Castleford, Idaho, a town of 300, is one of many small towns nationwide looking to state and national policy-makers for answers on how to comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) new arsenic rule that set the new maximum contaminant level of 10 ppb. Systems must be in compliance by January 2006.

Inadequate financial and engineering resources and limited equipment space are all issues that smaller systems are facing. Nationwide, more than 1,000 non-transient, non-community water systems including small towns, home owner associations and schools serving populations between 25—3,300 have arsenic levels higher than the 10 ppb MCL set by the EPA.¹

"It´s too late to do anything about this standard," said Mark Guerry, Castleford City attorney, in an article in the Idaho Statesman. "But it's not too late to appropriate money to fund the technology and help towns in the West."

The city has pursuaded U.S. Sen. Larry Craig to begin quizzing federal agencies about the standard that takes effect in 2006 and what they are doing to help rural Americans meet it. ²

Research for small system compliance is underway nationwide including studies being worked on by the American Water Works Association Research Foundation and the EPA.

Treatment methods and engineering in the past have been geared towards large systems or those that serve more than 10,000 people. Large municipal systems with larger budgets can design and operate processes such as reverse osmosis, electrodialysis, ion exchange or coagulation/filtration. Small systems, however, face unique issues that will require new techniques to provide more affordable, flexible, easily implemented and reliable treatment systems.¹

Castleford has an arsenic level that is twice the new limit. Other towns in the area have showed levels as much as four times the new limit. The cost of meeting the new arsenic standard has been estimated as high as $200,000, which is $25,000 more than the city´s entire annual budget. ²

The state Department of Environmental Quality is working with the town to secure the maximum seven-year extension to meet the new standard, reported the article.

In order to obtain government assistancethe city was required to raise water rates 73 percent to show that enough is being charged to cover operations and to begin building a reserve to finance future improvements.

1 Fisher, Carla and Gregory C. Gilles. "'Out of the Box' Arsenic Treatment for Small Public WaterSystems," Water Quality Products, December2003.

2 The Idaho Statesman. November 2003.

Source: The Idaho Statesman