Lead and Copper Rule Revisions/Service Line Inventory: Arkansas Department of Health Reminder Addressing Deadline/Availability of Financial Assistance

The Arkansas Department of Health Engineering Section publication, Arkansas Drinking Water Update (“Update”) (Volume 38, No. 2), published an article titled:

Lead and Copper Rule Service Line Inventories (“Article”).

The Article was contributed by Teresa Lee, P.E., Technical Support Chief, Engineering Section.

The focus of the Article is two-fold:

• Requirement to submit a service line inventory by the public water system.
• Availability of financial assurance if the public water system serves a population of under 50,000.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) Lead and Copper Rule Revisions address exposure to lead in drinking water and advancements in the existing practices used by drinking water systems. EPA initially promulgated in 1991 a rule to control lead in drinking water.

EPA utilized its Safe Drinking Water Act authority to promulgate the original rule and the revisions. It is applicable to all public water systems except those that do not regularly serve at least 25 of the same people at least six months of the year.

Ms. Lee stated in a previous article that both the Arkansas Department of Health (who has been delegated the authority to implement the Safe Drinking Water Act in Arkansas) and the Arkansas Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Division have partnered with Horner & Shifrin Inc., to provide:

…no-cost assistance to small to medium water utilities to assist in developing their service line inventories as required under the federal Lead and Copper Rule Revisions.

The previous article noted that as of January, 200 water systems had already requested assistance. Application is made through the Natural Resources Division.

Ms. Lee’s most recent Article notes that Horner and Shifrin:

• Will assist in setting up the initial inventory.
• Will need a list of the water system’s service addresses.
• Will need to undertake an on-site review of any digital and paper records the water utility possesses.
• Will provide a form for the water utilities’ customers to self-identify their portion of the service line.
• Provide the water system and Arkansas Department of Health a copy of the initial inventory by October 16th.

The deadline for submitting data to Horner and Shifrin is stated to be August 15, 2024.

Links to various guidance and information can be found in the article and are here:

• Assistance – https://health.arkansas.gov/Eng/LSLIRequest.aspx.
• Template for service line inventory without H&S assistance – www.healthy.arkansas.gov/images/uploads/resources/Arkansas_Service_Line_Inventory_Template.xlsx.
• Guidance for developing your inventory – www.healthy.arkansas.gov/images/uploads/pdf/EPAs_Fact_Sheet_for_Developing_and_Maintaining_a_Service_Line_Inventory.pdf
• Completed inventories are to be submitted to ADH using Engineering’s File Transfer Portal (after creating user account and logged in) here – https://health.arkansas.gov/Eng/HomePage.aspx
• All of the above can be found on the main Lead and Copper Rule webpage at – www.healthy.arkansas.gov/programs-services/topics/drinking-water-lead-and-copper