Success Story: Safe Water for a Disproportionately Impacted Community

The Brighton Village mobile home community (Park) is a 28-home community in Adams County that serves around 80 people and is a disproportionately impacted community, defined in HB21-1266 Environmental Justice Disproportionate Impacted Community. The department initially issued an Enforcement Order in 2003 due to high nitrate values and the Park’s failure to comply with the nitrate maximum contaminant levels. Infants below the age of six months who drink water containing nitrate above the MCL could become seriously ill and, if untreated, may die. Symptoms include shortness of breath and blue baby syndrome. 

The 2003 enforcement order was closed in 2010. However, the department again issued an Enforcement Order in 2012 for nitrate violations and did so again in 2018. The Park had installed treatment but did not have the capabilities or the resources to operate the treatment appropriately to reliably achieve compliance. The long-term exposure to an acute contaminant created environmental injustices for this community. 

From the EPA, environmental justice is “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” The Colorado Environmental Justice Act recognizes that all people have a right to drink clean water and live free of dangerous levels of toxic pollution, experience equal protection of environmental policies, and share the benefits of a prosperous and vibrant pollution-free economy. 

The department facilitated meetings with the Park and the City of Brighton. The City of Brighton and the Park decided that the best way to serve safe drinking water to the public was to connect the park to the City’s municipal water supply. However, the Park was required to upgrade its water distribution system before the connections could be made. The department provided the Park with $16,000 in grants that allowed the Park to connect to the municipal water supply.

The Safe Drinking Water Program worked in partnership with both the Park and City of Brighton to ensure this disproportionately impacted community is being provided with access to a consistent and reliable source of safe drinking water. This is an Environmental Justice win for the residents of this community, the department, and Colorado.

➽ Amy Schultz, Senior Drinking Water Compliance Specialist 

➽ Jorge Delgado, Drinking Water Compliance Unit Manager

2021 Consumer Confidence Reports & Spanish CCR templates Available

Draft Consumer Confidence Reports (CCRs) for 2021 have been posted and are now available at the division's consumer confidence rule website. Also, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) would like to announce the creation of the Spanish Consumer Confidence Report Template. (Please note that any additional content added to the template would need to be translated.) 

In the interest of public health and to achieve environmental justice, health equity, and climate justice for all communities, CDPHE recommends as a best practice that notifications to consumers are translated into the top two languages spoken in the community. There are multiple potential data sources for making this determination, including: 

• One easy-to-use source is the federal government’s Limited English Proficiency map, which makes data on the most frequently spoken languages in a community available by county. Spanish is the second-most frequently spoken language after English in all but one county in Colorado. In Dolores County, the second-most frequently spoken language is Navajo. 
• More granular data for areas smaller than the county level can also be downloaded from the American Community Survey. 

For systems supplying water to a large portion of Non-English speakers, Colorado’s Primary Drinking Water Regulations (Regulation 11) require that the  confidence reports must include either of the following: 

• (i) Information in the appropriate language(s) regarding the importance of the consumer confidence report.
• (ii) A telephone number or address where the consumer may contact the supplier to obtain a translated copy of the consumer confidence report or request assistance in the appropriate language.  

Currently, CDPHE has not specified a mechanism to determine when notifications must be provided in a language other than English. Historically this determination has been left to the regulated entity to determine the applicability of this requirement. All of the draft CCRs contain a statement in Spanish indicating that the notice contains important information and that the reader, if needed, should seek assistance in having the notice translated.    

The recommendation to provide information in the top two spoken languages in a community is not a regulatory requirement of Regulation 11. However, this standard is established in the State of Colorado's Environmental Justice Act - HOUSE BILL 21-1266, for certain types of information that the Air Quality Control Commission makes available to the public (please see C.R.S. 24-4-109(3)(b)(VI)).

CDPHE would also like to make you aware that the Environmental Justice Act created an Environmental Justice Action Task Force that will draft a plan and provide recommendations for environmental justice policies to the General Assembly, Governor’s Office, and CDPHE. You are welcome to provide feedback to the Environmental Justice Action Task Force. The Task Force has created four subcommittees, and the Best Practices for Community Engagement may benefit from your engagement on this topic. More information can be found on the department's environmental justice website, specifically under the EJ Unit newsletter banner and by clicking the “Environmental Justice Action Task Force” tab at the bottom of the page. You can also provide comments to the Task Force via email at any time by emailing "cdphe_ej@state.co.us" with "EJATF Comment" in the subject line of your email. 

➽ Jorge Delgado, Drinking Water Compliance Unit Manager

PFAS: Where to start when developing a rule to address PFAS that may include MCLs?

In 2021 EPA made final drinking water regulatory determinations for two compounds within the family of chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). PFAS are found in many products, but drinking water contamination resulting from PFAS compounds has often been associated with fire-fighting foams. The two compounds subject to EPA’s final drinking water regulatory determinations are perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). EPA is expected to issue a proposed PFAS rule in Fall 2022 and a final rule in Fall 2023 after considering public comments on the proposal. The schedule for next steps could be:

• States adopt the rule no later than fall 2025
• Initial monitoring period, perhaps one year - 2027
• Final compliance date - some time in 2028

Of course, this schedule could move more quickly or slowly depending on a wide variety of factors. EPA is also considering establishing treatment technique requirements for PFOA, PFOS and additional PFAS as well.  

As you are probably aware, several states in the U.S. have already established PFAS rules that include Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs). In Colorado, the legal structure to establish PFAS standards for drinking water is spelled out in statute (Colorado Revised Statutes (C.R.S. 25-1.5-202). The first step in the process is for the department to establish a priority list of contaminants for which standards may be considered and submit that list to the Water Quality Control Commission (Commission). In 2019 in its annual report to the Commission, the department submitted the list below of contaminants. These compounds were listed because of their confirmed presence in drinking water supplies and sources in Colorado, and other elements of the statutory requirements were addressed in that report as well. The list below has not been modified since 2019. 

1. Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) Chemical Abstract Service Number (CAS No.) 334-67-1.
2. Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) CAS No. 1763-23-1.
3. Perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS) CAS No. 355-46-4.
4. Perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) CAS No. 375-95-1.

As entities such as EPA or states begin the process to develop drinking water rules to address PFAS, what do they think of first? What are the considerations overall? It appears that many folks believe that regulating PFAS in drinking water is as simple as selecting MCL values, such as 70 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOS plus PFOA, if EPA’s Health Advisory value were adopted. Actually, it’s a far more involved and complex process than that. There are many variables to consider and decisions to make.

The answer to beginning this process is that it should all flow from protecting public health. We are a Culture of Health, so this should sound natural: what are the public health risks from PFAS and how do we best address those in a rule? Are they acute health risks that can occur from brief exposure, or chronic health risks that develop over many years of exposure? Most drinking water rules are developed based on this binary categorization of health risks, and they may consider vulnerable populations, such as infants and children. However, there is some concern that PFAS may not fit neatly into one of these categories. For many people, PFAS may represent a chronic health risk, but for pregnant women or nursing mothers, perhaps there is a short-term exposure risk. This determination is yet to be made for PFAS, but it could have a profound influence on the structure and requirements of a federal PFAS rule. 

The reason we must start with health is that many of the fundamental questions about how a PFAS rule will fit into the Safe Drinking Water Act structure can begin to be addressed once the nature of the health risks are established and agreed upon. This series of articles will examine the factors and variables that may go into establishing a PFAS rule with MCLs. Hopefully, this will help best prepare all of us to review EPA’s draft PFAS rule when it is published and provide constructive input to them during the comment period.

Thank you as always for your dedication to providing safe drinking water for all!

➽ Ron Falco, P.E. Safe Drinking Water Program Manager

Federal update - Microbial/Disinfection Byproducts (M/DBP) Rule Update (Part 1)

In 2020 EPA began stakeholder engagement as part of its review of Microbial/Disinfection Byproducts (M/DBP) Rules. The M/DBP rules are an important suite of drinking water rules designed to protect the public from the acute risks associated with waterborne disease outbreaks by requiring strong treatment and disinfection. However, the rules also try to balance the chronic health risk associated with cancer from certain disinfection byproducts. The Safe Drinking Water Program engaged in this process and shared some of our thoughts and experiences with these rule.

Regarding microbial risks, the department shared experiences in evaluating sources of drinking water that could be Groundwater Under the Direct Influence (GWUDI) of surface water and disinfection treatment evaluations. We also recommended that EPA synchronize its timing of promulgating any new or updated M/DBP rules with final regulatory determinations regarding cyanotoxins and brominated disinfection byproducts.

We shared our belief that sources of drinking water initially identified as groundwater, but that are actually under the direct influence of surface water represent a significant public health risk from waterborne disease. This is because filtration treatment to remove pathogens like giardia and cryptosporidium is not required for groundwater sources. The Safe Drinking Water Program has long recognized this risk and developed a policy to determine whether groundwater sources were being directly influenced by surface water. This policy was developed in 2012 after extensive engagement with academic researchers and stakeholders across Colorado. Unfortunately, it takes well-specific evaluations to determine whether the source is indeed GWUDI. This is an impactful determination for the water system if their source is re-classified to GWUDI. We work with water systems to both gather data in support of these determinations and after determinations are made to see if a source can be improved to be able to be reclassified to groundwater and, if not, help move along the process to install surface water treatment. Over the last ten years of implementing the policy, we have evaluated about 456 wells, and 87 of them were determined to be GWUDI. Thus, addressing this source water risk is a significant public health protection advance. We also recommend that federal requirements or guidance specifically address hand-pumped wells often seen at campgrounds.

We further shared that as part of our evaluations of surface water treatment disinfection, we launched the Disinfection Outreach and Verification Effort (DOVE) around 2016. We are evaluating filtration and disinfection at each surface water treatment system in Colorado to ensure that log removal requirements in the surface water treatment rule are met. University research showed serious issues with EPA baffle factor guidance and that it was not sufficiently protective. As part of the DOVE process, about 70 percent of Colorado’s surface water treatment systems had some type of treatment or sampling location issue to address. 

We also called to attention that distribution system problems can be a concern for all water systems, and not just surface water systems. The 2008 Salmonella outbreak at Alamosa, Colorado was at a groundwater system with deep wells and most likely caused by a storage tank deficiency. Issues with cross connections, tanks, etc. occur at all systems. Applying any proposed storage tank or cross connection rules  only to surface water systems is not justified. Instead of only promulgating new rules, we also encouraged EPA to consider guidance and how they institute primacy requirements for states as part of their routine processes. 

One topic of interest to EPA is considering requiring a numeric disinfectant residual concentration beyond a “trace” for all water systems. We shared Colorado’s experience involving studies that showed colorimetric “trace” readings were not reliable. The detection limit for chlorine was 0.09 mg/L. We also highlighted our data showing 300% fewer E. coli positive samples when chlorine residual was above 0.2 mg/L, and that we have had very few E. coli violations in Colorado since 2014. Finally, we shared our understanding of  concerns about transition for historically non-disinfecting systems and that  we think EPA should consider disinfection waivers for water systems with adequate source and other protections in place. 

We also shared our our view DBP concerns are likely to be exacerbated going forward by a variety of source water quality issues. These issues include:

• Drought
• Wildfires
• Nutrients
• DBP Precursors
• Wastewater treatment “Effluent dominated” or impacted sources

It will be the mid-2020s before EPA fully updates the M/DBP rules, but these are highly impactful rules and we encourage water systems to be aware of and engaged in the process. Thank you.

➽ Ron Falco, P.E. Safe Drinking Water Program Manager

PFAS Grant Program: Colorado Senate Bill 20-218

The Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) is taking a proactive approach to ensure safe drinking water for all Coloradans and avoid future contamination from chemicals found in firefighting foam and other materials, known as PFAS (per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances). The department formed the PFAS Grant Program to support identifying, assessing, and reducing the impacts of PFAS on human health and the environment. 

Colorado has funding available now to help entities determine if their water contains any level of PFAS. If PFAS is found above current health advisory levels, funding can also be used to install treatment. 

Any public water system, local public health agency, private well owners, tribal governments, any other government entity, or non-profit educational institution can apply for the grant. The deadline is April 1, 2022, and grants will be awarded by May 1, 2022. If there are additional funds after the grants are awarded, the department will likely leave the application period open for additional submittals but no later than Oct. 31, 2022.

The PFAS Grant Program provides money to eligible entities through three project categories:

• Sampling - for standard sampling and independent environmental studies.
• Emergency Assistance - for communities and water systems affected by PFAS.
• Infrastructure - treating existing PFAS and strategies for preventing upstream sources of PFAS.

Additionally, eligible entities and private well owners may request private well or small-scale sampling on the PFAS Projects webpage. This is to request small-scale sampling (up to five samples) before deciding to complete the entire RFA package.

PFAS are a group of man-made chemicals called per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).  PFAS are persistent in the environment, and can cause health impacts to those exposed. Exposure to PFAS can lead to adverse human health effects including low infant birth weights. PFAS from firefighting foam, personal products, and other sources can contaminate water supplies including groundwater and surface water posing risks to drinking water, the environment, and public health.

The EPA is currently working to update health-based guidelines and develop a drinking water regulation for PFAS. Health-based guidelines and levels are likely to be much lower than previously anticipated.

CDPHE continues to work towards minimizing the levels of PFAS in Colorado’s water.

For more information cdphe.colorado.gov/pfas-projects

➽ By Sierra Mitchell, PFAS Program Coordinator