SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY

LENGTH: 8494 words

COMMITTEE: HOUSE ENERGY AND COMMERCE

HEADLINE: TESTIMONY SAFE DRINKING WATER

TESTIMONY-BY: MR. ERIC OLSON , SENIOR ATTORNEY

AFFILIATION: NATURAL RESOURCE DEFENSE COUNCIL

BODY:
March 28, 2001 The House Committee On Energy and Commerce W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, Chairman Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials Hearing Drinking Water Needs and Infrastructure Mr. Erik Olson Senior Attorney Natural Resources Defense Council SUMMARY Much of the nation s drinking water infrastructure now is aging and outdated. We must modernize our water systems and safeguard the nation s water supplies from old, and new and emerging contaminants. EPA has said the modernization will cost $138 billion dollars, whereas the Water Infrastructure Network (WIN) found that capital costs alone will exceed $480 billion over the next 20 years. About $1 trillion is needed for drinking water capital, financing, and operation and maintenance over that period. WIN says there is a funding gap of about $15 billion/year. Most of these expenses will be necessary irrespective of SDWA regulations. There is an emerging consensus that major public investments, including federal assistance at least to needy systems, will be necessary to achieve this important national priority. A "Third Revolution" in drinking water provision has begun. The "First Revolution," occurred when water was captured, stored, and piped for household use. The "Second Revolution," took place when solids removal and chlorine were installed in the early 20th Century, with enormous public health benefits. The "Third Revolution" includes: (1) measures to prevent contamination; (2) modern broad-spectrum water treatment; (3) modernization of water distribution systems; (4) an efficient, open information & public involvement system. Among the larger infrastructure challenges now facing the water industry include: Arsenic. The National Academy of Sciences in 1999 recognized that arsenic in tap water poses a significant health risk, and that EPA s arsenic in tap water standard set in 1942 "does not achieve EPA s goal for public health protection and, therefore, requires downward revision as promptly as possible." The Academy found that drinking water containing arsenic at the 50 ppb level allowed by the current standard "could easily" pose a total cancer risk of 1 in 100-100 times higher than EPA allows for tap water. EPA originally proposed to reduce arsenic levels from 50 ppb down to 5 ppb-a level still presenting a cancer risk higher than EPA has ever previously allowed in tap water. In response to industry complaints, EPA later adopted a less stringent final standard of 10 ppb in January 2001. This is the same standard established by the European Union, the World Health Organization, and by nations spanning the globe from Namibia to Laos. NRDC and public health organizations believe the standard should be 3 ppb, a level that EPA found is feasible and affordable. EPA s recent announcement that it will draw this rule is unwise, and would undermine over two decades of agency efforts to assure public health protection for millions of Americans from arsenic in tap water. The total capital cost of the national arsenic rule amounts to less than one percent (1%) of the total needed drinking water infrastructure upgrades, using the water industry s own cost figures. We are generally supportive of the Reid-Ensign small system infrastructure assistance legislation (S. 503), which with certain modest changes would effectively help needy small systems to pay for arsenic other needed upgrades. Radon. Radon in tap water poses significant cancer risks to over 40 million Americans. A 1999 NAS report says radon causes cancer, and that a multimedia mitigation strategy is needed. Congress enacted a provision in 1996 that provides for Multimedia Mitigation (MMM) programs for radon that focus on the highest indoor radon risks. States and public water systems with approved MMM programs need not assure compliance with the Maximum Contaminant Level for radon in tap water, and can instead meet a less stringent "Alternative Maximum Contaminant Level" (AMCL). EPA s proposed radon rule, while not sufficiently assuring MMM programs will achieve the public health benefits billed, could improve health protection. EPA s final rule on radon is long legally overdue. Cryptosporidium, Other Microbial Risks, and Disinfection Byproducts. After years of serious negotiations over the "Stage 2" disinfection byproduct rules, and the "Long Term 2" rule for surface water treatment, late in 2000 we finally achieved a breakthrough in the negotiations, and an agreement has been reached. EPA still needs to issue a final rule for the so-called "Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule" and the "Filter Backwash Rule" which also are legally overdue. Water Distribution Systems. EPA and the water industry have long recognized the major improvements in aging water distribution systems are necessary in many water systems across the nation, but the costs of this effort will be very large. In order to protect public health, assure reliable water service and fire protection, and reduce water loss, these upgrades must be made. Groundwater Rule. EPA was charged in 1996 with issuing rule requiring groundwater-supplied systems to disinfect, unless such disinfection is found to be unnecessary. EPA proposed a groundwater rule last year that includes several important measures that may improve public health protection, but also has flaws that will need to be fixed if the rule is to be effective. NRDC s detailed comments on the proposal are in EPA s docket. INTRODUCTION Good morning, I am Erik D. Olson, a Senior Attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a national non-profit public interest organization dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. We have over 450,000 members nationwide. We appreciate the opportunity to testify today on the need for improved drinking water infrastructure. Drinking water treatment improvements begun at the turn of the 20th Century have advanced public health protection enormously, but much of the nation s drinking water infrastructure now is aging and outdated. We must modernize our water systems and safeguard the nation s water supplies from new and emerging contaminants. While EPA has estimated based on state figures that the costs of modernization will exceed $138 billion dollars, many in state and local government, in the water industry, and public health and environmental communities believe the true costs of this needed massive upgrade will be many times higher. For example, a report published in March 2000 by a coalition of state and local governments, the water industry, and water professional trade associations called the Water Infrastructure Network (WIN) estimated that building these costs would be far greater than previous estimates. The WIN report found that building new and replacing old drinking water facilities will cost $480 billion dollars (including finance costs) over the next 20 years, and that about $1 trillion dollars is needed for drinking water capital, financing, and operation and maintenance over that period. The WIN investigators concluded that there is a funding gap of about $15 billion per year for drinking water infrastructure, operation, and maintenance. 1 Most of these expenses are expected to be necessary irrespective of Safe Drinking Water Act regulatory requirements. Aging pipes in distribution systems, antiquated water treatment plants, water professionals recognition of the need for infrastructure improvements, public demands for improved water quality, taste, odor, and reliability, growth, and other factors, all will drive this investment. While most of these costs will be incurred with or without new EPA regulations, it is clear that many improvements will be necessary in water treatment and distribution systems in order to meet modern demands for safer tap water. Major new public investments will be needed to fund this important national priority, and to significant research initiatives are necessary to support and guide this modernization. It recently has been recognized that the United States and other developed nations drinking water suppliers have begun a "Third Revolution" in drinking water provision. It is this revolution that the WIN report has recognized will require greater financing. These revolutions can be summarized as follows: The "First Revolution," occurred when water was captured, stored, and channeled or piped for household drinking and other uses. This important advance began in pre-biblical times in the Middle East and was expanded and refined by the Roman Empire. The "Second Revolution," took place when coagulation, sedimentation, filtration, and ultimately chlorination were installed by many major water suppliers, beginning in the 19th Century and with widespread adoption by the first World War. This Second Revolution was triggered by the steady march forward of medical science, the acceptance of the "germ theory" of disease, and the leadership of public health proponents such as John Snow who in 1849 linked the London cholera outbreaks to water supplies. This resulted in enormous public health benefits, and has hailed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as one of the ten greatest triumphs of public health protection of the 20th Century. The "Third Revolution" in drinking water provision now has been launched by utilities in the U.S. and Europe. This revolution is the culmination and synthesis of the "multiple barriers" approach to preventing disease from drinking water that had long been advocated by Abel Wolman and other 20th Century water industry leaders. In essence, the Third Revolution consists of a four- pronged approach to modern drinking water protection: vigorous measures to prevent contamination of drinking water, through source water protection; adoption of modern, highly effective, and broad-spectrum water treatment technologies that can remove a wide array of emerging contaminants simultaneously, such as membranes, ultraviolet radiation disinfection, and granular activated carbon with ozone disinfection; the modernization of aging, sometimes century- or more-old water distribution systems that often contain lead, are a frequent cause of main breaks, can harbor microbial growth, and, according to CDC, are a significant cause of waterborne disease outbreaks; and, The establishment and use of an efficient and open information infrastructure and public involvement approach in which utilities and their government regulators use advanced methods to monitor, assess, communicate, and engage in a dialogue with consumers regarding drinking water source water threats, and tap water conditions, contaminants, and quality. Many of America s drinking water utilities are endangering public health by providing Victorian-era service to the most technologically advanced nation on earth. In 1994, NRDC issued a report entitled Victorian Water Treatment Enters the 21st Century that provides an analysis of the protection and treatment techniques used by the nation s largest drinking water systems - those serving over 25,000 people. We found that millions of Americans are needlessly exposed to hazardous chemicals and microorganisms because drinking water source protection and treatment systems are inadequate. Adding to the problem is that some drinking water utilities are using valuable resources and energy attempting to weaken health standards instead of improving badly outdated treatment and distribution systems. Despite decades of technological advancement, as most Americans are now on the Information Superhighway, too many American water utilities are traveling on the technological dirt road. We found that: The vast majority of large water suppliers do little or nothing to prevent contamination of the watershed or groundwater that they rely upon for source water. Most large surface water systems have failed to adopt watershed protections such as watershed land ownership, and stream or reservoir buffers to prevent runoff or discharges of chemically or microbiologically polluted water into their source water. Many groundwater-supplied systems also have failed to adopt wellhead protection programs to prevent contamination of their wells. Despite widespread chemical contamination of drinking water, over 90% of large water utilities have failed to install modern water treatment technologies developed after World War I to remove chemical contaminants. Less than 10% of large Community Water Systems are using modern treatment technologies like Granular Activated Carbon or ozone to reduce the risks of chemical contamination and disinfection byproducts. Aged, crumbling distribution systems are neglected, and are often the cause of waterborne disease outbreaks . In many cases, the pipes that bring us our water are 100 or more years old and are cracking or crumbling. These aged pipes often harbor microbial growth, and are subject to catastrophic breakage. Broken or "cross connected" pipes that allow contaminated water to seep into the water system have often been linked by the Centers for Disease Control to waterborne disease outbreaks, yet the average water pipe will be over a century old before it is replaced by a large water system. Many of these old pipes also contain lead, and leach this dangerous toxin into drinking water. Effective source water protection and water treatment are both technically and financially feasible. Safe Drinking Water Act standards can be met and exceeded using techniques that, for the most part, were invented before 1930. These techniques have been proven effective, and are widely used in other industrialized countries. The few American cities that have installed modern treatment systems have shown that safe drinking water can be provided for a reasonable price. The Safe Drinking Water Act and Clean Water Act must be made stronger to protect our Drinking Water Supplies. The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) - which sets standards for the quality of water coming from your tap - and Clean Water Act (CWA) - which sets standards for discharges and runoff into surface waters - need to be better integrated. Congress should enact provisions designed to ensure coordinated public health and environmental protection. Necessary legislative changes should include not only increased funding to help systems pay for improvements, but also strengthened provisions for watershed and groundwater protection, tougher drinking water standards, and beefed-up enforcement authority for EPA to ensure that standards are met. It s time to modernize systems and make the changes necessary to provide safe drinking water. Among the larger challenges now facing the water industry include: Arsenic. The National Academy of Sciences, in a report issued in 1999, recognized that arsenic in tap water poses a significant public health risk in the United States, and that EPA s outdated arsenic in tap water standard set in 1942 "does not achieve EPA s goal for public health protection and, therefore, requires downward revision as promptly as possible." 2 The Academy concluded that drinking water containing arsenic at the 50 parts per billion (ppb) level allowed by the outdated current standard "could easily" pose a total cancer risk of 1 in 100-about 100 times higher than EPA would ever allow for tap water under other rules. For the sake of comparison, the cancer risk allowed by this arsenic standard is about 10,000 times higher than EPA may permit in food under the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, which Congress passed unanimously. It also is a cancer risk 100 times greater than EPA policy has allowed for drinking water contaminants for over two decades. The Academy also found that there was insufficient basis to find a threshold for arsenic carcinogenesis, and that there was no credible evidence that arsenic was a necessary nutrient for humans Moreover, the Academy discussed a litany of other adverse non- cancer health effects from arsenic in tap water, including cardiovascular effects, nervous system problems, skin lesions, and possible reproductive and other effects. Several peer- reviewed, published studies completed in the year since the Academy s report have reinforced the conclusion that a much lower standard is needed for arsenic in tap water. EPA in January 2001 published a rule to reduce allowable arsenic levels from 50 ppb down to 10 ppb-a level that still presents a cancer risk significantly higher than the 1 in 10,000 cancer risk that EPA traditionally allows in tap water. NRDC and many public health professionals and organizations believe that EPA should set the standard at 3 ppb, the level that EPA says is as close to the health goal (Maximum Contaminant Level Goal) as is feasible, considering costs, and is affordable.3 We are profoundly disappointed in the recent EPA announcement that the Agency intends to yet again reopen this decades-long debate, and to withdraw the new arsenic standard. This action is scientifically unjustified, unlawful, and bad public health policy. We believe that to the extent that action is needed on arsenic, the need is to assure that small, needy systems will have the resources to clean arsenic out of their water supplies. We therefore are generally supportive of the Reid-Ensign small system infrastructure assistance legislation (S. 503), which with certain modest modifications would be an effective tool to help needy small systems to pay for arsenic cleanup and other needed upgrades. 2. Radon Radon in tap water poses significant cancer risks to over 40 million Americans. Another National Academy of Sciences report, issued last year, found that radon is known to cause cancer, and concluded that a multimedia mitigation strategy made the most sense in dealing with the radon problem. The Academy found that while radon can be present in tap water at levels posing substantial risks, on average nationally the vast majority of radon risk comes from radon seepage into homes from soils. Congress enacted a provision in the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments that provides that states or water systems may adopt Multimedia Mitigation (MMM) programs for radon that focus on the highest indoor radon risks. States and public water systems with approved MMM programs need not assure compliance with the Maximum Contaminant Level for radon in tap water, and can instead meet a less stringent "Alternative Maximum Contaminant Level" (AMCL). The theory is that states will provide greater public health benefits by reducing overall indoor radon levels through a MMM program than would be achievable using only the MCL for tap water. EPA s proposed rule for implementing this provision, while in NRDC s view suffering from certain problems of lack of clarity to assure that the MMM programs actually will achieve the public health benefits billed, if improved could prove an important step toward protecting public health from radon. This rule was supposed to be finalized last year, and is now legally overdue. 3. Cryptosporidium, Other Microbial Risks, and Disinfection Byproducts EPA has engaged in a lengthy, multi-stage process of negotiations over the past eight years with the water industry, states, local government, water treatment trade associations, public health groups, and environmental organizations in an effort to tackle the complex issue of microbial contaminants and disinfection byproducts. These negotiations have wrestled with how to control the parasite Cryptosporidium (which sickened over 400,000 people and killed over 100 in Milwaukee in 1993, and has lead to many smaller outbreaks since then). In addition, the issue of how to deal with risks introduced or exacerbated in the water distribution system was debated. These negotiations have sought to produce an agreement that would improve protection from the class of contaminants known as disinfection byproducts, which are created when chemicals such as chlorine are used to disinfect water, but create unwanted byproducts as a result of chemical reactions between the disinfectant and organic matter in the water, creating a potentially toxic soup of chemicals that have been linked in both animal studies and epidemiological studies of people to certain forms of cancer and to reproductive problems such as miscarriages and certain birth defects. After years of serious negotiations over the "Stage 2" disinfection byproduct rules, and the "Long Term 2" rule for surface water treatment, in late 2000 we finally achieved a breakthrough in the negotiations, and an agreement was reached. We hope that EPA will promptly follow through by issuing these rules in a timely manner. In addition, EPA is now legally overdue in issuing the Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule and the Filter Backwash Rule. 4. Groundwater Rule. EPA also was charged by Congress in the 1996 amendments with issuing a rule requiring that groundwater supplied public water systems disinfect their drinking water, unless such disinfection were to be found unnecessary. EPA recently proposed a groundwater rule, upon which the public comment period recently closed. NRDC believes that the proposal includes several important measures that may improve public health protection, but also has several fundamental flaws that will need to be fixed if the rule is not to become bogged down at the state level.4 The 1996 SDWA Amendments should help to encourage better health protection, and EPA should be commended for the generally open public process used to date in implementing most of this law. There are several other important challenges: The Need for a National Dialogue on How to Fund the Massive Funding Gap for Drinking Water Infrastructure Improvement and Modernization. The massive shortfall in resources available for water systems to upgrade, replace, and expand their infrastructure is a problem that must be addressed. NRDC believes there is a need for a serious national dialogue on how this funding gap will be addressed. While certainly federal funding will not itself plug this massive hole, the time has come for a serious discussion of what the respective federal, state, and local governmental roles are, and what role private industry might play in this overhaul. We believe that there is a need for federal leadership on this issue, and for significantly increased federal resources to be dedicated to this crucially important national need. An Assured Funding Mechanism, Such as a Modest, Dedicated Water Fee, Allocated to a Trust Fund Without Further Appropriation, is Needed to Support Long-Term Drinking Water Research and to Address High Priority Health Risks for Small Systems. As part of a series of discussions with the water industry and others, NRDC and many in the public interest community (and frankly, some in the industry) have come to the conclusion that Congress should enact a modest water fee that would support a long-term guarantee of adequate research funding for drinking water. The funds raised should be set aside in a trust fund that is available without need for further appropriations, so that the research agenda is not buffeted by the ever-changing winds of the annual appropriations process. In addition, we believe that those funds should be made available for direct funding of the most substantial public health threats posed by drinking water systems, such as grants for emergency repairs, treatment, or consolidation of small systems with serious health standard violations. A "Polluter Pays" Mechanism is Needed to assure that consumers do not end up footing the bill for expensive monitoring and treatment when polluters contaminate source water. We recommend that the SDWA be amended (or that separate legislation be enacted) to enable public water systems or consumers to recover the full costs that source water pollution imposes on them in the form of increased monitoring, treatment, and other costs. Appropriations Acts and a Court Decision Have Effectively Eliminated the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) Set- Aside for Health Effects Research, Undercutting Funding Assurances. This Committee and the 1996 SDWA Amendments adopted a provision in the DWSRF assuring a $10 million set-aside for health effects research, SDWA S1453(n). The appropriations committees, however, have included provisions purporting to negate this set-aside in the last several appropriations acts. Unfortunately, a court decision-reached with the support of EPA- effectively found that the appropriations language overrode the set-aside in the Act. Thus, this Committee's effort to assure long-term funding of this research has been nullified by subsequent Congressional action. This Committee should fight for the full set-aside for this research. A Forum for Open Public Research Planning and Priority Setting is Necessary. EPA should formalize an open public process for developing its drinking water research plans, similar to the highly successful Microbial and Disinfection Byproducts Council, but with additional public comment and openness assured. This is a far more effective approach than the largely closed-door process EPA used in planning its arsenic research, for example. Assuring More Effective Public Right-to-Know, Better Source Protection, More Affordable Advanced Treatment Technologies, Better Analytical Methods. EPA needs to conduct further research and funding, and to take regulatory and other steps to build better public understanding of tap water challenges. The EPA right-to-know report rules issued in 1998 that required the annual reports to be issued beginning in 1999, are a major step forward. It is critical, however, that methods be developed to improve public understanding of these complex issues. Other important areas of research include: investigations into ways in which source water protection can be made a more effective tool for drinking water protection; research on how modern treatment methods can be improved and costs decreased; development of better, cheaper, and easier analytical methods; and improved approaches to assuring small system compliance through restructuring or treatment upgrades. Research to Support Treatment, Occurrence, and Related Issues for Microbes, Disinfection Byproducts, Groundwater, and Distribution System Risks. New standards will be issued over the next several years for many contaminants, yet EPA resources for research on the availability of treatment and on occurrence are inadequate. These rules will be determinative as to whether the "Third Revolution" in drinking water protection-involving true multiple barriers to contamination in the form of source water protection, advanced "leap frog" treatment technologies, and modern distribution system management-will occur in the early 21st Century, or whether the nation s aging and often outdated water supplies will continue to inadequately address these emerging problems and to deteriorate. A stronger research commitment is needed. Compliance Problems that Continue to Plague the Drinking Water Program. Widespread violations of the SDWA, and inadequate state and EPA enforcement against even the most recalcitrant violators continue to be a major problem. Improved data collection and management, and a stronger commitment to enforcement, are crucial to assist EPA, states, and the public to address these issues. Compliance problems and data collection and management failures have been catalogued in a USA Today series published in October, 1998, in an EPA audit discussed in a front page USA Today article in late 1999, and in EPA s own 1998 and 1999 Annual Compliance Reports. The EPA drinking water program and states need to upgrade their management systems and programs. Routine audits of federally-funded state programs are a crucial part of this effort. The new SDWA small system viability provisions could begin to reduce these problems, but substantial additional resources and research are needed to assure that these programs bear fruit. Additionally, small system technical assistance should be granted on a competitive basis, based upon the best available research, so that these assistance providers demonstrate that they can deliver accurate technical assistance to small systems in a cost-efficient manner. We oppose "earmarked" assistance funding that is non-competitive, as it often fails to allocate resources so as to maximize health benefits. Improved Data Management, Reporting, and A Comprehensive National Contaminant Occurrence Database. EPA must work with states and the public to develop a fully integrated and fully automated joint data management system for the drinking water program. Included in this system should be accurate, reliable and real- time compliance, water quality, enforcement, and other key information. In addition, an effective National Contaminant Occurrence Database (NCOD) is needed that will require compatible data systems across states, electronic data reporting to EPA by states and testing labs, and sufficient will to ensure that national contaminant reporting is complete and timely. A well- organized NCOD will provide an essential national right-to-know counterpart to the consumer confidence or "right to know" reports that water utilities provide directly to their customers. Better Integration of Clean Water Act and SDWA Programs. While modest progress and much discussion have occurred in the effort to better integrate the Clean Water Act and SDWA programs, in fact we have a long way to go at the state and federal levels. It is an unfortunate historical and jurisdictional byproduct that hampers full integration of these programs and impedes progress. For example, EPA s source water assessments and protection programs, filtration avoidance programs, the groundwater rule, wellhead protection programs, sole source aquifer programs, and UIC programs under the SDWA, need to be better integrated with the CWA SS319, 305(b), and Total Maximum Daily Load programs have developed largely independent of each other. The Unified Watershed Assessment effort is beginning to make some headway in integrating these diverse programs, but a more aggressive effort would be helpful. Meaningful Source Water Protection Authority. Public water systems, states, EPA, and the public need to have the ability to protect, through regulatory mechanisms or other mechanisms as necessary, source waters. The 1996 SDWA Amendments largely punted on this issue, but creeping development and pollution are contaminating many source waters; strong legal authorities to prevent such contamination are needed. Better Leveraging of Other Federal Agency Resources. The federal government has a wealth of expertise and resources directly relevant to EPA s drinking water program that should be better integrated into EPA s efforts. For example, the Centers for Disease Control, Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry, and many of the institutes at the National Institutes of Health, including the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and many other institutes and agencies conduct research of which EPA often is unaware. A better program is urgently needed to assure more information sharing and collaboration among the federal agencies. Some successful examples of such collaboration can be noted-such as the waterborne disease estimation research being jointly spearheaded by EPA and CDC, and the joint work on disinfection byproducts by EPA, ATSDR, and NTP. Perhaps more often, however, there is little or no collaboration among many of the agencies in priority setting and in conducting research. The lack of coordination can result in serious lost opportunities, and potentially in duplication of effort. Programs to Protect Consumers of Small Systems and Private Wells. The United States may be moving towards a two-tiered water supply: higher quality water for consumers in larger cities, and lower quality water in small town and rural America. America s small water systems are often having significant difficulty complying with EPA s basic health standards, and as additional rules (such as arsenic and the groundwater rules) are issued, these difficulties will only increase. There is a need to develop a stronger program to assist and fund the restructuring, technical assistance, regionalization, consolidation, package treatment technology, and other approaches that will have to be adopted to assure that small water system customers receive safe and affordable drinking water. There also are 30 to 40 million Americans who get their water primarily from private wells not covered by the SDWA at all. Monitoring and protection of the quality of water in these wells is often spotty to nonexistent. A national dialogue is needed to discuss how these tens of millions of Americans health can be better protected from contamination of these often highly vulnerable supplies. CONCLUSION In conclusion, NRDC strongly believes that there is an urgent need for additional federal funding for drinking water infrastructure to assure water system upgrades needed to protect public health. This process will not be simple, nor will it be cheap. But this effort is necessary to protect the health and well being of all Americans for generations to come, and to achieve public demands for a reliable supply of safe, good- tasting tap water. Only a long-term stable source of adequate funding will assure that this is achieved.

LOAD-DATE: March 30, 2001, Friday