The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency promulgated the Ground Water Rule on November 6, 2006.  This is a national primary drinking water regulation.  As a state that has primacy for administering the Safe Drinking Water Act, Idaho must adopt this rule within two years of promulgation.

The Ground Water Rule is expected to provide greater protection against microbial pathogens in public water systems that use ground water sources.  The rule attempts to target the subset of ground water systems that are at higher risk of fecal contamination by requiring regular sanitary surveys, establishing a flexible program for identifying higher risk systems through existing bacterial monitoring and state determinations, and providing for ground water source monitoring in systems that do not provide demonstrated virus inactivation through disinfection.  The rule requires that deficiencies detected during sanitary surveys be corrected on a reasonable schedule.  Systems that verify the presence of contamination in a ground water source must remove the source of contamination or provide disinfection treatment.  

As a primacy agency, DEQ must adopt state rules that are no less stringent than the federal rule. Under direction from the Idaho Legislature, DEQ must adopt state rules that are no more stringent than the federal rule. To ensure that Idaho's rules will be neither more nor less stringent than the federal rule, DEQ intends to incorporate the federal rule by reference. The federal rule contains certain special primacy requirements that provide limited flexibility to the state.  DEQ intends to conduct negotiations that are limited to consideration of how the special primacy requirements should be met. If necessary, this rulemaking may also include any corrections that are typographical and nonsubstantive in nature.

Drinking water system owners and operators, developers, consultants, engineers, cities, counties, industry, drinking water professional organizations, and the public at large may be interested in participating in this rulemaking.  Upon conclusion of negotiations, DEQ intends to publish a proposed rule for public comment in the summer of 2008 and then present the final proposal to the Board of Environmental Quality for adoption of a pending rule in the fall of 2008. If adopted, the pending rule will be reviewed by the 2009 Idaho Legislature.