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Comments must be received on or before May 2, 2011.

Summary

The 1996 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) require that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) establish criteria for a program to monitor unregulated contaminants and to publish a list of contaminants to be monitored every five years. This action meets the SDWA requirement by proposing the design for the third UCMR cycle (i.e., UCMR 3). EPA is proposing six EPA-developed analytical methods, and four equivalent consensus organization-developed methods to monitor for 28 new UCMR chemical contaminants. In addition, EPA proposes monitoring for two viruses, for a total of 30 UCMR 3 contaminants. As envisioned, virus analysis (along with related analysis for pathogen indicators) would be conducted in laboratories under EPA contract. UCMR 3 provides EPA and other interested parties with scientifically valid data on the occurrence of these contaminants in drinking water, permitting the assessment of the number of people potentially being exposed and the levels of that exposure. These data are the primary source of occurrence and exposure information the Agency uses to determine whether to regulate these contaminants. In addition, as part of an Expedited Methods Update, this proposed action also would amend regulations concerning inorganic chemical sampling and analytical requirements. A minor editorial correction to the table moves methods from the “Other” column to the “ASTM” column, as it applies to the inorganic chemical sampling and analytical requirements. The UCMR program is not affected by these changes…

Contaminants include 6 Perfluorinated Chemicals using EPA Method 537 (LC/MS/MS)10:

perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS)

perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)

perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA)

perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS)

perfluoroheptanoic acid (PFHpA)

perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS)

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