October 29, 2014

Mr. James Belke

Office of Emergency Management

US Environmental Protection Agency

1200 Pennslyvania Ave NW

Washington, DC 20460

Docket # EPA-HQ-OEM-2014-0328

RE: Request for Information (RFI) on potential regulatory changes to the Risk 

Management Program (RMP) (79 FR 44604)

Dear Mr. Belke:

Enclosed are the comments of the American Water Works Association (AWWA) in response to 

the request for information issued by EPA on July 31, 2014 (79 FR 44604). AWWA appreciates 

the opportunity to comment.

If you have any questions about these comments, please feel free to contact me or Kevin Morley

in our Washington Office. 

Yours Sincerely,

Thomas W. Curtis

Deputy Executive Director 

Government Affairs Office

1300 Eye Street NW

Suite 701W

Washington, DC 20005

T 202.628.8303 

F 202.628.2846

www.awwa.org

Headquarters Office 

6666 W. Quincy Avenue

Denver CO 80235

T 303.794.7711 

F 303.347.0804

The Authoritative Resource on Safe Water SM

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Comments of the American Water Works Association

Risk Management Program (RMP), (79 FR 44604)

The American Water Works Association (AWWA) is an international, nonprofit, scientific and 

educational society dedicated to the improvement of drinking water quality and supply. Founded

in 1881, AWWA is the largest organization of water supply professionals in the world. Our 

membership represents the full spectrum of the drinking water community: treatment plant 

operators and managers, environmental advocates, engineers, scientists, academicians, and others 

who hold a genuine interest in water supply and public health.

On July 31, 2014 the U.S. EPA published a Federal Register request for information (RFI) on 

potential regulatory changes to the Risk Management Program (RMP), as authorized by Section 

112(r) of the Clean Air Act (CAA). The current regulation requires holders of specific quantities 

of specific chemicals to develop and submit a risk management plan with EPA that address’s 

action taken to prevent and mitigate off-site consequences from an accidental release of the 

covered chemical(s).

AWWA has a demonstrated commitment to risk management and process safety per the multiple 

ANSI standards, manuals of practice, and training resources we provide to the water sector. In 

the context of the Executive Order (EO) 13650 Working Group Report, the Occupational Safety 

and Health Administration’s (OSHA’s) RFI for the Process Safety Management (PSM) program,

and the current EPA RMP RFI, we note an absence of information that might suggest how the 

recommended changes will change risk. The safety concerns associated with the facility at the 

heart of EO 13650 was a compliance issue with existing regulations and does not represent a gap 

in the existing requirements. Imposing additional regulatory actions does not change the risk 

associated with a facility that fails to comply with the multitude of existing regulatory standards 

that have not been proven to be inadequate when implemented appropriately. Rather than more 

regulation, additional effort is needed to ensure compliance with existing regulations. 

Issues of Specific Concern

RMP Program 3 Designation for All Water Systems

The primary purpose of the RMP regulation is to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to 

prevent or mitigate potential off-site consequences from the accidental release of a regulated 

substance. If EPA decides to pursue a mandate that all drinking water facilities subject to RMP 

in states without a federally-delegated state-run OSHA PSM Program, currently in Program 

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Level 2, must be in Program Level 3, this must be justified with a comparative assessment of the 

accident and compliance history for drinking water facilities in Program 2 and Program 3. Such 

analysis should clearly demonstrate that additional benefits, namely lower accident rates and 

increased compliance, could reasonably be anticipated to justify any rule modification. In the 

absence of these data for justification, we believe that such a move would present an 

unwarranted burden.

Promoting Inherently Safety Technology (IST)

AWWA, in 2009, prepared a decision-support guide for water and wastewater utilities titled, 

Selecting Disinfectants in a Security Conscious Environment. The guide describes a step-by-step 

process for evaluating and comparing various disinfection strategies, while taking into 

consideration the unique operating needs of each utility. Selecting Disinfectants builds on 

existing water sector engineering standards, manuals of practice, costing tools, and public 

communication techniques to 

 address disinfection objectives, both statutory and those set by the community served;

 reflect local circumstances;

 compare disinfection options consistently;

 take into account operational, process, and supply-chain reliability factors; as well as 

environmental, operator, and community safety considerations;

 provide transparency in the decision-making process; and 

 incorporate appropriate risk communication within the decision-making process and the 

community.

As outlined in the document Selecting Disinfectants, drinking water utilities must tailor their 

treatment and distribution processes to comply with multiple regulations (such as the federal 

requirement to use chlorine to achieve certain levels of disinfection), critical variations in sourcewater characteristics (such as temperature, pH, pathogens, etc.), and other local factors (such as 

delivery options for disinfectant chemicals, the need to maintain reserve supplies in the event of 

supply interruption, spatial limitations at the plant site, local ambient temperatures that affect the 

“shelf life” of chemicals and the attendant chemical degradation and breakdown products, etc. 

In addition, multiple studies1,

2,3,4,5,6 have provided information on important factors to be 

considered regarding the use of bulk hypochlorite and on-site generation versus gaseous 

1 Stanford, B.D., A. Pisarenko, S. Snyder, and G. Gordon (2011). Perchlorate, Bromate, and Chlorate in 

Hypochlorite Solutions: Guidelines for Utilities. Journal - American Water Works Association, 103(6): p. 71-83.

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chlorine. In both instances, if not produced and managed properly, the potential exists for the 

introduction of contaminants that might not otherwise be present in systems using gaseous 

chlorine, namely bromate, perchlorate and chlorate, all of which are regulated or under 

regulatory review. The findings from these studies have been used to develop an assessment 

model7 that supports utility management and use of hypochlorite products, since it degrades at 

varying rates depending on pH, temperature and other storage conditions, to mitigate the 

potential for elevated levels of certain water quality contaminants. 

It should be noted that drinking water treatment facilities, unlike other entities regulated by the 

RMP regulation and PSM Standard, have to manage a critical risk tradeoff when considering 

alternative disinfection processes – process safety and public health. That is, balancing process

safety risk from the accidental release of a regulated substance that may impact plant personnel 

and the community immediately adjacent to the treatment facility and public health risk 

associated with water-borne diseases that may affect far, far more people in a much larger area.

AWWA has found that options often classified as inherently safer may in fact have impacts that 

counter other federal initiatives associated with the nation’s transportation systems, energy 

consumption, and CO2 emissions. The significant findings from this analysis are summarized as 

follows:8

• Energy Consumption - Use of chlorine gas reduces electric power consumption compared 

to the other disinfectants. On a supply chain basis, chlorine gas uses 36% less electricity 

than its best available and most widely used substitute, bulk sodium hypochlorite. The 

average power consumption multiple for all disinfectants is more than two times that of 

chlorine gas on a per capita basis. 

2 Stanford, B.D., A.N. Pisarenko, S.A. Snyder, and G. Gordon (2009). Minimizing Perchlorate Formation in 

Hypochlorite Solutions, Opflow, 35(10): p. 10-13.

3 Snyder, S.A., B.D. Stanford, A.N. Pisarenko, G. Gordon, and M. Asami, (2009). Hypochlorite--an Assessment of 

Factors That Influence the Formation of Perchlorate and Other Contaminants. AWWA and the Water Research 

Foundation: Denver, CO.

4 Adam, L., Gordon, G. and Pierce, D. (2001) Bleach 2001 Predictive Model, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. 

AWWA Research Foundation and AWWA.

5 Adam, L.C. and Gordon, G. (1999) Hypochlorite ion decomposition: Effects of temperature, ionic strength, and 

chloride ion. Inorganic Chemistry 38(6), 1299-1304.

6 Gordon, G.; Adam, L.; & Bubnis, B., (1994). Minimizing Chlorate Ion Formation in Drinking Water When 

Hypochlorite Ion Is the Chlorinating Agent. AWWA Research Foundation, Denver, CO.

7 AWWA (2012). Hypochlorite Assessment Model, www.awwa.org/hypochlorite

8 Morley, K.M., Sloan, J.T. (2012). The complexities of disinfection in the twenty-first century. Journal – American 

Water Works Association, 104(8), 28, 30-32. http://dx.doi.org/10.5942/jawwa.2012.104.0116

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• Greenhouse Gas – Use of chlorine gas reduces per capita greenhouse gas emissions 

compared to the other disinfectants. Greenhouse gases are released in the production of 

the electricity used to manufacture disinfectants and in the transportation of the products 

along the supply chain. On a supply chain basis, the use of the best available substitute 

for chlorine produces over 50% more greenhouse gas. Most of this gap can be attributed 

to efficiencies in the production of the chlorine and the remainder to efficiencies in the 

supply chain.

• Transportation – Use of chlorine gas reduces the total amount of material transported 

compared to most other chemical disinfectants except ozone. Considering all the other 

disinfectants on a supply chain basis, the alternatives require 30% more material 

movement at current consumption patterns when compared to chlorine gas on a per capita 

served basis. On a unit consumption basis only on-site generation of hypochlorite and 

disinfection with ozone and UV involve less material movement because these 

technologies require the use of only small amounts of raw materials and secondary 

disinfectants. 

Because of these risk tradeoffs, critical factors and variables, AWWA has long maintained that 

the choice of disinfectant should lie with qualified local officials, who are best acquainted with 

the specifics of their local situation. In the past, there have been proposals to have the IST 

decision lie with federal officials. There are more than 52,000 community water systems in the 

United States. While not all of them would face the suggested IST analysis, we believe making 

this a federal decision would be unworkable given limited knowledge of local factors that drive 

disinfection decisions at individual utilities.

Finally, AWWA is concerned that some Agency enforcement actions have imposed an IST 

policy. In the case of Fall River, MA, the settlement required by EPA resulted in the utility 

paying a $5,000 penalty and eliminating the use of chlorine gas at the facility. The Agency 

required the utility to install a new sodium hypochlorite process, which required an additional 

capital investment of approximately $450,000. According to the EPA news release9, the 

settlement is “part of EPA’s national effort to advance environmental justice by protecting 

communities such as those around the Fall River facility that are disproportionately impacted by 

pollution.” This conclusion does not recognize the risk transfer imposed on this community by 

EPA. The disinfectant change substitutes a conditional risk for an absolute risk in the form of 

additional social costs that will be carried by the community to finance the new facility, and 

ironically the added pollution created from more transportation and electric power generation. 

99 EPA, Newsroom, 10/06/2014, Fall River, Mass. Water Treatment Plant Upgrades Will Make Community Safer 

under EPA Settlement, accessed 10/26/2014. 

http://yosemite.epa.gov/OPA/ADMPRESS.NSF/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/0ed2f134c5c0906d85257d6

90068f81a!OpenDocument

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Emergency Planning and Coordination with Local Emergency Response Authorities

AWWA believes that the requirement for coordination with local emergency responders already 

represents industry best practices. This is in fact a key principal in ANSI/AWWA G430-

Security Practices for Operations and Management, ANSI/AWWA G440 - Emergency 

Preparedness Practices, and M15- Emergency Planning for Water Utilities and well as multiple 

EPA guidance and training resources provided to the water sector.

The challenge typically face by the water sector is a lack of understanding by the emergency 

management community regarding the critical services provided by drinking water and 

wastewater utilities, and importantly the cascading consequences associated with a service 

disruption. This was an obstacle for water utilities during response and recover actions 

associated with Superstorm Sandy.10 Information sharing is the most common limitation and 

would benefit from greater coordination as noted in the EO 13650 Working Group Report. 

AWWA encourages the Agency to examine the flexibility in existing authorities to enhance 

rapid notification of drinking water utilities of any releases that may have the potential to impact 

source water and ideally avoid the consequences associated incidents like the January 2014 

incident in Charleston, WV. This includes facilitating collaboration between the Office of Water 

and the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response on data germane to source water 

protection planning, including but not limited to EPCRA Tier 2 data.

Third Party Compliance Audits

The AWWA does not believe that mandating the use of third-parties for compliance audits 

would provide any additional level of objectivity in self-audits nor alter compliance. While 

some utilities do utilize third-parties for compliance audits, we believe that mandating such a 

process only serves to impose an unnecessary financial burden. Water utilities must be afforded 

the discretion to choose the compliance audit process that is best suited to their operational 

needs. The use of third-party auditors can be costly and EPA should be prepared to show

compelling evidence that such third-party auditing improves compliance and reduces accidental 

releases relative to other approaches to conducting audits.

In addition, as mentioned the RFI, the current regulation requires that “the owner or operator 

shall certify” their compliance audit and that “the compliance audit be conducted by at least one 

person knowledgeable in the process” – see § 68.58(a), (b) and 68.79(a), (b). We feel that such 

proper enforcement of such regulatory requirements should abrogate the need for use of a thirdparty.

10 AWWA (2012). WARN Superstorm Sandy After-Action Report.

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Lowering the Threshold Quantityfor Regulated Substances Currently on the List

AWWA believes that the current thresholds for regulated substances used by the water sector in 

drinking water treatment are appropriate for managing the potential risk of off-site consequences

and we feel that any consideration of lowering such thresholds must be evidence-based, tied to 

relevant data derived from actual accident histories. 

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