EPA Completes Six Year Review of Existing Regulations

EPA has released a prepublication version of the third Six Year Review (SYR3). Based on the Agency’s detailed review of 76 regulations, EPA concluded that eight national primary drinking water standards are candidates for regulatory revision.  These eight candidates are included in the Stage 1 and Stage 2 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rules, the Surface Water Treatment Rule (SWTR), the Interim Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule (IESWTR) and the Long Term 1 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule (LT1).  The eight candidates are Chlorite, Cryptosporidium (under the SWTR, IESWTR and LT1), Haloacetic acids, Heterotrophic Bacteria, Giardia lamblia, Legionella, Total Trihalomethanes, and Viruses (under the SWTR).  EPA determined that for the contaminants regulated under these rules, there is new information on health effects, treatment technologies, analytical methods, occurrence and exposure, implementation and/or other factors that provide a health or technical basis to support a regulatory revision that will improve public health protection.
This announcement is not a regulatory decision. Instead, it initiates a process that will involve more detailed analyses of health effects, analytical and treatment feasibility, occurrence, benefits, costs and other regulatory matters relevant to deciding whether a rulemaking to revise a regulation should be initiated. EPA will be seeking public comment and information to help inform future regulatory revisions for the eight candidates.  In addition to the 76 regulations, this review includes 12 other regulations that did not need a detailed review because of recent, ongoing, or pending regulatory actions.
Here is the link to the Six-Year Review webpage, https://www.epa.gov/dwsixyearreview/six-year-review-3-drinking-water-standards. You can use this link to navigate to the pre-publication copy of the Federal Register notice.