120Water has released new capabilities to its platform that are designed to help state regulators and utilities comply with the Lead & Copper Rule Revisions (LCRR) released by the EPA.
The LCRR revisions fundamentally change how utilities test for and remediate lead in drinking water, report and share the prevalence of lead service lines, and significantly shorten the timeline for notifying residents if lead has been detected in their drinking water, according to the press release.
“LCRR places significant new burdens on water utilities, which the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators expects will require seven times the resources to stay compliant,” said Megan Glover, CEO of 120Water in the press release. “Digital water solutions like 120Water significantly reduce the burden by automating some of the most challenging aspects of compliance.”
According to the press release, key enhancements to the 120Water LCRR solution include:
- Simplified reporting on public vs. private service lines: The LCRR requires utilities to maintain an inventory of materials used in both the public and private portions of water service lines within their service area. This inventory must be submitted to the EPA either annually or triennially. 120Water’s Lead Service Line Reporting enables water utilities and related agencies to inventory, visualize and categorize the composite materials of service lines in their system, and then report and export this information.
- Public transparency dashboard. Utilities are now required to present lead service line inventory information to the public, yet less than 13% of them currently have the capability to do so, according to an industry survey conducted by 120Water. 120Water has developed a plug-and-play public transparency dashboard that sits on top of the new service line capabilities and makes it easy for utilities to comply with this requirement. Utilities can link to the dashboard from their website, allowing residents to search for an address and determine the materials that make up both the public and private sides of their water pipes. Utilities can also utilize the dashboard to communicate additional information around their Lead Reduction programs, such as requesting a test kit and sharing real-time, critical information with their communities.
- Communications workflow manager. Under the new rule, any customer with a lead sample result greater than 15 parts per billion (ppb) must be notified within 72 hours, and all customers must be notified within 24 hours if the 90th percentile of all samples reach this threshold. 120Water has developed an end-to-end communications workflow to specifically address these requirements.
120Water is also launching a new LCRR Compliance Assessment, a one-time consulting engagement to help utilities evaluate their current level of preparedness for LCRR and identify both near-term and long-term steps needed to comply with the new EPA regulations. More information, including an interactive quiz to quickly determine overall LCRR readiness, can be found at 120water.com/lead-and-copper-
“Several communities have already been using various solutions of the 120Water Platform to execute programs that are now core aspects of the LCRR,” Glover added in the press release. “Our platform capabilities have been in front of many of the changes in the rule, including new guidance on 1st and 5th liter draws for any home served by an LSL, and sampling in schools and daycares.”
The company demonstrated the new additions to its end-to-end LCRR solution during a live webinar on Mar. 3, 2021.
