211682 Risk tradeoffs in the development of drinking water regulations

Wednesday, November 11, 2009: 10:50 AM

J. Alan Roberson, MS, PE , Government Affairs, American Water Works Association, Washington, DC
  
This presentation will summarize how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has addressed risk tradeoffs in the development of several drinking water regulations. The 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) Amendments require EPA to balance competing risks and to address sensitive subpopulations in its regulatory development process. In some cases, EPA has successfully addressed these issues on its own in the regulatory development process. In other cases, EPA has used a Federal Advisory Committee (FACA) process to develop stakeholder buy-in for the risk tradeoffs for a specific regulation.

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe the regulatory development process for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). 2. Articulate the SDWA requirements for balancing competing risk and addressing sensitive subpopulations 3. Explain how EPA met these requirements in the development of the arsenic rule in 2001. 4. Explain how EPA used Federal Advisory Committee (FACA) processes to meet these requirements for the Microbial/Disinfection By-Product (M/DBP) Cluster and for the Revised Total Coliform Rule (RTCR).

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have 18 years experience in drinking water policy and have presented at several conferences and workshops on drinking water and public health issues
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Drinking Water: How Safe is Safe Enough?
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