Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring in Public Water Systems (UCMR4) (Renewal)

Section 1445(a)(2) of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) requires that once every five years, beginning in 1999, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issue a new list of no more than 30 unregulated contaminants to be monitored by public water systems (PWSs). Information collected under the program supports the Agency decision making regarding whether or not to regulate particular contaminants in drinking water. SDWA requires that EPA vary the frequency and schedule for the monitoring program based on the number of persons served, the source of supply, and the contaminants likely to be found. EPA is required by SDWA to only include a representative sample of PWSs serving 10,000 or fewer people. SDWA also requires EPA to enter the monitoring data into the National Drinking Water Contaminant Occurrence Database (NCOD). EPA published the first Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 1) for PWSs in the Federal Register (FR) on September 17, 1999 (64 FR 50556). The second UCMR (UCMR 2) published in the FR on January 4, 2007 (72 FR 367), and the third UCMR (UCMR 3), published in the FR on May 2, 2012 (77 FR 26071), built on the established structure of the previous UCMRs, while making some changes to the rule design. EPA revised the contaminant list, analytical methods, cost assumptions and sampling design for the specific contaminants in UCMR 4. The five-year UCMR 4 period spans 2017-2021. UCMR 4 monitoring begins in 2018 and continues through 2020. The applicable three-year period for this particular Information Collection Request (ICR) is 2017-2019. The applicable ICR period overlaps with the first three years of the five-year UCMR 4 period. Most of the burden is incurred in the second, third and fourth year (i.e. monitoring and sample analysis) of the UCMR 4 monitoring period. The first year (the planning year) involves a lesser burden, and the final fifth year involves the least burden since the program is concluding. The UCMR 4 ICR renewal period (2020-2022) will overlap with the last two years of the five-year UCMR 4 period, and therefore will have substantially lower figures.

The latest form for Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring in Public Water Systems (UCMR4) (Renewal) expires 2022-03-31 and can be found here.

Public Water Systems

Federal Enterprise Architecture: Environmental Management - Environmental Monitoring and Forecasting