42 U.S.C. § 300g–3 — Enforcement of drinking water regulations

(a) Notice to State and public water system; issuance of administrative order; civil action In states with primary enforcement responsibility: if the EPA finds that a public water system without a variance or exemption isn't meeting an applicable requirement, or a system with a variance or exemption isn't meeting its schedule or conditions, the EPA must notify both the state and the system, and offer advice and technical assistance to bring the system into compliance by the earliest feasible time. If more than 30 days pass after that notice and the state still hasn't started an appropriate enforcement action, the EPA must either issue a compliance order under subsection (g) or sue the system under subsection (b). In states without primary enforcement responsibility: if the EPA finds the same kind of noncompliance in a state that lacks primary enforcement responsibility, the EPA must issue a compliance order or sue right away, with no 30-day wait for state action. Before taking that action, the EPA must notify any local elected official with jurisdiction over the system. (b) Judicial determinations in appropriate Federal district courts; civil penalties, separate violations The EPA may sue a water system in the appropriate U.S. district court to force compliance with an applicable requirement, a compliance order, or a variance or exemption schedule, if either: the suit is authorized under subsection (a)(1) or (a)(2), or the state's chief executive officer or the state agency responsible for water-system compliance asks the EPA to sue. The court may enter whatever judgment protecting public health requires, considering the time needed to comply and whether alternative water supplies are available. If the court finds a violation occurred, it may — considering how serious the violation is, the population at risk, and other appropriate factors — fine the violator up to $25,000 for each day the violation occurs. (c) Notice to States, the Administrator, and persons served General duty. Every water system owner or operator must notify the people it serves of: (A) any failure to meet an applicable contaminant limit, treatment-technique requirement, or prescribed testing procedure, or to perform required monitoring; (B) if the system has a variance or exemption for being unable to meet a contaminant limit, the existence of that variance or exemption and any failure to meet its schedule; (C) the concentration level of any unregulated contaminant the EPA has required be publicly disclosed; and (D) if the system exceeded the lead action level set in EPA regulations (or a successor level the EPA later prescribes). How, and how fast, notice must be given. The EPA sets the manner, frequency, form, and content of these notices by regulation, after consulting the states, distinguishing between infrequent and frequent or continuous violations and taking into account how serious the potential adverse health effects are. States may, by rule, set their own alternative requirements for the form and content of the two categories of notice described below, as long as they provide the same type and amount of information — this doesn't change a state's separate primary-enforcement obligations under section 300g–2. For violations or exceedances that could seriously harm health from short-term exposure: the system must distribute notice as soon as practicable, but no later than 24 hours, after learning of the violation or exceedance, clearly explaining the violation or exceedance, its potential health effects, what the system is doing to correct it, and whether people need alternative water in the meantime. The system must give that same notice to the EPA and the state's primary-enforcement agency within that same 24-hour window. Depending on state regulations or a case-by-case decision that considers the health risk involved, the notice may also have to go to the media (including broadcast media), be published prominently in a local newspaper within a day of the initial notice (or by the next issue), or be delivered by posting or door-to-door. If neither the state nor the system issues this urgent notice for a lead-action-level exceedance with potential for serious short-term harm, the EPA must issue the required notice itself within 24 hours of being notified of the exceedance. For other violations: the system must provide written notice — in the next bill (if any), in an annual report within a year of the violation, or by mail or direct delivery within a year — using a form the EPA prescribes to clearly explain the violation, any potential health effects, and the steps the system is taking, including seeking alternative water supplies if needed, until the violation is corrected. The EPA may also require notice of the concentration levels of unregulated contaminants that a system must monitor. Annual public reports. Starting no later than January 1, 1998, and every year after, each state with primary enforcement responsibility must prepare, make readily available to the public, and submit to the EPA an annual report on violations of national primary drinking water regulations in the state — covering contaminant limits, treatment requirements, variances and exemptions, and monitoring requirements the EPA finds significant — and must publish and distribute summaries showing where the full report can be found. Starting no later than July 1, 1998, and every year after, the EPA must prepare and make public its own annual report summarizing and evaluating the states' reports, plus notices from and about public water systems serving Indian Tribes, and must make specific recommendations about the resources needed to improve compliance, including on Indian reservations. Consumer confidence reports. Within 24 months of August 6, 1996, the EPA — after consulting water systems, environmental groups, public-interest groups, risk-communication experts, states, and other interested parties — had to issue regulations requiring every community water system to mail, or provide electronically, an annual "consumer confidence report" to each customer describing the level of contaminants in its water. Those regulations must include plain-language definitions of "maximum contaminant level goal," "maximum contaminant level," "variances," and "exemptions"; brief plain-language statements about the health concerns behind each regulated contaminant; a plain-language explanation of contaminants that might reasonably be expected in drinking water, including bottled water; and an EPA toll-free hotline for more information. Each report must include, at minimum: the source of the water; plain-language definitions of "action level," "maximum contaminant level goal," "maximum contaminant level," "variances," and "exemptions"; for any detected regulated contaminant, its health goal, its legal limit, its actual level in the system, its action level, and, for any contaminant whose limit was violated that year, a plain-language statement of the health concerns behind regulating it; compliance information, including corrosion-control efforts and notice of any active variance or exemption and the basis for it; levels of unregulated contaminants the system must monitor (including cryptosporidium and radon where states find they may be present); a statement that detecting contaminants doesn't necessarily mean the water poses a health risk, with a pointer to the EPA hotline; and, where applicable, any serious short-term-risk exceedances that required corrective action and any violations that occurred during the reporting period. A system may add whatever other information it thinks helps educate the public. The EPA may also require plain-language health statements for up to three additional regulated contaminants beyond what's otherwise required. A state's governor may exempt community water systems serving fewer than 10,000 people from the mailing requirement; such a system must instead tell customers, by newspaper notice or otherwise, that it won't mail the report, make the report available on request, and publish it annually in one or more local newspapers. A system that qualifies for that exemption and serves 500 people or fewer may skip the newspaper-publication and customer-notice steps too, but must still prepare the annual report and must notify customers at least once a year — by mail, door-to-door delivery, posting, or another EPA-authorized method — that the report is available on request. A state with primary enforcement responsibility may, by rule and after notice and public comment, set its own alternative requirements for the form and content of these reports. By roughly late 2020 (24 months after October 23, 2018), the EPA, in consultation with the same parties listed above, had to revise these regulations to increase the readability, clarity, understandability, and accuracy of the reports and their risk communication, and to require community water systems serving 10,000 or more people to deliver a report at least twice a year, by mail, electronic means, or other methods consistent with a specific EPA memo on delivery options issued January 3, 2013. Exceedance of lead levels at households. Within 180 days of December 16, 2016, the EPA, working with water system owners and operators and with states, had to establish a strategic plan for how the EPA, a primacy state, and water systems provide targeted outreach, education, technical assistance, and risk communication to people affected by lead in a public water system's water. If an EPA employee develops, or receives from a source other than a state or water system, data showing that a household's water exceeds the lead action level, the EPA must have that employee forward the data and the sampling method used to the water system's owner or operator and to the state, within a time period the EPA sets. If the owner or operator receives that data and hasn't already notified the affected household of its lead concentration and that it exceeds the action level, the owner or operator must send the affected household specific required information (described below) within a time period the EPA sets. If the owner or operator fails to do that in time, the EPA — within 24 hours of becoming aware of the failure — must consult with the state's governor, within a period not exceeding 24 hours, to develop a plan, consistent with the strategic plan, for getting the information to the affected households within 24 hours after the consultation ends; the EPA may delegate that consultation duty only to an Agency employee who, at the time, works in the Office of Water at Agency headquarters. If the owner or operator still hasn't shared the information, and either the EPA and the governor can't agree on a plan during the consultation period, or the governor doesn't disseminate the information within 24 hours after that period ends, the EPA itself must disseminate the required information to the affected households as soon as practicable. The required information includes: a clear explanation of the potential adverse health effects of water exceeding the lead action level; the steps the water system is taking to reduce the lead concentration; and whether alternative water supplies are needed until the lead level is fixed. Privacy. Any notice to the public or to an affected household under this subsection must protect the privacy of individual customers' information. (d) Notice of noncompliance with secondary drinking water regulations If the EPA finds that, within a reasonable time after national secondary drinking water regulations (covering things like taste and appearance) are promulgated, one or more water systems in a state aren't complying with them, and that the noncompliance appears to result from the state failing to take reasonable action to ensure its systems meet those regulations, the EPA must notify that state. (e) State authority to adopt or enforce laws or regulations respecting drinking water regulations or public water systems unaffected Nothing in this subchapter limits a state or local government's authority to adopt or enforce its own drinking-water laws or regulations, but no such state or local law can excuse anyone from a requirement that otherwise applies under this subchapter. (f) Notice and public hearing; availability of recommendations transmitted to State and public water system If the EPA finds a water system in a primacy state out of compliance, the EPA may — to help that state carry out its enforcement responsibility, and if the state, the water system, or the people it serves petition for it — hold public hearings, after appropriate notice, to gather information from technical experts, officials, the water system, the people it serves, and other interested persons on: (1) how the system can be brought into compliance at the earliest feasible time, and (2) how to give the public maximum feasible health protection while the system remains out of compliance. Based on those hearings, the EPA must issue recommendations, send them to the state and the water system, and make them available to the public and the media. (g) Administrative order requiring compliance; notice and hearing; civil penalty; civil actions Whenever the EPA is authorized to bring a civil action under this section or the related monitoring section over an applicable requirement, it may also (or instead) issue an order requiring compliance with that requirement. An order against a system in a state with primary enforcement responsibility doesn't take effect until the EPA has given the state a chance to confer about the order, and a copy of any such order must go to the state's appropriate agency. Every order must state, with reasonable specificity, the nature of the violation, and if it's issued to a corporation, a copy must also go to the appropriate corporate officers. Anyone who violates, fails, or refuses to comply with a compliance order is liable to the United States for a civil penalty of up to $25,000 per day of violation. If the EPA seeks $5,000 or less, the EPA itself assesses the penalty after notice and an opportunity for a public hearing (or a formal on-the-record hearing, if the person against whom the penalty is sought requests one). If the EPA seeks more than $5,000 but not more than $25,000, it must provide notice and a formal on-the-record hearing before assessing the penalty. If the EPA seeks more than $25,000, the penalty must instead be assessed through a civil action the EPA brings in the appropriate U.S. district court. If someone fails to pay a penalty after it becomes a final, unappealable order (or after a court of appeals enters final judgment for the EPA), the Attorney General may sue in an appropriate district court to recover the amount owed — and in that recovery suit, the validity and appropriateness of the underlying penalty order cannot be challenged again. (h) Consolidation incentive A water system's owner or operator may submit to the state (if it has primary enforcement responsibility) or to the EPA (if it does not) a plan, with specific measures and schedules, for: (A) physically consolidating the system with one or more other systems; (B) consolidating significant management or administrative functions with one or more other systems; (C) transferring ownership of the system in a way reasonably expected to improve water quality; or (D) contracting out significant management or administrative functions to correct violations identified in the plan. If the state or the EPA approves that plan, no enforcement action may be taken over a specific violation named in the approved plan before the earlier of: the date consolidation under the plan is completed, or two years after the plan is approved. A state with primary enforcement responsibility (or the EPA, where the state lacks it) may require a water system's owner or operator to assess consolidation, ownership-transfer, or other compliance options if: the system has repeatedly violated one or more national primary drinking water regulations in ways likely to adversely affect human health, and either is unable or unwilling to take feasible, affordable steps (including accessing technical and financial assistance through the state loan fund) that would bring it into compliance, or has already taken such steps without achieving compliance; the consolidation, transfer, or other action being assessed is feasible; and it could result in greater compliance with national primary drinking water regulations. Any required assessment must be tailored to the size, type, and characteristics of the system being assessed, and may be carried out by an entity the state (or EPA) approves — which can be the state, the EPA, the water system itself, or a third party. Congress expressed the sense that any required assessment shouldn't be overly burdensome on the system being assessed. A system undertaking consolidation, ownership transfer, or other action identified by a completed assessment may receive a state loan-fund loan for that purpose, notwithstanding a separate provision that might otherwise limit access to that kind of loan. A system submitting a consolidation plan based on a required assessment must identify, as part of the plan, any potential or existing liability for penalties or damages arising from each violation named in the plan that the owner or operator is aware of, and any funds or other assets available to satisfy that liability — taking reasonable steps to make sure all such liabilities are identified. Once a system has completed the actions in an approved plan consistent with the assessment's findings, it cannot be held liable under this subchapter for a violation identified in that plan, except to the extent funds or assets were identified as available to satisfy the liability. By roughly October 2020 (two years after October 23, 2018), the EPA had to issue regulations implementing these consolidation-assessment, financial-assistance, and liability-protection provisions. (i) "Applicable requirement" defined In this section, "applicable requirement" means: a requirement of any of several listed drinking-water sections of this subchapter; a regulation issued under one of those sections; a schedule or requirement imposed under one of those sections; or a requirement of, or a permit issued under, a state program the EPA has determined satisfies the primary-enforcement standards of section 300g–2, or an applicable state program otherwise approved under this part. (j) Improved accuracy and availability of compliance monitoring data Within one year of October 23, 2018, the EPA, working with states (including states without primary enforcement responsibility), public water systems, and other interested stakeholders, had to develop and give Congress a strategic plan for improving the accuracy and availability of monitoring data — submitted by water systems to states, and by states to the EPA — that is used to demonstrate compliance with national primary drinking water regulations. In developing that plan, the EPA had to evaluate the challenges in: ensuring the accuracy and integrity of the submitted data; states' and systems' ability to implement an electronic data-submission system, including whether that's technically and economically feasible; and letting users of such electronic systems actually access the data. The strategic plan sent to Congress had to include a summary of those evaluation findings and recommendations on practicable, cost-effective methods for improving the data's accuracy and availability. In developing the plan, the EPA could consult with other states or federal agencies that have experience using practical methods to improve data accuracy and availability.