Making sense of the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule

Abstract

This article discusses the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR), mandated by the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act amendments, which is a dynamic program comprising a growing collection of rulemakings that have arisen to replace requirements first established in 1988 for assessing the occurrence of unregulated contaminants. The current format of the UCMR is just the first version of a rulemaking process that will repeat every five years in step with regularly updated Contaminant Candidate Lists (CCLs) and periodic regulatory determinations by the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). This article distinguishes between the overall UCMR program and the first five‐year cycle of the program that started Jan.1, 2001, and runs through the end of 2005, which in an abbreviated form is UCMR1. USEPA plans to propose and finalize UCMR2 requirements in time for their start date of Jan. 1, 2006. A list of internet resources is given, along with water system monitoring schedules for the UCMR1 five‐year cycle, assessment monitoring contaminants, screening survey contaminants, prescreen testing contaminants, monitoring frequency for chemicals, and USEPA regional contacts for UCMR activities.