Water

Rural water utilities are suggesting that a provision in the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) that gives the EPA administrator “sole judgment” to determine new contaminants may be vulnerable to a constitutional challenge under the “non-delegation” doctrine, and are urging the agency to address the issue in an upcoming rule governing perchlorate.

Environmentalists are threatening to sue EPA over any rule that authorizes wastewater treatment plants to “blend” partly- and fully-treated effluent during wet-weather events, warning in written comments that the state of research into potential health harms from blending is too thin to support a rational rulemaking process.

As EPA prepares to consider its long-awaited plan to address per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a group of rural utilities is urging acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler “to resist calls for a national” drinking water standard for PFAS, asking the agency instead to focus on alternative methods to deal with contamination rather than regulation.