The majority of this week’s National Drinking Water Advisory Council meeting focused on drafting recommendations for revising the Lead and Copper Rule. In August, a NDWAC workgroup completed its report for the council’s consideration. After evaluating the report and public comments, the NDWAC decided to forward the workgroup’s recommendations to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. A transmittal package is now in development. The central element of the recommendations is that all systems would develop and implement a strategic plan to remove all lead service lines from water mains to building walls. In public comments to NDWAC, Flint community advocate Lee Walters challenged water systems to do more sooner, including posting their current LCR monitoring instructions to homeowners on their websites and revising those instructions to remove elements that reduce apparent lead levels (e.g., advising pre-stagnation flushing, capping the length of stagnation period, removing aerators). Yanna Lambrinidou, a member of the NDWAC Working Group with a dissenting opinion, called for utilities to make lead monitoring data more readily available to the public as well as other additional measures beyond those reflected in the Working Group report
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