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The United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) published a Fact Sheet titled:

Amendments to the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act - America’s Water Infrastructure Act: A Guide for State Emergency Response Commissions, Travel Emergency Response Commissions, and Local Emergency Planning Commissions (“Fact Sheet”)

EPA is publishing the Fact Sheet to address the components of America‘s Water Infrastructure Act (“AWIA”) that require State Emergency Response Commissions to notify the drinking water primacy agency of any reportable releases and provide community water systems with hazardous chemical inventory data.

The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (“EPCRA”) requires certain owners or operators of covered facilities that manufacture, process, or otherwise use toxic chemicals listed on the Toxics Release Inventory to meet certain annual reporting requirements. This annual reporting requirement to EPA by states or tribes addresses environmental releases or other waste management quantities of covered chemicals.

An AWIA provision added a new subsection to EPCRA requiring State Emergency Response Commissions and Travel Emergency Response Commissions to promptly notify the drinking water primacy agency of any reportable release and provide such agency with the information collected. This may include the initial release notification and the follow-up written report.

The drinking water primacy agency is required to promptly forward all the information regarding the release to any community water systems whose source water is affected by the release.

The EPA Fact Sheet includes sections such as:

• Why are these revisions to EPCRA important to community water systems?
• Background
• What are the EPCRA amendments that impact community drinking water systems?
• AWIA amendment to EPCRA Section 304
• Overview of hazardous chemical inventory reporting
• AWIA amendment to EPCRA Section 312

A copy of the Fact Sheet can be downloaded here.