Full Description

This article discusses the US Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA) notice that it intends to carry forward, without any additions or deletions, the 51 contaminants remaining on the first contaminant candidate list (CCL1) to comprise the second CCL (CCL2). AWWA's reaction/comments were that it "sets an unacceptable precedent" and expressed strong concerns that "the CCL process has become so constrained by resources that the agency has found it necessary to propose a mere placeholder CCL." AWWA urged USEPA to get serious about "developing a robust CCL process, one that identifies contaminants for potential regulation in order to increase public health protection and that provides sound research objectives" for assessing occurrence and health effects of unregulated contaminants. AWWA's comments on the draft CCL2 also addressed agency efforts to develop and apply a more scientifically rigorous process for creating CCLs than the relatively quick-and-dirty process employed to create the first one in 1998 that USEPA has again, by default, relied on to draft the second.