Culture of health and our core work
Hello everyone,
In a recent Aqua Talk message I wrote about the relentless efforts that public drinking water systems and department staff devote to responding to acute risk situations like E. coli violations and large pressure loss events plus natural disasters. These events lead to boil or bottle water orders. Responding to these acute risk events is always a top priority for the safe drinking water program to prevent waterborne disease outbreaks. However, considerably more efforts are devoted to the routine, core work operations at water systems and within the safe drinking water program to support our collective Culture of Health. We also relentlessly provide assistance and assurance services on a routine basis to make sure that tap water is safe.
Helping operators and public water systems comply with the Colorado Primary Drinking Water Regulations (Regulation 11), and serve safe water to their customers is our preferred method of protecting public health. Why? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In other words, we prefer successful assistance to prevent problems and their associated potential health risks. When violations occur, potential health risks could already be experienced by the public. It is better if the violation never happens.
To that end, the safe drinking water program invests heavily in our assistance programs, like source water protection, grants and loans, and coaching. Plus we imbed assistance efforts into every facet of our more routine compliance programs as well. Compliance specialists routinely help water systems understand and comply with sampling and reporting requirements. We have on-line, updated sampling schedules that water systems can use. Every sanitary survey inspection is an opportunity for one-on-one assistance with items such as cross connection control and storage tank inspection best practices. When we review design plans and specifications, our review engineers do their best to provide assistance to help make sure that the resulting infrastructure will provide safe water. This process often involves cooperative and iterative efforts to adjust the design if needed.
However, even if a problem occurs, our assistance efforts do not end. We routinely help water systems understand and correct deficiencies and violations that are found during sanitary survey inspections. We also help water systems use an on-line public notice template to make sure they can comply with the public notice rule and inform customers about violations. Sometimes violations take time to correct, especially if they involve construction projects. We get involved by helping with grants and loans and technical assistance every step of the way. Indeed, our assistance efforts are relentless!
But assistance does not work 100% of the time. There are cases where, for a variety of reasons, a public drinking water system experiences a violation and cannot return to compliance in a timely fashion. Often, this arises due to no fault of their own, for example naturally occurring radium increases in a water supply well. In these circumstances the department typically issues an advisory letter that lets the water system know that an enforcement order and penalty could be coming if compliance is not restored. This could be followed by a formal enforcement order to protect public health. These actions are also necessary to ensure that we maintain primacy to continue implementing the Safe Drinking Water Act in Colorado in accordance with EPA requirements. But again, our relentless assistance efforts do not stop when enforcement begins, as most water systems strongly desire to work with us in order to regain compliance but need substantial compliance, technical and financial assistance. We do all we can to provide that help along with providing public communications assistance, such as attending public meetings, as needed and as resources allow. If a penalty is involved we often work with the water systems to find ways to reduce them.
However, there are rare occasions when public drinking water systems choose not to work with us cooperatively. The particular case may also involve operator misconduct or criminal activity, such as falsification of data reported to the department. In these circumstances we must take strong action to protect public health in accordance with public expectations. Over the last several years, such activities included:
- Operator disciplinary actions including informal and formal reprimands and certificate revocation.
- Criminal referral case that resulted in arrest, time in jail awaiting arraignment, and conviction.
- Other criminal case referrals.
- Court action to obtain a restraining order against a person that threatened a staff member.
- Court actions to formally enforce an enforcement order.
- Court action to stipulate and force penalty collection.
- Court action to obtain a property lien to assure compliance when monetary payment was not possible.
We are fortunate that the need for such actions is infrequent, but we must relentlessly pursue public health protection in these cases. We simply cannot allow a system to avoid serving safe drinking water due to recalcitrance. Similarly, systems must pay an appropriate penalty when that is incorporated into an enforcement case and cannot be allowed to bypass that responsibility. The kinds of compliance assurance efforts listed above are incredibly resource intensive and usually slow, however they are vital. They are virtually a last resort, when other efforts are not successful.
The bottom line is that we all need to use all the tools at our disposal to ensure safe drinking water. The safe drinking water program is committed to helping water systems achieve that goal. Colorado residents and visitors are well-served by most public water systems because they strive to go above and beyond the regulations and provide consistent, safe, and delicious potable water year in and year out. Providing assistance to our partners will always be a cornerstone of our program, and our partners can rest assured that if needed, we will take further steps to foster public confidence in safe tap water.
➽ Ron Falco, P.E. Safe Drinking Water Program Manager
