5 points 
)

Application Procedure

    Please submit five paper copies of a proposal that includes a 
narrative work plan and budget that does not exceed 10 single spaced 
pages, with one-inch margins and 12-point font, stapled in one corner 
with no binding. You may also include up to 15 pages of supplementary 
material, such as the resumes and summaries of prior work. Please also 
submit an electronic copy of the completed proposal to Debra Gutenson 
at ``[email protected].'' After the EPA review, the selected 
applicant will be asked to submit an SF-424.

Schedule of Activities

    This is the estimated schedule of activities for review and award 
of proposals:

--Day 30: Proposals due 30 days after publication of Federal Register 
notice.
--Day 44: All applicants notified of government review status.
--Day 54: Selected applicant submits a SF-424.
--Day 64: Selected application(s) forwarded to EPA grants office.
--Day 94: Grants processing complete/Congressional notifications.

    Dated: May 15, 2001.
Cynthia C. Dougherty,
Director, Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water.
[FR Doc. 01-13407 Filed 5-25-01; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P