RESOLUTION

USEPA Source Water Protection Guidance

WHEREAS, The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has requested the Ground Water Protection Council’s (GWPC) input on source water protection (SWP) guidance development; and

WHEREAS, The GWPC has provided comments to the USEPA in the first round of guidance development; and

WHEREAS, The 1996 Amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act mandate SWP delineation and assessments, but provide great flexibility to the states in the implementation of the requirements; and

WHEREAS, The USEPA appears to be going beyond the requirements of the SDWA by dictating hydrologic/hydrogeologic susceptibility analysis as part of source water protection assessments;

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of Directors of the GWPC recommends to the USEPA that SWP guidance only require delineation of SWP areas and an inventory of potential contaminant sources; and that the guidance should not require, but could recommend, that a susceptibility analysis be conducted as part of the SWP assessment; and that GWPC continue to develop with USEPA a working definition of the term “susceptibility” for the purpose of this guidance.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the GWPC recommends that the scope of any source water protection guidance be limited to delineation and assessment issues and supporting methodologies and that issues involving management strategies and contingency planning be left to the deference of the States.

Attest: 3-11-97

Michel J. Paque

Secretary