Dear Concerned:
Thank you for your question! We are also concerned about the impacts of COVID-19 and compliance rates with both the Backflow Prevention and Cross-Connection Control Rule as well as the Storage Tank Rule. The division worked with stakeholders since April to propose some important updates to the rules. On April 10, 2020, the division proposed the rule to the Water Quality Control Commission and they approved them! We have a web page dedicated to this effort. Below are some highlights of the proposed changes.
Cross-Connections:
- Make failing to achieve an adequate distribution system survey ratio a Tier 3 violation. This is mostly due to the outstanding effort that water districts have made over the last few years of implementation. So many water systems have performed surveys of their distribution systems to the extent that the division now has confidence a very high percentage of systems have been surveyed.
- Extend out the final compliance deadlines by a year for the rule given the major impact COVID had on assembly testing.
- Extend the allowable window to repair the assembly from 60 days to 120 days once an assembly fails.
Storage Tanks:
- Allow two inspections per year before assessing a violation rather than the current four per year. This is primarily due to the outstanding performance of systems and the dozens of acceptable alternative schedules showing proper tank inspections twice a year adequately protect public health. However, the division still strongly recommends performing monthly or quarterly inspections as best practice.
- A single missed inspection will result in a Tier 3 violation rather than a Tier 2 violation. However, if a system does not complete a periodic inspection over an entire 12- month window, a Tier 2 violation is warranted because that length of time constitutes neglect of storage tanks.
Please check out the web page for more details. Any questions about that can go to Tyson Ingels, lead drinking water engineer at tyson.ingels@state.co.us.
-Aqua Man
