EPA agrees with the commenter that the estimated costs for the LCRR need to account for the development and submission of tap sampling plans by all PWSs to the primacy agency and included in the cost model for the final LCRR burden for the development, revision, and submission of the systems sampling plan to the primacy agency. This burden is 3 hours per sampling period for systems with and without LSLs. For the LCRR, systems with LSL will have a greater burden associated with the requirement to sample from LSL location; therefore, the cost model also includes an estimated upfront burden for these systems to contact homes to establish an initial tap sampling pool that contain all LSLs sites. This burden ranges from 5 to 100 hours based on system size. Most systems without LSLs will not need to update their initial sampling pool because they are subject to less restrictive sampling criteria regarding the age of the copper and lead solder sites under the LCRR. Specifically, these systems no longer need to prioritize sampling at sites with copper pipes and lead solder installed after 1982. Because non-LSL systems can meet the requirements of the LCRR with their current sampling pool, EPA did not include a burden to update their initial sampling pool. However, EPA assumed all CWSs would have some change in their sampling locations from one monitoring period to the next and included an annual burden of 3 hours to report this change to the primacy agency.
Tap Sampling Costs
Summary of Comments
One commenter stated that EPA's estimate of $21.58 per sample analysis is inconsistent with the cost charged by the North Dakota state lab of $45 per sample that is exclusive of shipping or transporting samples to the lab.
Agency Response
EPA did not alter the unit tap sampling analysis cost in response to this comment. The Agency could not determine if the lab costs provided by the commenter included both lead and copper. EPA's commercial laboratory estimate of $21.58 includes the cost for a lead analysis only based on quotes received from six laboratories, as documented in the file, "Derivation of Lead Analytical Burden and Costs_Final Rule.xlsx." These estimates are inclusive of shipping and bottle costs. Based on discussions with laboratories, all CWSs serving 100,000 or fewer people and all NTNCWSs are assumed to use a commercial laboratory. Only CWSs serving more than 100,000 people are assumed to conduct in-house analyses. In addition, EPA also obtained estimates from these six laboratories and an additional seventh laboratory for both lead and copper analyses. The quotes ranged from $26 to $58 and averaged $40.50. This price range data leads EPA to believe that the commenter's $45 price quote is inclusive of both lead and copper testing. The EPA cost estimates represent incremental cost that result from the LCR revisions. Therefore, EPA did not provide the cost for copper analyses in the economic analyses because the requirements for copper remain unchanged and the incremental costs for the copper requirements under the final LCRR would be $0.
Recruiting Customers to Collect Samples
Summary of Comments
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment indicated that based on recent experiences in conducting a statewide review of the appropriateness of system sampling site locations, recruiting household volunteers for a sampling pool will likely take significantly longer than estimated because systems may be unaware of their service line materials. Additionally, with the new LCRR requirements that are projected to remove LSLs at greater rates, households will be rotated out of the sampling pool as their pipes are replaced necessitating higher rates of recruitment for new household sampling sites. The burden estimates for recruiting sample site participation for the proposal were based on an assessment of the recruitment time required under the previous rule requirements.
One commenter stated that the burden of collecting samples is borne by customers with LSLs or copper piping with lead/tin solder. This commenter believes that the cost of analysis should be well-known to EPA since utilities have been conducting sampling and analysis since 1992.
Agency Response
EPA agrees the average burden under the new LCRR will likely be greater for systems with LSLs, given the additional site requirements for tap sampling in systems with LSLs and the higher rotation in the sampling pool due to increased rates of LSLR. For the final LCRR analysis, EPA doubled its estimate of the burden for a system with LSLs to recruit a household volunteer. EPA assumes these systems will need to contact four customers by phone for every one needed sample at an average of 15 minutes per contact or 1 hour in total. The model also assumes that 75 percent of systems will offer cost incentives ranging from $10 to $100.
The cost analysis of the LCRR is an assessment of the incremental cost of the new requirements of the regulation. In the case of assessing the incremental unit cost, to the customer, based on the changes in lead tap sampling protocol under the LCRR, fifth liter sampling does require the customer conducting the sampling to collect five liters of water (at one time) instead of a single liter but this is a de minimus burden compared to the larger sampling burden. All other activities required of the customer sampler have not changed. Therefore, EPA has determined the incremental unit cost to the customers of the tap sampling requirements is zero.
<IP_ADDRESS> School Sampling
A number of commenters provided input on the school sampling cost analysis for the proposed LCRR. The comments covered a number of topics including: costs to water systems, grandfathering, the estimated number of schools and child cares, the number of sample to be taken at each facility, some of EPA's burden assumptions, and costs to schools and child cares. EPA addressed these comments in groups below.
Costs to Water Systems
Summary of Comments
Several water systems commented on the cost of school and child care testing requirements. One indicated that the school testing requirements of all schools every five years may be unaffordable. At estimated costs of between $1,300 and $3,800 per school, this water system expects that a single round of sampling at all school sites and child care facilities in the service area will cost approximately one million dollars. Another said that the 5-year rotating schedule of school and day care testing requirements would impose new costs of $200,000 to $300,000 per year, which would increase service rates without any real reduction in lead to customers. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality pointed out that Texas PWSs will be required to sample approximately 25,000 schools and child cares. Another indicated that larger systems will likely need to hire additional staff or hire contract support to implement rule provisions, and the costs incurred will not only be payroll costs but also overhead (for office space, vehicles, computers, etc.).
Agency Response
EPA acknowledges that the school and child care testing program will be expensive for some CWSs and has modified requirements in the final rule to help reduce costs. The final rule requires CWSs to conduct sampling at 20 percent of elementary schools and child cares annually during the first five years under the mandatory program phase of the rule. After that, CWSs are only required to conduct sampling annually at up to 20 percent of elementary schools and child cares that request sampling under the "on request" phase. EPA also modified the final rule to allow CWSs to count schools and child cares that are non-responsive to outreach efforts and that refuse sampling toward the required annual 20 percent under the mandatory program phase. The rule further requires CWSs to only conduct sampling annually at up to 20 percent of secondary schools that request sampling under the "on request" program. Under the proposed rule, the mandatory testing phase had also applied to secondary schools. Finally, EPA expanded the waiver eligibility requirements that allow primacy agencies to waive the testing and outreach program for systems as detailed in the response to comment in subsection "Waivers" below.
EPA disagrees with commenter's cost estimates of $1,300 to $3,800 per school. In the Final LCRR EA (USEPA, 2020a), EPA estimated the per system cost for one round of sampling (including labor and additional costs for planning, travel, sample collection and analysis, providing public education, providing and discussing sample results with tested facilities, and providing an annual report to the primacy agency) to be about $275 to $935 per school and about $210 and $865 per child care depending on the system size and the need for the CWS to spend additional time consulting with facilities that have high lead results. These costs do not include additional office space or computers but do include vehicle O&M costs to travel to the school or child care. See details on the unit cost assumptions in Chapter 5, Section <IP_ADDRESS> of the Final LCRR EA (USEPA, 2020a). In addition, EPA inflated the water system hourly wage rates by 1.4 to account for benefits (see Chapter 4, Section <IP_ADDRESS> in the Final LCRR EA). In the final LCRR, CWSs will incur costs per elementary school and child care in the first five years and will only be required to sample if requested by the elementary school or child care thereafter (assumed to be 5 percent of these facilities). EPA also assumes 5 percent of secondary schools will request sampling and that CWSs will incur costs associated with these requests. EPA recognizes that some states and CWSs will incur greater costs than others due to the varying distribution of schools and child cares in each state. For example, in the Final LCRR EA, EPA estimated that there are 64,674 elementary schools and child cares in Texas that would need to be tested. This number was estimated using the method described in the subsection "Number of Schools and Child Cares." EPA acknowledges that this requirement will impact more systems in larger states, such as Texas, and EPA has provided more flexibility in the final rule by switching to an on request program after 5 years and expanding the waiver eligibility requirements (as described in the next subsection) to help reduce these costs. The rationale for including the school and child care testing and outreach requirements in the final LCRR is described in the preamble to the final rule (USEPA, 2020b) and response to comment Section 12.
Waivers
Summary of Comments
With regard to the waiver provisions for sampling at child cares and schools: One commenter examined state-level child care lead testing requirements and concluded that Connecticut, Maine, North Carolina, and Vermont should be considered eligible for waivers in the economic analysis, and that Oklahoma should be excluded (because its lead testing requirements for child cares only apply to private water supplies -- the commenter noted that Nebraska and Texas have similar requirements). Further, the commenter indicated that some CWSs will be eligible for partial waivers even in states that do not meet the waiver requirements. The commenter concluded that EPA has underestimated the percentage of CWSs nationwide that will be eligible for a waiver of sampling requirements at child cares, and therefore overestimated sampling costs. The same commenter has not tracked school requirements in detail, but thought it is likely that there are similar errors there too, resulting in an overestimation of costs. The commenter referred EPA to the January 2019 Harvard report on testing in schools, which includes factsheets for each state (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/prc/projects/early-adopters/), as well as a report by 120 Water Audit (https://120wateraudit.com/resources/cost-analysis-reducing-lead-in-school-and-childcare-facility-drinking-water/).
Agency Response
EPA has re-evaluated states with equivalent programs for child cares and schools that can qualify for waivers considering the information provided in the two sources recommended by the commenter and to account for changes to the final LCRR. EPA revised the waiver eligibility requirements in the final LCRR to include:
States that have received Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nations (WIIN) Act grants,
States that may not meet all sampling requirements but require remediation, and
A category for states with equivalent programs for public schools only that would be eligible for a partial waiver.
These final rule requirements are summarized in Chapter 3, Section <IP_ADDRESS> of the Final LCRR EA (USEPA, 2020a).
For child cares, EPA determined that seven states (California, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, and Vermont) and DC are expected to be eligible for a waiver for the mandatory program and on request program). An additional six states (New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia, and Washington) are expected to qualify for the on request program only. EPA did not consider Maine to be eligible for a child care testing waiver because the state only required one sample and the testing protocol was unknown.
For school waivers, EPA evaluated states for both full and partial waivers. CWSs in states that are expected to be eligible for full waivers had mandatory and/or on request testing programs that applied to both public and private schools. CWSs in states that are expected to be eligible for partial waivers had testing programs that applied to public schools only. EPA determined that four states (Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Vermont) are expected to be eligible to grant a full waiver for the mandatory and on request programs. Five states (Montana, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Pennsylvania) and DC are expected to qualify to grant a partial waiver for the mandatory and on request programs. Four states (Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, and North Dakota) are expected to qualify to grant a full waiver for the on request program only, and seven states (Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Utah, and Virginia) are expected to qualify to grant a partial waiver for the on request program only. Under the final LCRR, individual CWSs may be eligible for and be granted waivers by the primacy agency. EPA conducted this analysis of waiver eligibility on a state level that may have overestimated costs in those instances and in instances where a state has targeted sampling at a subset of schools. A summary of the waiver eligibility analysis and data limitations and uncertainties can be found in Chapter 4, Section <IP_ADDRESS> of the Final LCRR EA (USEPA, 2020a). The estimated costs for CWSs can be found in Chapter 5, Section <IP_ADDRESS>, Exhibits 5-52 and 5-53 of the Final LCRR EA.
Number of Schools and Child Cares
Summary of Comments
Several commenters questioned EPA's estimates of the number of schools and child cares. A commenter indicated that EPA's assumption, in the proposed rule analysis, that the 126,529 schools and 767,373 child cares are proportionally distributed across the nation's inventory of CWSs is incorrect, and that the burden of sampling at these facilities will primarily be borne by medium and large CWSs. Another commenter offered perspective on the estimated burden on PWSs to meet prescribed school and child care center testing targets. Based on data gathered from five members, the association concluded that there is a very wide variability in the number of schools and child cares per system, and that EPA's estimates are consistently too low. The estimated number of schools served by systems in the 100,000 to 1 million customer size category in particular appears to be problematic. A commenter asserted that depending on what definitions are used for schools and child cares (e.g., licensed versus unlicensed child cares, in-home daycares, home schools, etc.), the costs could be underestimated.
A commenter questioned EPA's estimate that 98,000 public school buildings are not regulated under the SDWA and may not be tested for lead in drinking water. This commenter reported that 98,000 is the total number of all public school facilities in the United States, according to National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and stated that some proportion of those 98,000 are in fact NTNCWSs in their own right. In addition, there are about 34,000 more private schools (as of 2015-16) in the United States, some of which may be NTNCWSs. The commenter recommended EPA work with state education and health agencies to get an accurate accounting of public and private schools that are NTNCWSs or reliant on outside CWSs.
Agency Response
EPA acknowledges that the Agency does not have information on the exact number of schools or child cares by CWS size and has therefore had to make simplifying assumptions that can introduce some level of error into the analysis. EPA also agrees that there can be a wide variation in the number of schools and child cares across systems and regionally. In an effort to further refine its assumed distribution of schools and child cares across water systems and reduce that error, EPA collected new data from a number of sources. EPA refined its estimate by providing the number of schools and child cares by state and including information for territories, the Navajo Nation, and other tribal water systems and for public and private schools. EPA continued to use data collected by the NCES but utilized state and public/private data breakouts updated to 2015  -  2016 and supplemented that data with information on tribal public schools managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. For child cares, EPA updated the information to use 2017 information from the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Region Track versus the 2014 data used at proposal. EPA calculated the average number of each type of school and average number of child cares per population served for each state, territory, and the Navajo Nation. This state-level data is more regionally specific than used in the analysis for the proposed rule, which used a national average. See the "Derivation of School_Child Care Inputs_Final Rule.xlsx" for a detailed explanation of how EPA developed the universe of schools and child cares for the final rule. The total national level costs calculated for the school and child care facility sampling program are not impacted by the distribution of the facilities across CWSs. Uncertainty in the distribution only affects assessment of the impact on individual systems. The Agency updated the Final LCRR EA to acknowledge that the number of child cares may be overestimated because Census Region Track data includes home facilities that may be unlicensed. EPA also revised the discussion of data limitations and uncertainties in Chapter 4, Section <IP_ADDRESS> of the Final LCRR EA (USEPA, 2020a) to indicate that because of the simplifying assumptions on the distribution of schools per water system size, there is uncertainty in the impacts estimated by CWS size categories but that the national cost estimates should be accurate.
To address commenters concerns about the uncertainty in the types of child cares and schools covered by the LCRR, the Agency has made clarifying changes to the definitions of both types of facilities (See §141.2 of USEPA, 2020b)). The clarified definitions reduce the uncertainty in the sampling costs estimates asserted by a commenter.
EPA agrees with the commenter that CWSs are not required to test at schools or child cares that are NTNCWSs. These NTNCWSs are subject to the tap sampling requirements for drinking water systems under the final LCRR, which are separate from the school testing requirements. Therefore, EPA identified the number of NTNCWSs classified as schools using 2016 SDWIS/Fed inventory data, current through June 30, 2016. NTNCWSs with "SC" for schools designated in the Primary Service Area field were counted as schools for a total of 5,655 NTNCWSs. To determine which NTNCWSs classified as schools were public and which were private, the Owner Type field in SDWIS/Fed was used. NTNCWSs classified as schools with Owner Type "Private" were counted as private schools for a total of 2,023 NTNCWSs, and all other Owner Types were counted as public schools for a total of 3,632 NTNCWSs. The numbers of NTNCWSs classified as public schools and those classified as private schools were subtracted from the total number of public schools and total number of private schools, respectively.
For the proposed LCRR, EPA estimated that 94,277 public schools and 32,253 private schools are not classified as NTNCWSs and would need to be tested by CWSs. These numbers were derived from 2013-2014 NCES data and adjusted to account for schools that are NTNCWSs. For the final LCRR, EPA updated its estimates for the total number of public and private schools to more accurately capture the number of schools in the United States. This approach is described above. For the final rule, the adjusted numbers of public and private schools that are not classified as NTNCWSs and are subject to testing by CWSs are 96,282 public schools and 30,951 private schools and include DC, United States territories, and the Navajo Nation.
Number of Samples
Summary of Comments
A commenter indicated that a testing program at schools and child cares will require more sampling per year than the previous LCR. Another stated that EPA did not provide a rationale for proposing a small number of samples per facility given that the main driver of costs is not the sampling itself but the up-front effort (identifying the facilities, coordinating sampling schedule and logistics, travel, conducting facility walk-throughs, etc.). A third commenter stated that while the proposed number of samples at child cares (i.e., 2 samples) is realistic, EPA has underestimated the number of outlets at schools (i.e., 5 samples) and therefore the costs associated with both sampling and remediation at schools.
Agency Response
EPA agrees that required sampling by CWSs will increase as a result of the testing at schools and child cares. As discussed in the Agency responses in "Costs to Water Systems" and "Waivers" above EPA has expanded the waiver criteria and is limiting the mandatory testing phase to elementary schools and child cares during the first 5 years of rule implementation. Regarding the comment that the number of samples is insufficient, see Section J of of final rule Federal Register Notice (USEPA, 2020b) and response to comment Section 12 for the purpose and scope of the lead in drinking water testing and public education at schools and child cares. EPA agrees with the commenter that the number of outlets for some schools will be higher than five (the required number of samples per school). Estimates based on the International Plumbing Code requirements indicate the number may range from 4 to 259 taps depending on the size of the school (see "Derivation of POU Inputs_Final Rule.xlsx", worksheet "School_Avg Taps" for additional detail). However, the exact number of samples taken is secondary to the goals of the program. Again, see Section J of final rule Federal Register Notice (USEPA, 2020b) and response to comment Section 12. The sampling requirements are not a replacement for comprehensive testing as detailed in the 3Ts (USEPA, 2018). Thus, EPA has retained the requirement for CWSs to collect five samples from schools and two samples from child cares at outlets typically used for consumption.
Burden Estimates Used in Cost Model
Summary of Comments
One commenter thought that EPA's estimate of 30 minutes of coordination with a facility prior to conducting a walkthrough (15 minutes for establishing sampling schedule and 15 minutes for coordinating logistics) is unrealistic. The CWS may need to contact a school or a child care operation (that may have few resources and little prior experience in this area) several times before even getting a response, given that the facilities themselves are not legally obligated under the federal rule to participate. The commenter added that EPA also does not account for the time it would take a CWS to document and report, under the proposed rule § 141.92(d)(2), that a facility is not responsive or declines to participate. This commenter thought that EPA's estimated 3 minutes per facility to provide testing results is not adequate to ensure that facilities will receive the support they need to understand their testing results and remediation options. Another commenter agreed that the estimated time for coordinating with facilities is too low, since child cares have little incentive to participate and CWSs may end up doing much of the work.
Agency Response
EPA agrees with the commenter that additional time may be needed to contact the school and child cares. Thus, the Agency has increased the burden for systems to contact schools and child cares to establish their sampling schedule from 0.25 hours to an average burden of 0.5 hours per school and 1 hour per child care. These new values are based on the system's contacting each school twice and each child care four times at an average of 15 minutes per contact. EPA did not modify the burden to coordinate with the school or child care because the system has already established contact and determined a schedule with the facility. The cost model does not include time for the system to document that a facility is not responsive or declines to participate because the Agency assumes 100 percent participation for all elementary schools and child cares. The cost of documenting non-responses or refusals per location would be less than the sampling cost so EPA is being conservative in its cost estimates for these requirements of the LCRR. EPA agrees that school and child cares may need to discuss the sampling results with the water system and has also revised the cost model to include on average an additional hour for systems to discuss the results with schools and child cares. EPA has also included an additional 5 hours for those facilities with one or more high lead samples to provide time for the system to explain the relevant portions of the 3Ts (USEPA, 2018) and to address any follow-up questions that the school or child care might have after the initial discussion.
Costs to Schools and Child Cares
Summary of Comments
One commenter stated the economic analysis does not take into account the additional costs that sampling at schools and child cares will impose on those facilities and believes those costs will be significant. The commenter also questioned the utility of sampling in schools, as there is no clear linkage to remediation by schools or child cares. The LCRR will not require remediation, and the economic analysis does not include remediation costs. The commenter recommended two resources as a starting point for estimating such costs: Sanborn and Carpenter, 2018, A Progress Report on Efforts to Address Lead by Public School Districts, Journal AWWA; and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, 2018, Lead Contamination Control Act (LCCA) Program for Schools. The commenter also recommended drawing on information available from the Department of Education about school infrastructure, itemized in the comment.
Agency Response
The intent of the public education and sampling program at schools and child cares is to inform and educate targeted CWS customers and users about risks for lead at schools and child cares since large buildings, such as schools, can have higher potential for elevated lead levels due to complex premise plumbing and inconsistent water use patterns. Public education and water system sampling will provide schools and child cares with assurance in the process and benefits of managing a drinking water testing program and the information necessary for them to take actions to reduce lead risk. See "Costs to Water Systems" in response to comment Section <IP_ADDRESS>, and Section 12 for additional information on the purpose of the school and child care sampling program. The cost model includes costs for the regulated community (i.e., water systems and the primacy agencies who oversee implementation of the regulation). It does not include costs for schools and child cares that are not PWSs because EPA does not regulate these entities and thus, the Agency cannot include requirements for remediation in the regulation.
16.3.3 Corrosion Control Treatment Cost
EPA received a number of comments related to the cost and effectiveness of CCT. The Nevada Department of Environmental Protection (NDEP) provided study, design, installation, and O&M costs data from three PWSs that had recently installed alternative types of CCT. Another commenter provided estimated costs for lead solubility studies, scale analysis, batch harvested pipe studies, and harvested pipe flow through studies. Multiple other commenters provided the costs associated with a pipe loop, pilot-scale testing, and other corrosion control studies for water systems, as reported by water systems. One commenter also requested that EPA review the economic impacts for water systems which currently use pH adjustment as a CCT. Multiple commenters also spoke to the effectiveness of CCT, indicating that in their experience CCT can be effective but that this is dependent on system and water use characteristics.
Find-and-Fix
Summary of Comments
EPA also received comments on the costs included for the find-and-fix provision and the characterization of source water and treatment changes, including comments suggesting that the economic analysis does not appropriately characterize current state practices or the proposed rule requirements. One commenter indicated that find-and-fix installation is the largest portion of the national annual corrosion control technology costs and suggested that the proposed process should be revised with stakeholder input. Another commenter suggested that the find-and-fix provision would put undue pressure on households and PWSs to conduct remedial actions. A third commenter stated that the find-and-fix cost assumptions in the cost analysis mischaracterize the regulatory requirements in the following way: by not accounting for small or medium sized systems without optimized corrosion control, by including a grace period for a year of monitoring before taking action, by assuming corrective action will only occur at one entry point (EP), and by assuming corrective action will only require pH adjustment. The commenter also suggests that the data assumptions used to determine which systems will experience a new source water and which will make a change in treatment are limited to source water changes reported in SDWIS and do not reflect changes in recent years to primacy agency practices, EPA training for primacy agency staff, and oversight by EPA regional offices. The commenter suggests the economic analysis underestimates the impact of the rule provisions related to a change in source or treatment water. Finally, a commenter also suggested that there is a public health risk associated with the period of transition from one corrosion control strategy to another and the proposed rule requirements could result in a large number of systems implementing CCT changes at once producing higher risk levels due of insufficient primacy agency oversight and associated increases in costs that should be considered.
Agency Response
In the proposed LCRR EA, for cost modelling purposes, EPA developed a set of "typical" find-and-fix actions a PWS would take in response to a tap sample above the lead action level (USEPA, 2019a). There seems to be some confusion among commenters about how these typical actions were used in the cost analysis. Given the site specific nature of the type of the water quality issues the find-and-fix requirements are designed to address, this set of typical actions was not meant to be an exhaustive list of all potential actions a PWS might take, but rather illustrative of the range of potential actions that would address issues in the distribution system if earlier targeted efforts (CCT installation or re-optimization) were not sufficient to avoid samples above the ALE. The three typical steps for the proposed rule analysis were: (1) investigate the cause and consult with the homeowner; (2) increase the pH level at the one EP that was experiencing samples above the action level; and (3) if the PWS had more than one EP, increase the pH at all remaining EPs.
EPA does agree with the comment that the range of activities accessed in the proposal was likely too narrow and focused too heavily on pH adjustment. Therefore, in the Final LCRR EA, EPA added flushing of the distribution system to the list of typical actions that PWS may take in response to the find-and-fix requirements (USEPA, 2020a). So, EPA's final rule economic analysis assumes the following find-and-fix steps will be taken: (1) investigate the cause and consult with the homeowner; (2) one time flush of the distribution system near the sampling locations to reduce water age; (3) increase the pH level at the one EP that was experiencing samples above the action level; and (4) if the PWS had more than one EP, increase the pH at all remaining Eps (USEPA, 2020a).
EPA disagrees with the comment that the assumed sequence of find-and-fix steps implies that primacy agencies will not require systems to take action following the first year of monitoring with individual lead observations above 15 ug/L, a period of grace that is not included in the regulatory requirement, and that PWSs would only have to modify pH at only one EP. As discussed above, the modeling assumptions used in the economic analysis are designed to capture what EPA assumes to be an average sequence of find-and-fix follow-up actions that is designed to estimate cost on the national scale. Individual systems and primacy agencies are required under the rule to assess each sample site and take water quality parameter samples at or near the location of the tap sample above 15 ppb. System's actions to remediate the high lead tap sample should not be driven by EPA costing assumptions. Because of the complicated nature of tap sampling under the LCRR, EPA made the modeling assumption that the first year where an individual tap sample was above 15 ug/L would result in the system investigating the sample results and making a determination that no additional intervention was needed.
Finally, EPA disagrees with the comment that the find-and-fix rule requirement allows water system personnel to walk away if property owners decline to remediate. There are many actions that PWSs can, and must take, that do not require homeowner consent or coordination. Systems must collect water quality samples at or close to the high tap sample locations that will allow the system to make determinations about water quality in the distribution system close to the location of interest and, if necessary, to take actions such as flushing or changing CCT to remediate the issue. See response to comment Section 13 for additional detail on find-and-fix requirements. EPA also disagrees with the comment that states that the economic analysis should include remediation costs that go beyond the rule requirements. Primacy agencies or PWSs may choose to take actions that are beyond the scope of the federal requirements. Neither the costs, nor benefits, of such actions should be attributable to the rule.
CCT Installation and Operation and Maintenance Costs
Summary of Comments
NDEP in its detailed comments on the proposed LCRR provided cost information from systems that had recently installed CCTs. Among the three systems identified by them, System K (serving 1,040 people) has installed a Zinc Orthophosphate Feed System. System B (NTNC, serving 32 people) installed a soda ash process in 2017 and calcite in 2019. System N (serving 40 people) installed a tank and aeration process earlier in 2019.
Agency Response
EPA did a comparison of the costs provided by NDEP for system K with costs (low/mid/high cost options) from the Agency's Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Zinc Orthophosphate model (which allows for the examination of costs in more detail (e.g., engineering and direct capital, separate from total capital)) and with the cost curves (low/mid/high cost options), which were developed for the proposed rule for installing new CCT for a small ground water system. The cost curves estimate total capital and annual O&M costs in 2016 dollars. The results of this analysis can be found in the bulleted conclusions and table below. EPA did not develop WBS models for the soda ash, calcite, or aeration processes.
EPA concludes that:
Itemized capital estimates from the WBS phosphate model are very similar to the capital cost items identified by system K.
EPA's mid- and high-cost unit estimates for phosphate CCT are likely conservative inputs for the LCR national cost modeling.
System K didn't provide information on the phosphate dose, so it's difficult to compare the O&M costs given the high sensitivity of O&M costs to feed dosage. The Agency assumed a dosage of 3.2 mg/L as phosphate (PO4). EPA also assumed the flow rate reported by NDEP is average flow and that design flow is twice the average flow. O&M costs are definitely conservative inputs in the LCR national cost modeling.
Although system K didn't report the total capital cost estimate, the total of reported capital cost items ($30,000) is very much within both the WBS model and LCR cost curves range of low to high cost capital estimates.

Changes in Source Water or Treatment Technology
Summary of Comments
A commenter asserted that EPA underestimated the number of PWSs that will have to evaluate their CCT due to a change in source water or treatment technology because EPA's estimate only includes source water changes that are correctly added to SDWIS and does not reflect changes in primacy agency practice post-Flint, subsequent EPA training for state primacy agency staff, and oversight by EPA regional offices.
Agency Response
EPA disagrees that it underestimated the number of PWSs that would have to evaluate their CCT due to a source water addition or long-term technology change. EPA recognizes that SDWIS data can, in certain cases, under or over report PWS activities. However, it is the best available national dataset to estimate the percentage of PWSs with source water or technology changes. Since EPA has limited its analysis to the requirements of the previous and final LCRR rules, not primacy agency practices that may exceed the national standards, EPA believes its final rule estimates of the number of systems that experience source water additions or long-term treatment changes is a credible estimate.
16.3.4 LSL Inventory and Replacement Cost
Several commenters critiqued EPA's cost model and the assumptions that went into developing the LSL inventory, number of replacements, LSLR costs, and pitcher filter costs and applicability. Others offered input on LSLR costs and included cost data based on their own experience. Another identified areas that required further clarification in the economic analysis regarding LSLR modeling assumptions. EPA addressed each of these comment topics separately.
LSL Inventory
Summary of Comments
A commenter stated that accurate inventories must be developed before other costs can be reliably forecast. Another commenter agreed with EPA that systems that are compliant with the proposed inventory requirements prior to the final rule should not be included in either the calculation of rule benefits or costs associated with those requirements. However, the commenter indicated that the cost model should take into account (1) the time it will take systems with LSL inventories to determine that they are up to date and ready for distribution, and (2) the likelihood that some existing LSL inventories do not satisfy all rule requirements, like accounting for galvanized pipe and defined unknown material. Another commenter indicated that EPA overestimated the extent to which existing efforts to develop LSL inventories will satisfy the new requirements.
Other commenters disagreed with EPA's cost estimates for establishing inventories based on the use of limited data, certain assumptions, or omission of required steps to complete the inventory. One commenter thought EPA's estimates were flawed because they are based on only three sources and these sources report wide ranges and are not necessarily representative. The commenter added that most systems do not have in-house personnel available to conduct inventories, and that contracting the work out costs more than doing it in-house. Another thought EPA was unrealistic to assume that ascertaining service line materials after the initial records-based research is conducted would require a single person-hour per service line. One commenter said that EPA omitted costs associated with digging and then discovery that no lead is present and no replacement is required. This commenter pointed out that in Flint, only 15 percent of excavations conducted by one contractor resulted in line replacements. One commenter stated that the cost for their water system to determine to verify if the estimated 0.5 percent of service lines of unknown material would costs from $1.1 to $1.3 million. The commenter added that the estimated cost to verify the customer portion of these service lines to be $19 to $21 million, which would not be feasible and would be "highly disruptive to our customers."
Agency Response
Regarding the comment about developing an accurate inventory before assessing the cost of the rule, EPA acknowledges the limitations of the LSL inventory data in Chapter 4, Section 4.3.4 of the Final LCRR EA (USEPA, 2020a). Also see "Data Limitations and Uncertainty" in the response to comment Section 16.2, for the Agency's discussion of the development of a "low" and "high" estimate of the number of systems with LSLs and number of LSLs that represent the bounds of cost and benefit values given the uncertainty associated with the amount and distribution of LSLs as well as other factors. EPA agrees with the commenter that the cost model should take into account that some systems with LSL inventories would need to do additional work to correctly account for galvanized pipe. Therefore, EPA updated the likelihood a system would complete its inventory in advance of the rule to only include those states that require the identification of galvanized service lines (Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin), as well as DC. EPA's revised approach greatly reduced the likelihood estimates from the proposed rule. Specifically, for CWSs, EPA estimated 9.5 to 14.5 percent of CWSs depending on system size would complete their inventory for the proposed rule compared to 0 to 5.1 percent for the final rule. For NTNCWSs, the estimate for the proposed rule ranged from 5 to 26.8 percent compared to 5 to 13.6 percent for the final rule. EPA also revised the likelihood that a system without LSLs would submit a complete inventory in advance of the rule to include only those in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and DC; and all systems in American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii, and Nevada because none have LSLs. This resulted in a decrease in the estimated percentage from the proposed rule estimate of 18.1 to 32.6 percent compared to 12.1 to 20.9 percent for CWSs for the final rule. For NTNCWSs, the percentages decreased from 5 to 26.8 percent from the proposed rule to 5 to 13.6 percent in the final rule. In the Final LCRR EA (USEPA, 2020a), EPA also included a burden of 1 hour for all systems with LSLs to report updated inventory information to their primacy agency annually or triennially. In addition, as part of the public outreach and public education costs, EPA included burden for CWSs with LSL to establish a way for the public to access information on LSL locations of 5 to 10 hours based on system size and for all systems to maintain a process for the public to access lead health information, LSL locations, and tap sample results of 2 to 12 hours based on system size and LSL status.
A commenter stated that the cost model should take into account the recurring costs that will be incurred by PWSs to maintain and update their LSL inventories over time. EPA agrees with the commenter. Included in the cost model is a burden of 1 hour for systems to submit annual or triennial LSL inventory updates to the primacy agency. EPA assumed a relatively small burden because the time to maintain and update the LSL inventory information is accounted for under the LCRR requirement that system make their LSL information publicly available. See Chapter 5 of the Final LCRR EA, Section <IP_ADDRESS> (SafeWater LCR model data variables: "hrs_pub_access_op" and "hrs maint_lsl_op") (USEPA, 2020a). Also, those systems subject to the goal-based or mandatory LSLR programs must provide a separate detailed annual report to their primacy agency (SafeWater LCR data variables "hrs_report_lcr_op") that is described in Section <IP_ADDRESS> of the Final LCRR EA.
One commenter noted that the rule allows Primacy Agencies to establish different inventory requirements under their special primacy conditions, but EPA does not address the cost that will be incurred when water systems that have compiled inventories according to federal requirements need to make changes and possibly gather additional information to satisfy state-specific requirements or any benefits associated with this requirement. The cost estimates provided for the LCRR are designed to estimate the impact of the federal requirements mandated in the rulemaking. Therefore, EPA's cost estimates do not include potential actions states may take in the future. Also see the response to comment Section 15.1.
EPA agrees that the estimated burden for systems to complete the initial LSL inventory is based on few data points; however, two of the three data points are state estimates (from Indiana and Ohio) and represent multiple systems. One commenter provided an additional estimate but did not specify what types of activities are included in the estimate; therefore, EPA could not compare the estimate to those in the SafeWater LCR model nor use the estimate in the development of the average implementation cost. To develop the inventory, the LCRR requires systems to review existing records and use other information or methods required by the primacy agency. It does not require field verification. EPA recognizes variability in the level of effort to develop the initial inventory depending on the form of existing records (paper vs. electronically) and inventory work prior to the rule. EPA acknowledges that some systems will face higher inventory development costs than the average values used in the SafeWater LCR model but EPA asserts that on average the data EPA has collected are representative of the burden to systems.
Although not included in the inventory development costs EPA did include field verification costs as part of the LSLR ancillary cost estimates. The Agency assumed systems would confirm whether or not a service line is lead prior to replacement and included the following activities in the cost model:
Contact the customer and travel to the site of 1.69 hours to 1.97 hours at a cost of $10.67 to $14.45 per service line.
Inspect and test the lines to confirm they are lead, either through visual confirmation at a burden of 1 to 2 hours per site or through field testing at a range of $109 to $328 per site. EPA assumed 50 percent of service lines would be visually tested and the remaining 50 percent would require field testing. The Agency assumed all inspected service lines would be lead and be replaced.
See "Derivation of LSLR Ancillary Costs_Final Rule.xlsx" for additional detail.
Estimated Number of LSL Replacements
Summary of Comments
One commenter suggested that EPA has underestimated the number of LSLRs that will be triggered by the LCRR. This commenter stated that EPA's analysis of the likelihood of a lead ALE and TLE assumed a dependency on system size and draws from SDWIS and information from Slabaugh et al. (2015). The commenter added that the assumption that systems without corrosion control will be less likely to exceed either the trigger level or action level, while reasonable, is not consistent with the rule construct emphasizing the use of orthophosphate as the corrosion control strategy water systems must employ to successfully manage lead levels. The commenter cited the following estimated increase in the number of replacements from Appendix C of the proposed LCRR EA (USEPA, 2019a) over the 35-year period of analysis: 205,452 to 261,701 full LSLRs; 214,000 to 350,000 customer-initiated replacements; and 149,200 full replacements due to the availability of DWSRF program loans and subsidies to fund customer-side LSLR. Furthermore, this commenter said that the economic analysis should include the following costs to be consistent with the LCRR: costs associated with establishing a program to respond to customer requests for LSLR; and costs associated with customer requests for LSLR at systems that are operating below the lead trigger level.
Agency Response
EPA agrees with the commenter in so far as the estimation of the percentage of systems expected to be at or below the lead trigger level, exceed the trigger level but not the action level, and exceed the action level (which drives the estimated number of LSLRs) could be improved given new data made available through public comment and additional research post proposal. For the final rule, EPA revised its approach for estimating the percentage of systems in these three classifications. Specifically, EPA expanded the universe of systems with known LSL status from 3,870 to 4,424 based on information available from state websites and public comment, as described in "Number of Systems with LSLs" under response to comment Section 16.2. EPA also used data from the State of Michigan to estimate the impact on the lead 90[th] percentile levels that are based on fifth liter vs first liter samples under the final LCRR for LSL systems. EPA applied the ratios of fifth liter 90[th] percentile values to first liter lead 90[th] percentile values from 133 systems in Michigan to 90[th] percentile values for an expanded universe of systems with known LSL status to estimate the likelihood of systems falling into one of three lead classifications. EPA recognizes the uncertainty introduced in using data from a single state that may not represent the values on a national level. However, the Michigan data represent actual compliance monitoring data collected recently from all systems within the state, as opposed to using historical sampling data from a smaller subset of systems that may have had lead issues (i.e., "profile" data from five systems that was used for the proposed LCRR). The resulting change in the percentage of systems in each of these three lead 90[th] percentile classifications is shown below for the proposed rule and final LCRR for systems with and without LSLs. In the proposed LCRR, EPA provided estimates of CWSs in each lead 90[th] percentile category by systems size and CCT status. However, some systems' size/CCT status categories had very few systems (e.g., there is only one system serving more than 50,000 people with no CCT. Upon further review of the data, EPA determined there were insufficient data to allow the estimates to be stratified by CCT stratum. For the Final LCRR EA, EPA presented the data stratified by LSL status only (USEPA, 2020a). This final rule approach is consistent with the request from the commenter. EPA provides additional detail in the file, Derivation of Initial P90 Categorization_Baseline_Final Rule.xlsx."

              Percent of CWSs with No TLE or ALE, a TLE, and ALE
Category
Proposed Rule
Final Rule

No LSLs
LSLs
No LSLs
LSLs
Low Estimate
No TLE/ALE (P90 <=10 ug/L)
92%
98%
97%
89%
TLE (10 ug/L < P90 <= 15 ug/L)
6%
0%
0%
5%
ALE (P90 > 15 ug/L)
2%
2%
2%
6%
High Estimate
No TLE/ALE (P90 <=10 ug/L)
87%
39%
87%
58%
TLE (10 ug/L < P90 <= 15 ug/L)
7%
23%
7%
12%
ALE (P90 > 15 ug/L)
6%
38%
6%
30%
Acronyms: ALE = action level exceedance; CWS = community water system; LSL = lead service line; P90 = lead 90th percentile level; TLE = trigger level exceedance.
The change in the estimated percentage of systems with a TLE or ALE impacts the estimated incremental number of full LSLRs that range from 330,228 to 429,174. See Exhibit C.1 in Appendix C of the Final LCRR EA (USEPA, 2020a). EPA agrees with the commenter that the cost of customer initiated LSLR should be estimated. EPA applied its LSLR utility side replacement cost estimates to an estimated percent of LSLs that would be replaced through customer-initiated replacement using a rate of 0.05 percent based on DC Water's experience with its customer-initiated program from 2009  -  2013 as provided in Figure 7 of the 2020 report titled Lead Pipes and Environmental Justice: A Study of Lead Pipe Replacement in Washington, DC (Environmental Defense Fund and American University School of Public Affairs, 2020). This percentage of customer initiated replacements is used to determine the number of system replacements in systems without a TLE or ALE. EPA assumes that customer initiated replacements count toward the mandatory or goal-based LSLR program when systems exceed the lead trigger level or action level. See Chapter 5, Section 5.3.4 of the Final LCRR EA for additional information on how EPA derived this percentage. Also see in the Final LCRR EA, Chapter 4, Section <IP_ADDRESS> for EPA's approach for estimating the percentage of systems with no TLE or ALE, a TLE, or an ALE.
LSLR Cost Estimate
Summary of Comments
A commenter stated that EPA's economic analysis underestimates the cost of replacing an LSL. The commenter proposed a way of building up costs (updating figures from the 2011 AWWA survey used by EPA to 2016 dollars and adding field inspection costs) that results in cost estimates that are higher than EPA's estimates by $1,222 to $2,751 per LSL. The commenter proposed that EPA's LSLR cost estimates ought to include costs associated with project management, construction management, public relations and (if not already present) site restoration. The commenter also pointed out that the 2011 AWWA survey did not include replacement of galvanized service lines when downstream of lead, and that neither did the Cornwell et al. (2016) study. Replacing galvanized lines as well as lead lines would change some partial replacements to full replacements, and it might also require the use of different pipe replacement techniques, which would affect mobilization costs. The commenter stated that the cost estimates, based on a 2011 AWWA survey, should be updated with newer information, including information provided to EPA during the 2018 federalism consultation. Another commenter pointed out that in some communities LSLR costs may be inflated due to high demand and lack of qualified contractors. One commenter indicated that LSLR costs are likely to vary considerably in different regions of the country and different jurisdictions. The commenter added that the size of the community and the size of the budget and staff of the responsible agency are important sources of variation in the rate of replacements that can be performed annually.
Several commenters offered input on costs based on their own experience and other data, for comparison with the results of the SafeWater LCR model. One commenter suggested that taking into account uncertainty associated with subsurface conditions, the estimated cost of a full LSLR should be in the range of $7,500 to $15,000 per location. Another stated that the customer owns the entire service line and replacement of the service line can average $7500. Another commenter said that LSLR units costs are in line with the high end of the range of costs projected by EPA. Another commenter indicated that due to a cold climate and deeply buried pipes in Iowa, every LSLR there would cost "in the multiple thousands of dollars at a minimum, and up to more than $10,000 dollars each in the more urban areas." Three systems provided actual costs: (1) costs of $4,000 to $5,000 for replacement plus $11,500 or more for traffic control and street repair if needed; (2) $6,500 to $9,500; and (3) $4,500 to $5,000. A major driver of cost is whether the main is located on the same side of the street as the house or whether it is necessary to tear up the road. Another commenter reported that in Wisconsin, unit costs are about $5,000 for a private LSLR and $8,000 for full LSLR, on average, with surface restoration costs being the most important source of variability in costs. Another commenter stated that costs are higher in dense, urban areas and that in New York City, LSLR unit costs can often exceed $20,000. Another indicated that Flint, Michigan's administrative costs were $760 per service line and suggested using an estimate of $6,700 per line based on an AWWA investigation of 14 CWSs.
Two utility commenters felt that working on privately owned service lines would be difficult. One commenter that does not own any part of the service line indicated that such a requirement will be difficult to enforce, and that funding will need to be made available to property owners to incentivize them to replace service lines. The other said that even with incentives that brought homeowner costs down to between $2,000 to $5,000 with an average cost of $3,000 per private-side LSLR, and in some cases down to no out-of-pocket costs, one program found that only 37 percent of customers responded. "The utility cannot force the homeowner to replace the line. This rule has the potential to place the burden on the PWS for these costs. In turn, this will cost all ratepayers in the system. It could also set a precedent for future, currently unforeseen, issues on the customer's side."
Agency Response
EPA agrees with the commenters that new information has become available, since the time of proposal, that would provide better estimates of LSLR unit costs for the final rule analysis. In the analysis of the proposed rule EPA had developed a dataset of 24 utility reported estimates of LSLR costs. EPA evaluated this dataset along the other replacement cost survey information and selected the AWWA 2011 survey as the primary source of data for LSLR unit cost estimates for the proposed rule. Since proposal, EPA has identified cost data in news reports, press releases, and utility websites that has allowed the Agency to expand the data collected during the proposed rule analysis. The search found additional cost estimates from 63 utilities. EPA then selected only the subset of data values that represent reported actual replacement costs from pilot studies and/or recent or on-going LSLR projects. This resultant dataset provides costs estimates across full, customer-side, and system-side replacements from 38 systems, which represent costs and practices from 2016 to 2020 (only two cost values from the proposal dataset remain in the revised dataset). The cost information in the updated dataset are variable in the reported replacement costs covered by the various programs, but a number of the data sources specifically indicate they include surface restoration cost. Therefore, the cost analysis for the final rule includes surface restoration. Many utility estimates are from states that experience cold climates, such as Wisconsin (12 utilities), Michigan (5 utilities), and South Dakota (1 utility) and would include costs for replacing deeply buried lines. Moreover, many utilities including Boston, MA; Cincinnati, OH; Milwaukee, WI; and Memphis, TN are urban areas and therefore total costs likely include traffic control and street repair. EPA did not find costs related specifically to replacement of galvanized service lines in the literature but expects these costs to be similar to LSLRs.
For the final rule, the estimated mean costs for utility-side, customer-side, and full LSLR have increased by 122, 26, and 13 percent, respectively, using the newly developed data as compared with the AWWA 2011 values used for proposal. Also, EPA used the 25[th] and 75[th] percentile values from the new dataset in the low and high cost scenarios, respectively. All utility-side, customer-side, and full LSLR unit costs under both the low and high cost scenarios are larger than those used in the proposed rule analysis except for full replacement in the high cost scenario. See Appendix A of the Final LCRR EA (USEPA, 2020a) for additional detail on EPA's methodology and final unit costs for each type of LSLR.
In the cost model for the LCRR EPA applies the full LSLR cost to systems under a mandatory replacement program, where systems are required to fully replace a rolling 2 year average of 3% per year using a baseline number of LSLs equal to the number of LSLs and galvanized requiring replacement service lines at the time the system first exceeds the lead trigger or action level plus the number of unknowns at the beginning of each year of the system's LSLR program, to conservatively estimate the impact to PWSs in the models. But there is no requirement in the final LCRR that states systems must pay for private side LSLR. In fact the rule allows systems to be in compliance with LSLR regulatory requirements even is the mandatory rate cannot be met due to lack of homeowner participation if they can certify they have made two good faith attempts to reach all customers served by an LSL or galvanized requiring replacement that resulted in a signed or verbal refusal or non-response. Also see response to comment Section 6.
Pitcher Filter Costs
Summary of Comments
Three commenters discussed the cost of pitcher filters. One commenter said that the cost per filter should include not only the base cost and the estimated shipping cost, but also the cost of 3 months of replacement filters. Further, filter costs should be included not only in connection with line replacements (and in other limited circumstances) but also with disturbances resulting from meter maintenance and replacement and from service line failures involving lead or galvanized pipe. Each commenter said that EPA's economic analysis should be revised to specifically account for the current cost of pitcher filters, the cost of implementing a pitcher filter tracking and maintenance system. Two of the commenters added that the economic analysis should also consider the likely rise in the price of pitcher filters with the necessary American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standards for lead removal after implementation of the proposed revisions to the LCR, when the demand for qualified pitcher filters will likely exceed the available supply.
Agency Response
EPA updated the cost analysis to also include the cost of pitcher filters that would be distributed to households impacted by water system related work that does not involve LSLRs. EPA assumed that 5.9 percent of households will be impacted annually by water-related work based on the estimated life of water meters provided by Massachusetts Water Resources Authority.
EPA also revised its estimate for pitcher filters used in the proposed rule. The original estimate of $39.98 was inclusive of a $6.00 shipping costs. EPA had assumed that no additional replacement cartridges would be needed because those cartridges supplied with the purchase of the pitcher filter were sufficient to last 3 months, which was the filtration time required under the proposed rule. In the Final LCRR EA, EPA has revised the estimate to $44 and clearly states in Chapter 5, Section <IP_ADDRESS> the costs including shipping and 6 months of replacement filters (SafeWater LCR data variable: "cost_filter_hh") (USEPA, 2020a). Six months of replacement filters is required under the final LCRR.
Regarding the comment that because of the LCRR pitcher filter requirements demand will exceed the supply resulting in filter price increases, EPA estimated the average annual number of filters that systems would provide after an LSL has been replaced or disturbed to be 21,871 to 35,836 filters per year. Based on a GMP Research Industry publication, "Get the Lead Out", more than 3.9 million pitcher filters were manufactured in 2013 (GMP Research Inc., 2014). This indicates the increased annual demand for pitcher filters under the LCRR would represent 0.01 percent of total annual sales. EPA recognizes that this estimate includes pitcher filters that are not certified for lead removal. On the other hand, this estimate of total production is from 2014 and does not account for the likely increase in the manufacture of pitcher filters that are certified in response to increased public awareness regarding lead in drinking water due to publicized system lead issues like what occurred in Flint, Michigan. The Agency is aware of eight manufacturers that make pitcher filters that are certified to remove lead. EPA does not anticipate that the final rule will impact the pricing of pitcher filters.
Need for Clarity Regarding LSL Replacement Rates
Summary of Comments
EPA received a comment that it was not clear that "EPA analyzed the rule provisions as presented in the proposal preamble as required by SDWA." Specifically, the comment stated that the description of LSLR rates applied in the economic analysis is not clear.
The commenter stated that "there is an embedded assumption that lead levels will below the action level within 3 years for small community water systems and noncommunity water systems."
The commenter also stated "the timeframe for triggered replacement to be complete was not specified, except as shown in flow charts. The analysis description implies the same assumptions are used as for lead service line replacement as for the find-and-fix analysis."
Agency Response
EPA would like to provide some clarity on each point provided by the commenter. First, under the LCRR, if a small CWS (defined as one that serves 10,000 or fewer people) or NTNCWS has an ALE, they may choose LSLR, instead of CCT or POU, as a compliance approach. In this case, they must replace all of their LSLs within 15 years. The SafeWater LCR model assumes that the system replaces 7 percent of their baseline number of LSLs each year until all LSLs are removed in year 15. EPA has made an assumption, for costing purposes that given the changes to the compliance tap sampling requirements, these small systems that select LSLR will have to replace all of their LSLs before they will no longer exceed the lead action level. Non-small CWSs with an ALE must replace a rolling 2 year average of 3% per year using a baseline number of LSLs equal to the number of LSLs and galvanized requiring replacement service lines at the time the system first exceeds the lead trigger or action level plus the number of unknowns at the beginning of each year of the system's LSLR program. A water system that has an ALE must conduct the mandatory LSLR program until the water system's 90[th] percentile lead levels are at or below the action level for 2 years (4 consecutive 6-month monitoring periods) and the cumulative number of LSLs replaced by the system is greater than or equal to its average annual replacement rate times the number of years that elapsed between the system's first ALE and the date on which the system's 90[th] percentile lead levels are at or below the action level for 2 years. However, non-small CWSs with an ALE would also have to install or re-optimize their CCT in response to an ALE, and EPA assumes that two years (or four 6-month monitoring periods) after CCT is installed or re-optimized, these PWSs will no longer have to conduct LSLR. Therefore, non-small CWSs will only have to conduct LSLRs until they achieve compliance through CCT.
Regarding the comment on EPA's assumption that lead levels will be below the action level within 3 years for small CWSs and NTNCWSs, EPA disagrees with this comment as this assumption is not made when costing the LSLR requirements of the final LCRR (see paragraph above). However, EPA does make a 3-year replacement assumption for all PWSs under the previous LCR, or baseline analysis. This 3-year assumption means that in the baseline analysis any system that is projected to exceed that action level will only remain above the action level for three years so LSLR will only occur for those three years. This assumption is valid under the existing compliance tap sampling requirements that include fewer samples from households with LSLs. EPA conducted a review of SDWIS/Fed data that shows that under the previous LCR, PWSs on average replaced LSLs for three years before qualifying to stop replacements by no longer exceeding the lead action level for two consecutive 6-month monitoring periods (see Chapter 4, Section <IP_ADDRESS> of the Final LCRR EA (USEPA, 2020a)).
EPA clarifies that it does not specify a timeframe for triggered replacement to be complete as the timeline will differ by PWS since it is a goal-based program, and the goals, and actual LSLR rates, will vary by PWS. Instead, EPA tracked each model-PWS's lead concentration. Once a model-PWS no longer exceeds the trigger level for two consecutive annual monitoring periods it will stop LSLRs. EPA disagrees that "the analysis description implies the same assumptions are used as for lead service line replacement as for the find-and-fix analysis." This is not the case. Goal-based LSLR is a consequence of a TLE based upon the system's 90[th] percentile lead level and the find-and-fix requirements are a consequence of single tap water samples above 15 ug/L.
Finally, the commenter stated, "the flowcharts and description of p_lsl_replaced_vol_pct describing the goal-based replacement rate analysis are not consistent." There seems to be some confusion about how the goal-based LSLR goals and replacement rates were modelled. EPA assumed that each model-PWS would be given an annual replacement goal of 2 percent of the baseline number of LSLs. EPA then assigned, each year, an actual replacement rate to each model-PWS that ranged from 1 to 5 percent, with a most likely value of 2.5 percent. Each year of analysis, EPA compares the model-PWS's goal to its actual replacement rate to determine if it met its goal. If it does not meet its goal the model-PWS is required to conduct additional LSLR-related outreach.
For the Final LCRR EA, EPA revised the text and flowcharts to try to make the cost modelling associated with LSLR more transparent (USEPA, 2020a). For example, EPA made the conditions for household-requested LSLR explicit in the text and flowcharts.
16.3.5 PWS Implementation and Administration Costs
Summary of Comments
 One commenter pointed out that the proposed rule will require a substantial amount of tracking and follow-up activity, and water authorities will need to add staff in their field operations, compliance, and support sections. This commenter stated that the true costs of implementation are "extremely difficult to estimate." Two commenters provided estimates for the increased expected cost to their water system to implement the proposed rule requirements. One added that these increased costs would be incurred by water systems and their customers.
Agency Response
EPA agrees with the that implementation burden can vary greatly depending on the regulatory requirements that system must implement based on the 90[th] percentile lead tap sample results. There is uncertainty in the number of systems that will experience TLEs and ALEs as a result of the new sampling requirements over time. Therefore, the Agency estimated low and high cost scenarios based in part on different rates of TLEs and ALEs, to capture the uncertainty associated the 90[th] percentile tap sampling values moving forward under the new rule sampling requirements. This modeling procedure also provides a range of estimated implementation costs that capture the uncertainty in implementation costs produced by the cost major driver for this category of cost. In the final rule cost analysis EPA has also added or increased unit burden estimates to better capture the costs to systems of implementing final rule requirements, including additional burden for:
LSL systems to obtain household volunteers and to report lead tap and 90[th] percentile levels and inventory updates annually or triennially.
All systems to confer with their primacy agency on their initial lead tap monitoring data and status under the LCRR.
All CWSs to develop lead outreach materials for schools and child care facilities and contact schools and child cares to finalize their sampling schedule, provide sampling results, and follow-up with those that have high lead values.
Small CWSs serving 10,000 or fewer people and all NTNCWSs to provide their small system flexibility recommendation.
Systems to collect a WQP distribution system sample and for some to conduct flushing in response to a single sample above 15 ug/L.
EPA also increased the initial and ongoing administrative primacy agency burden (refer to "Primacy Agency Cost" in response to comment Section 16.3.6, for additional detail). With the resulting changes, the estimated national incremental costs for the final rule are $160,571,000 to $335,481,000 using a 3 percent discount rate and $167,333,000 to $372,460,000 at a 7 percent discount rate compared to the proposed rule costs of $131,987,000 to $269,989,000 at a 3 percent discount rate and $130,104,000 to $286,219,000 at a 7 percent discount rate.
EPA acknowledges the commenters that stated that costs for compliance would increase as a result of the LCRR. EPA has considered these increased costs as described above and has also considered the benefits. The incremental benefits for the final rule are $223,344,000 to $645,276,000 at a 3 percent discount rate and $39,353,000 to $119,102,000 at a 7 percent discount rate compared to $211,081,000 to $521,159,000 at a 3 percent discount rate and $36,612,000 to $97,459,000 at a 7 percent discount rate under the proposed rule. In addition to the benefits monetized in the final rule analysis for reductions in lead exposure, there are several other benefits that are not quantified and that are discussed in Chapter 6, Section 6.6 of the Final LCRR EA (USEPA, 2020a). Examples of non-quantified benefits that reduce lead exposure to children and adults include additional measures individuals will take to minimize exposure to lead due to additional lead public education requirements and reduced exposure to individuals who reside in homes without LSLs.
Regarding the comments about additional needed resources to implement the final rule, see response to comment Section 17.2 for additional discussion on funding assistance.
EPA was unable to verify the cost estimates for the implementation of the proposed rule provided by two commenters due to insufficient data on the characteristics of the systems. These characteristics form the basis of the cost estimate and would have allowed for a comparison with the EPA cost analysis.
EPA acknowledges that because of the public ownership of a significant number of PWSs, the public commissions and boards that often oversee water rate setting for privately-owned water systems, and in general the geographic monopoly water system have within their respective service areas the majority of the incremental costs of the LCRR will eventually fall on the customers of the system. Some costs to customers may be mitigated through the use of federal and state funding, as well as, private PWSs not passing along their costs but absorbing some of the cost of compliance.
16.3.6 Primacy Agency Cost
ASDWA and other individual states discussed ASDWA's estimates for the increase in primacy agency workload to implement the requirements of the LCRR, as proposed. These commenters also discussed specific areas that included data management, state analytical services, and state decisions pertaining to optimal corrosion control treatment (OCCT). In addition, some states provided estimates on additional required staff to implement the LCRR and concerns for how such increases would be funded. Each of these topic areas are discussed below.
ASDWA CoSTS Model for Estimating Primacy Agency Workload
Summary of Comments
ASDWA summarized its estimates from its 2018 CoSTS model. The 2018 CoSTS model was submitted as part of ASDWA's federalism comments and estimates the number of hours that a primacy agency will require to oversee the LCRR as proposed during the first five years of rule implementation (ASDWA, 2018). It includes the burden to primacy agencies for tracking, technical assistance, follow-up with systems, and initiation of needed enforcement actions, as applicable for the following areas:
Regulatory start-up;
LSL inventories, replacement plans, and replacements;
Tap sampling;
TLEs and ALEs;
CCT, including water quality parameter monitoring;
Sampling site assessment (called find-and-fix in the proposed LCRR);
Small system flexibility;
Change in source or treatment, and source water monitoring and treatment;
Public education and transparency;
Lead testing in schools and child care facilities; and
SDWIS, data tracking, and primacy agency reporting.
The 2018 CoSTS model projected that the increase in primacy agencies' workload from the anticipated revisions to the LCR would be in the range of 3.8 million to 5.0 million staff hours in the first five years of implementation, or 760,000 to 1,000,000 staff hours annually. When translated to dollars, the costs of states' staff time for the LCRR would be in the range of 72 percent to 95 percent of current funding for the Public Water Supply Supervision (PWSS) program. Multiple commenters including ASDWA and several states that provided input into the CoSTS model noted that the ASDWA study was updated to reflect the proposed revisions to the regulation and urged EPA to consider this updated model. A commenter urged EPA to work with ASDWA, states, and other stakeholders to develop the economic analysis and information collection request (ICR) for the final rule and to ensure that the final rule is grounded in real fiscal impacts at the state and local level. A different commenter indicated that EPA's economic analysis vastly underestimates the costs for each primacy agency and cited the annualized cost of $15,965,008 or per state cost of $319,300 per state for the implementation and ongoing administration from the economic analysis for the proposed rule (USEPA, 2019a). This commenter stated that the analysis does not properly distinguish between start-up costs and ongoing costs and does not clearly account for the range of start-up costs. Another commenter indicated that based on recent work with systems on LCR sample site verification, systems costs are also underestimated.
In a later submission during the comment period, ASDWA provided the revised version of CoSTS and provided an explanation of the changes (ASDWA, 2020a). ASDWA noted that the updated 2020 CoSTS model projects an increase in the national total cost for states to implement the proposed LCRR in its first five years to be approximately 835,000 staff hours annually, over and above the ongoing implementation of the previous LCR. ASDWA indicated that the additional staff hours are a factor of 12 greater than the annual hours (380,830 staff hours) for ongoing LCR implementation. ASDWA further stated that the proposed LCRR alone will require 47 percent of current PWSS funding. Another commenter repeated these ASDWA figures. Several other commenters stated that according to ASDWA, the annual state burden will be 790,000 hours more than the previous LCR implementation.
ASDWA indicated that if EPA makes certain recommended changes to the LCRR (coded separately and discussed elsewhere), the Agency could reduce the complexity of the rule and the state burden could be reduced by approximately 12 percent to 735,000 staff hours annually in the first five years of adoption and implementation of the LCRR. ASDWA noted that their recommended changes to the LCRR reduce the estimated state burden from approximately $50 million annually to approximately $43 million annually. Another commenter requested that if EPA elected to simplify some of the LCRR requirements that the Agency work with ASDWA to make the necessary adjustment to CoSTS.
Agency Response
EPA carefully evaluated the information and assumptions in the 2020 version of the CoSTS model (ASDWA, 2020a) and used a subset of the information from the CoSTS model to assist in the development of revised state burden estimates for the cost analysis of the final rule. Chapter 5 of the Final LCRR EA has been revised for the final rule to provides detail on the information EPA used from the CoSTS model in the adjustment of primacy agency cost variables (USEPA, 2020a). EPA revised cost estimates for a number of state activities including: administrative activities, technical assistance, review of LSLR plans and LSL inventories, approval of systems' LSLR goals, review and approval of tap sampling site plans, review of school and child care testing programs, review of annual reports on school and child care testing programs, and review and approval of small system flexibility recommendations. EPA also added a new one-time cost element for both primacy agencies and PWSs to initially confer on the system's 90[th] percentile status and new requirements under the LCRR based on the system's first two 6-month monitoring periods under the revised tap sampling requirements of the LCRR. These increases in burden to states resulted in higher estimated incremental annualized costs for the final rule of $19,707,000 to $22,216,000 when compared to the burden estimates used in the analysis of the proposed rule of $14,998,000 to $15,681,000.
Data Management
Summary of Comments
A commenter stated that EPA's cost analysis does not adequately capture costs to states associated with data management, including the cost of updating core data systems and the cost of updating interfacing applications. An expansion of the functionality of SDWIS/State may require coordination with a contractor and centralized information technology (IT) staff outside the drinking water program (e.g., use of an interfacing application that generates templates or presents a public view of SDWIS data). The commenter pointed out that many state drinking water programs already face problems of limited IT capacity, consolidation of IT resources at the department level, and state-imposed restrictions on their ability to develop and modify data systems.
The commenter also asked for clarification about EPA's assumptions regarding data management costs, which are listed as 520 staff hours per state to modify existing systems, with no provision for outside contractors. And the commenter questioned if EPA is planning to update SDWIS and the 520 state staff hours are for additional modifications to interfacing state applications. The commenter recommended that EPA perform the necessary modifications, if possible, to reduce the burden imposed on states. If, on the other hand, the entire burden of data system updates will fall to states, the commenter recommended increasing the estimate of burden in the economic analysis to 2080 hours at an hourly rate of $57.24, or $119,059 per state based on its initial estimate. The commenter indicated that this estimate is in line with past rules like the Ground Water Rule (GWR). The commenter also recommended that EPA increase the PWSS grant accordingly, or offer alternative funding sources to allow states to "effectively manage the database support needed for the increased rule burden." Based on its 2020 updated to CoSTS, the commenter indicated the required hours to modify a state data management system would require 3,700 hours per primacy agency (ASDWA, 2020a). This is based on numbers from the Revised Total Coliform Rule. The commenter also reported that a few states gave an estimate of $150,000 for contracting work on data management system modifications to track LCRR. One such state indicated that it would need to hire a contractor to develop a software solution at the state level if EPA does not update SDWIS/State to track data related to LCRR requirements. Other commenters reiterated concerns about data management costs and asked EPA to clarify and/or revise upward the cost estimate and to commit to an EPA update of SDWIS/State.
Agency Response
EPA agrees that the Agency's prior estimate for modifying the data systems was too low and revised it based on the 2020 version of the CoSTS model (ASDWA, 2020a). EPA increased the estimated burden for the final rule to 740 hours per year per primacy agency during Years 1 through 5 of the 35-year analysis period versus a one-time burden of 520 years per primacy agency in Year 1 for the proposed rule.
Regarding comments on EPA's plans for SDWIS/State, the Agency is intending to provide states with LCRR data management capabilities through the SDWIS Modernization system development project. EPA is intending to engage with states in the development and testing of the SDWIS Modernization data system. EPA will then provide assistance to states in their adoption of the new system. The system will include functions for ensuring data quality as well as for primacy agencies to be able to connect the system to locally run applications, such as the Drinking Water Application running on a state server.
State Analytical Services
Summary of Comments
A commenter stated that EPA's economic analysis does not reflect costs borne by many states that provide analytical services for all required safe drinking water compliance sampling and encouraged EPA to update the cost analysis accordingly.
Agency Response
EPA received clarification from ASDWA regarding which states pay for analytical services (ASDWA, 2020b). Based on this information, EPA revised the cost estimate for the final rule to assign lead analytical costs and some of the reporting costs to Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and South Carolina. EPA also assigned the one-time cost to update the sampling instructions to these states and to North Carolina.
Summary of Comments
A commenter indicated that the proposed LCRR will increase technical assistance costs, instrument maintenance costs, the frequency with which inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) instruments will need to be replaced, administrative costs, sample shipping costs, lab certification costs, and more. The commenter stated that additional resources will need to be provided to state labs to implement the LCRR, and provided cost estimates. The commenter asked EPA to consider the increased burden on state laboratories in the final LCRR.
Agency Response
EPA was unable to verify the cost estimates provided by the commenter because they did not include information on the number of samples.
OCCT Tracking and Recommendation Reviews
Summary of Comments
A commenter indicated that EPA may not have accounted for the tracking of OCCT status for each system and the OCCT recommendation reviews of systems with TLEs. They noted that 24 systems in their state would have a TLE. The commenter added that the majority of the large system designations are from the 1990s, and records of these designation decisions may not include all of the information specified in the proposed rule requirements and current EPA guidance.
Agency Response
EPA disagrees with the commenter that EPA may not have accounted for tracking of OCCT status and recommendations for systems with TLEs. The Agency has developed estimates of both the primacy agency monitoring of OCCT status and the review of OCCT system recommendations for TLEs. EPA includes in the final LCRR cost analysis a burden to review water quality data with systems that have CCT during a sanitary survey of 2 to 5 hours based on system size. EPA also has included an annual burden of 1,560 hours per primacy agency, which is 560 hours higher than the previous rule, to report additional information that includes the OCCT status of all water systems, and the parameters that define the optimization. For the final LCRR, EPA used a conservative cost modeling assumption that all systems must conduct a study prior to installing or re-optimizing CCT and that the primacy agency would not base its OCCT decision on a recommendation. Primacy agencies are assumed to incur a burden of 10 to 24 hours per CCT installation study for systems without LSLs and 12.5 to 30 hours for those with LSLs based on system size. For the re-optimization study, EPA assumed primacy agencies would incur a burden of 10 to 40 hours per study conducted by systems without LSLs and 12.5 to 50 hours for those with LSLs. These estimates are based on responses from North Carolina to a 2016 questionnaire provided by ASDWA. A copy of this questionnaire and the state's responses are available in the docket under EPA-HQ-OW-2017-0300 at https://www.regulations.gov. For additional detail, see Chapter 5, Sections <IP_ADDRESS> and <IP_ADDRESS> in the Final LCRR EA (USEPA, 2020a).
State Staffing Needs and Resources
Summary of Comments
Several commenters from primacy agencies provided state-specific resource estimates to implement the LCRR as proposed and several expressed concerns on how the programs would be funded as follows:
Based on the revised ASDWA CoSTS model, the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) estimated that it would need to hire an additional 11 FTE staff to implement the LCRR as proposed. VDH faces constraints on hiring that would require action by the Governor's office or the state legislature to change, even if additional funding were available from EPA to cover the new positions. VDH recommended that EPA recognize the extremely large increase to state burden and work to simplify the LCRR to reduce the implementation cost.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment estimated that it will need to hire at least 6 additional full-time staff to implement the proposed rule.
New Mexico Environment Department believed that the proposed LCRR would require tripling or quadrupling the staff resources devoted to LCR implementation.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality preliminarily estimates indicated that the costs of additional staffing and data management to implement the rule as proposed would be $3.8 million for Texas.
A commenter argued that with flat federal funding for the Public Water System Supervision (PWSS) program and increased workloads due in part to activity related to non-regulated contaminants like per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and Legionella, states have limited capacity to take on the additional requirements associated with the LCRR.
Agency Response
EPA's cost model doesn't track FTE as an output, but the additional costs of employment such as health care and retirement benefits are accounted for in the Agency's estimated labor rate. An explanation of the calculations and data used to derive this labor rate was added to Chapter 4, Section <IP_ADDRESS> of the Final LCRR EA (USEPA, 2020a). Also see response to comment Section 17.2 for additional discussion on funding assistance.
16.3.7 Ecological Impacts and Cost of Added Phosphate
Summary of Comments
EPA received comments suggesting that the proposed rule does not adequately address water systems' need to operate under multiple regulatory frameworks and mischaracterizes the importance of wastewater treatment impacts in CCT option selection. Multiple commenters pointed to the interrelationship between the SDWA and the Clean Water Act, and how corrosion control strategies have implications for water systems efforts to comply with both regulatory programs. One commenter suggested that the economic analysis assumptions related to phosphorous is at odds with EPA's current practices of holding point dischargers responsible for substantial nutrient reduction accomplished under Total Maximum Daily Loads. Another commenter suggested that the proposed rule does not speak to or consider wastewater treatment impacts.
One commenter cited EPA's use of a linear extrapolation of the 2007  -  2016 growth in National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitted facilities with phosphorus effluent limitations to estimate the total number of facilities with discharge limits after 35 years and argued that a step change in the number of facilities may result as nutrient criteria are adopted across the nation leading to a cascade of permits including phosphorus limits. Another commenter recommended that the EPA consider funding approaches that will help wastewater facilities address the potential NPDES issues.
EPA also received comments expressing concern with the environmental and economic costs associated with the use of phosphorous and orthophosphate CCT. Commenters suggested that the emphasis on orthophosphate could lead to increased costs to states as orthophosphate usage can cause many unintended downstream effects and that EPA underestimated the cost of nutrient removal required by phosphate-based CCT. Commenters also suggested that the cost of phosphorous removal per pound is underestimated and offered alternative unit costs, while also suggesting that it is impractical to standardize a single unit cost for removal of phosphorus. Commenters indicated that the estimated unit cost of removal does not consider the added infrastructure capital costs that may be needed to expand capacity to treat the phosphorous.
Other commenters suggested that a more in-depth discussion of the ecological and cost impacts of zinc should be included in the analysis. Another commenter suggested that EPA should discuss the differing ecological ramifications between total phosphorus and dissolved orthophosphate given that the dissolved orthophosphate is more readily bioavailable, potentially leading to more severe impacts than total phosphorus loading. The commenter also requested that EPA discuss how the proposed rule may exacerbate the depletion of phosphate-rich mineral deposits leading to increased cost for fertilizer production and concomitant food costs.
Finally, one commenter suggested that the economic analysis consider the cost for installation of on-site treatment systems by customers for removal of phosphorous at levels above what can be tolerated by sensitive consumers such as aquariums, home health requirements, and some manufacturing processes.
Agency Response
Regarding the comment that EPA mischaracterizes the importance of wastewater treatment impacts in CCT option selection, see the response to comment Section 4 regarding the requirement to evaluate orthophosphate addition.
As noted in the economic analysis for the proposed and final LCRR, EPA recognizes that the use of orthophosphate as a CCT will create additional burden on some wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and will result in additional phosphorous loadings into receiving waters. In developing its national cost estimate of the proposed and final rule, EPA used a mass-balance model to estimate the amount of additional phosphorous that would reach WWTPs. EPA then calculated the amount of phosphorous that WWTPs would need to remove to maintain compliance with existing or future discharge limits. EPA estimates that the annual cost of additional phosphorous removal nationwide will range from $1.1M to $1.8M at a 3 percent discount rate, and $1.5M to $2.6M at a 7 percent discount rate. Based on this analysis, EPA disagrees with comments that the use of orthophosphate as a CCT will likely result in large cost increases to WWTPs. EPA also disagrees with the comment that the Agency's economic analysis "argues that the Agency's continued pressure on point source dischargers of nutrients is ineffectual or does not exist, so phosphate used for corrosion control is a de minimus contribution to nutrient loadings." In fact, as discussed above, EPA's analysis of the cost to WTPPs assumes WWTPs will remove enough phosphorous to remain compliant with their existing or future discharge limits. See Section 5.5 of the Final LCRR EA for a discussion of how EPA estimated the increased phosphorous loadings that will be removed by WWTPs (USEPA, 2020a).
EPA received several comments that its estimate of the cost of phosphorous removal is too low, and some commenters (City of Loveland, CO; National Association of Clean Water Agencies; and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment) provided information on the costs of phosphorous removal. EPA reviewed the cost information provided but was unable to use these data because they were too location specific and/or not enough detail was provided to use them in a national-level model. In addition, data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment included both additional phosphorous treatment costs and economic impacts associated with impaired waterbodies. This may be double counting costs as the nutrient load from the WWTP should not decrease the water quality of the receiving water if the additional phosphorous is removed. However, EPA does agree with comments that EPA's estimate of the cost per pound to remove phosphorous may underestimate the true costs if WWTPs need to expand their treatment process capacity (e.g., incur capital costs). EPA acknowledged this limitation in its economic analysis.
EPA also estimated the amount of additional phosphorous that will reach receiving waters. The mass-balance model predicts that the additional use of orthophosphate as a CCT will increase anthropological loadings of phosphorous by less than 1 percent. Therefore, EPA disagrees with the comments that the final LCRR will result in widespread negative ecological impacts such as algae blooms. At the same time, EPA does recognize that its analysis, which was conducted at the national level, may obscure significant localized ecological impacts of additional phosphorous loadings. EPA agrees with comments received that the use of orthophosphate as a CCT may require, in some settings, additional nutrient management practices in order to meet water quality standards, and if these standards are not met, negative ecological impacts may occur. In the economic analysis of the proposed and final LCRR, EPA provided a qualitative description of the ecological impacts associated with nutrient pollution, especially eutrophication (USEPA, 2019a; 2020a). In addition, EPA, in its mass-balance model, accounted for water that would be lost due to leakage and outdoor use (e.g., lawn watering). EPA agrees that its estimate of incremental loadings of phosphorous did not account for these sources and therefore EPA may have underestimated the actual incremental phosphorous loadings.
EPA agrees with a comment that, zinc, a component of zinc orthophosphate, a corrosion inhibitor, must also be managed by a WWTP, particularly with respect to the contribution to biosolids. While EPA's analysis did not directly consider the impact of zinc on bio-solid management costs, the Agency's economic analysis did include the incremental cost of bio-solid management in general. EPA's analysis of WWTP costs underestimates total cost because it does not account for the treatment of zinc. EPA acknowledges this issue in the Chapter 5, Section 5.5 of the Final LCRR EA (USEPA, 2020a).
EPA agrees with the commenter that indicated orthophosphate is more readily bioavailable. Not all forms of phosphorus are utilized to the same degree or at the same rate by plants and microbial communities. Dissolved inorganic phosphate (orthophosphates) are immediately bioavailable in the aquatic environment for algal uptake, and it is indeed this bioavailable phosphorus that affects the algal production in the aquatic environment in combination with other nutrients (e.g., nitrogen), light, and temperature. However, total phosphorous load is the important long-term factor for aquatic health. While a significant amount of phosphorus can enter water bodies in an immediately unavailable form, there is the potential for this unavailable phosphorus to undergo physical or chemical cycling process that may convert it (all or partially) to the readily bioavailable form of phosphorus, orthophosphate. For example, the decomposition of organic matter by microbial activities can result in mineralization of organic phosphates to orthophosphate. Likewise, polyphosphates are unstable and will eventually convert to orthophosphate and become available for plant uptake. As stated in Chapter 5, Section 5.5. of the Final LCRR EA, the ecological impacts of increased phosphorous loadings are highly localized; total phosphorus loadings will depend on the amount and timing of the releases, characteristics of the receiving water body, effluent discharge rate, existing total phosphorus levels, and weather and climate conditions (USEPA, 2020a). Unfortunately, detailed spatially explicit information on effluents and on receiving water bodies does not exist in a form suitable for this analysis. Therefore, EPA could not quantify the potential ecological impacts of the rule. Instead, EPA developed approximate, national-level total phosphorous loading estimates, and evaluated the significance of the loadings compared to other phosphorous sources in the terrestrial ecosystem.
Regarding the impact of the rule on the use of phosphate resources and cost of phosphate products, the quantity of phosphorous used at drinking water treatment plants is not a direct output of the SafeWater LCR model. However, in year 35 of the high cost scenario, the model estimates that the incremental increase in phosphorus reaching WWTPs would reach 1.74 million pounds per year. In the underlying mass balance model used to produce this estimate, the percentage of phosphorus used in drinking water treatment that reaches the WWTP varies on a system-by-system basis, but ranges from approximately 55 to 65 percent. Assuming the worst case for all systems (only 55 percent for all systems), the incremental phosphorus use due to the rule in Year 35 of the high cost scenario would be approximately 3.17 million pounds per year. Based on mole fractions, this incremental increase in phosphorus converts to an incremental increase of 7.3 million pounds per year (or 3,650 tons per year) of phosphorus pentoxide (P2O5). In comparison, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) (2020) estimates total United States usage of P2O5, including in phosphoric acid, fertilizer, and other products, is 4.0 to 4.5 million tons per year. Therefore, at the upper bound, the incremental increase attributable to the rule constitutes less than 0.1 percent of annual United States consumption. This small increase is unlikely to significantly impact the cost of phosphate products or the rate of depletion of phosphate resources.
EPA also acknowledges in Chapter 5, Section 5.5 that insufficient data exists to allow for the estimation of the additional water treatment costs to reduce phosphate levels in finished drinking water that customers of a PWS may choose to incur. The Agency therefore did not include these costs in the economic analysis which may result in an underestimate of total cost of CCT.
16.3.8 National Cost Estimates
Summary of Comments
EPA received a comment related to the difficulty in evaluating the cost of the rule due to the variability among PWS compliance scenarios, specifically the size, type of water system, presence of LSLs, and existing corrosion controls. EPA also received a comment on the compliance rate assumed during the analysis, suggesting that EPA's assumption of 100 percent compliance will lead to an overestimate of costs.
Agency Response
EPA agrees with the comment that the proposed and final LCRR requirements will impact PWSs very differently depending on the presence of LSLs, corrosion control in place, and system size and type. The analysis prepared by EPA incorporated data and assumptions on existing PWS conditions and provided expected cost estimates by system size, type, and ownership. The SafeWater LCR model incorporated data on system variability in developing the estimated cost of compliance. EPA also developed low and high cost scenarios in order to bracket uncertainty associated with the five LCRR-specific variables that have the largest impact on estimated costs. See Chapter 5, Section 5.2.4 of the Final LCRR EA for a discussion of the uncertainty associated with the low and high cost scenarios (USEPA, 2020a).
EPA disagrees with the comment that EPA has assumed full compliance with the proposed LCRR resulting in an overestimate of costs. A regulatory cost analysis is designed to capture the potential expected cost of the imposed regulatory requirements. To capture these expected costs EPA has assumed, in its cost analysis, that primacy agencies would enforce the requirements of both the previous LCR and proposed LCRR, so that if a PWS does exceed the action level, they will be required to take corrective action including installing or re-optimizing CCT and/or LSLR. This valid assumption has led to significant estimated costs associated with ALEs under the previous rule and significant costs for TLEs and ALEs under the proposed and final LCRR. A commenter, in their example of LSL inventory requirements, suggests that because some primacy agencies did not require PWSs to conduct LSL inventories under the previous LCR, there is no reason to expect PWSs to comply with the mandatory requirement under the proposed LCRR. This is an inappropriate comparison. The requirement under the previous rule was that systems were to conduct a materials evaluation only to identify enough sample locations for tap monitoring. This previous rule requirement is very different from the inventory requirement in the proposed and final rule. The LCRR requires systems to prepare an initial inventory in three years that may include lead status unknown lines and continue to update their initial inventory regularly.
16.4 Benefits Analysis
Summary of Comments
One commenter, commended the EPA for providing comprehensive assessment of costs and benefits of the proposed revisions to the LCR, as well as a thorough investigation into the potential effects of the rule on BLL and intelligence quotient (IQ). Healthy Babies Bright Futures (HBBF) notes that 1 in 26 homes they have tested have WLL above the current EPA action limit of 15 ug/L, and that 1 in 8 homes exceeds the Canadian action limit of 5 ug/L. They emphasize the urgency of reducing WLL in drinking water.
Agency Response
EPA thanks the commenters for their comments. The data provided by HBBF was too limited to use for rulemaking purposes but is helpful context.
16.4.1 Drinking Water Lead Exposures: Concentration Data and Modeling
EPA received comments regarding the lead concentration dataset and modeling approach used in benefits estimation. These comments included comments on WLL estimation methods, including the selection of the underlying concentration data, the approach to developing a predictive model for water concentration at the tap based on those data, and the suitability of Stochastic Human Exposure and Dose Simulation-Integrated Exposure Uptake Biokinetic (SHEDS-IEUBK) model for applying estimates from the predictive model to BLL.
Water Lead Level (WLL) Estimation Method
Summary of Comments
The EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB) provided scientific review of the methods discussed in Section 6.2 of the Final LCRR EA for estimating WLL (USEPA, 2020c). They noted that the use of a random effects model (described as a "linear mixed effects" or "LME" model elsewhere in this document), was appropriate for the available dataset. They suggested clarification and elaboration on several points, including:
The description of the profile liter term through further explanation of the variability of WLL when water is first drawn from a tap after a stagnation period.
Considerations of knot placement for spline analysis of the profile liter term.
Given that the random components of the model (city, site, and sampling event) account for a large portion of the overall variance, and that city and site specific differences may exist, SAB questioned whether city- or site-specific variation in the effects of LSL or CCT had been considered in model design.
Whether city- or site- specific covariates that could provide insight into "environmental justice" considerations had been considered for inclusion into the WLL model.
Elaboration on the choice of the "reduced spline model" for the main analysis though the most complex model appeared to perform better in model fit statistics.
Agency Response
 The EPA response to the issues raised by the SAB follows.
EPA has edited Section <IP_ADDRESS> of the Final LCRR EA to clarify the definition of the profile liter term (USEPA, 2020a).
EPA considered several knot placement strategies during the initial model design period. These were fitted only to assess whether the conceptually-driven knot placement based on typical tap volume, plumbing volume, and length of service line produced results similar to other knot positions, such as knot chosen by quantile position. As these models were not intended to be used for final predictions, they were not included in model comparisons. Footnote 3 in Section 6.2 of the Final LCRR EA contains a basic description of one such model, and Appendix F has been expanded to illustrate the process.
EPA has added text in Section 6.2.2 of the Final LCRR EA to discuss this point. During the initial model design period, EPA attempted to fit models that accounted for random variation in parameters related to event, site, and city. This would have allowed the EPA to incorporate variation such as differences in length of a service line among sites, or city-specific features that could change the effectiveness of CCT implementation. However, the dataset did not support such comparisons. Fitting models with random slopes that allow effect sizes to vary among sites or cities requires sufficient variation to fit individual slopes for most of the sites or cities. For instance, EPA considered a model with a random slope to describe differences in CCT effectiveness in different cities. A strong dataset for such a comparison would contain multiple CCT conditions for all cities in the dataset. If a city has only one CCT condition, there is no way to individually estimate the effect of CCT for that city. The effect of CCT for that city can only be estimated in comparison to other cities. This dataset did not contain enough instances of before and after implementation, improvement, or degradation of CCT to fit individual by-city effect sizes, and thus to estimate variation in effectiveness of CCT changes across cities. Similar issues were found with models intended to fit different splines for cumulative sample volume (profile liter) in different sites. Fitting a differently shaped curve for each site would be useful to account for differences in home plumbing and service line lengths, but many sites did not have enough sequential profile liter samples to perform this comparison.
Examining differences in intercept or effectiveness of intervention across cities would be useful for environmental justice analysis. However, the dataset included relatively few cities, and they were not chosen based on economic charateristics, demographic makeup, or size. As such, EPA does not consider such an analysis to be feasible at this time.
EPA has added text under Section 6.2.2 of the Final LCRR EA to better describe the reasoning behind this decision to use the "reduced spline model." Although the full model described the data best of all, it appeared to over-fit study-specific features and produced predictions that were likely unrealistic. The full model projected a gradual rise in lead concentration after the service line peak for some intervention combinations, which is unlikely to be realistic. In addition, for homes with no LSLs, the full model produced predictions of relatively high lead concentrations in homes with representative CCT, and relatively low concentrations in homes with no CCT. Again, this is unlikely to represent the true effects of that intervention. Therefore, the simpler model was selected for simulation.
Suitability of SHEDS-IEUBK and WLL Dataset
Summary of Comments
The commenter notes that results from economic analysis are uncertain but agrees that physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model used in the benefits analysis, SHEDS-IEUBK, is appropriate for predicting BLL from drinking water exposure. However, the commenter notes that the modeled outputs at the upper BLL percentiles are very sensitive to small changes in WLL inputs, meaning that small errors in geometric mean WLL or geometric standard deviation (GSD) may be magnified in BLL estimates. The commenter's key points regarding the inputs to this model are that the variability distribution in WLL exposure among individuals is not clearly defined, that the model assumes all water intake for each individual is at the concentration in the home, and that the co-occurrence of other sources of lead is not well established.
The commenter discusses independent analysis of LCR compliance data for 90[th] percentile lead levels, which resulted in a population-weighted 90[th] percentile lead level of 2.74 ug/L. Additionally, a commenter notes concerns regarding unquantified costs for individuals who do not have elevated BLL, who may be concerned by receiving communications about lead or experience other, undefined, consequences of the management of lead in drinking water.
Agency Response
EPA agrees that SHEDS-IEUBK is appropriate for predicting BLL from drinking water exposure for children aged 0-7. However, EPA does not agree with the characterization that the model is excessively sensitive to small differences in inputs. Stanek et al. 2020 presents a comprehensive sensitivity analysis to examine BLL output behavior in response to changes in inputs for geometric mean and GSD of WLL. This analysis compared BLL outputs from estimates used for the primary Final Rule EA (LSL Yes:No CCT Geometric Mean = 18.08, GSD = 3.78) to estimates from a bounding exercise with inputs based on expert assessment of realistic ranges from the United States EPA Office of Research and Development (bounding: Geometric mean = 17.89 ug/L GSD = 3.56). This analysis showed 95[th] percentile for the two inputs differed by 0.05 ug/dL (Final Rule EA = 11.44 ug/dL and bounding = 11.49 ug/dL); the 99[th] percentile differed by 2.58 ug/dL (Final Rule EA =18.45 ug/dL and bounding =15.87 ug/dL). This level of sensitivity in BLL outputs was also addressed in Appendix G of the Final LCRR EA (USEPA, 2020a).
EPA recognizes that the SHEDS-IEUBK model makes simplifications to exposure scenarios that may not fully represent the range of variability in exposure scenarios experienced by the United States population. However, the commenter's characterization of a single water concentration and exposure for individuals over the course of a whole life time is not entirely accurate. SHEDS-IEUBK models a single person and day of BLL using daily tap water consumption through direct and indirect routes while excluding bottled water intake. Within the SHEDS-Multimedia model, for any individual on a given day, time activity diaries are randomly drawn from the Consolidated Human Activity Database (CHAD) and information about drinking water intake is randomly selected from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data pool, for matching socioeconomic characteristics and body energy related variables. Total drinking water consumed for a given day is multiplied by a WLL concentration randomly selected from the Monte Carlo simulation (Stanek et al., 2020; Zartarian et al., 2017). As the commenter notes, tap water intake that may occur outside of the home, such as in pre-schools or schools, is not included. However, as it is uncertain whether tap water ingested outside of the home would be higher or lower in concentration than tap water in the home, it is also uncertain whether this would more often lead to under- or over-estimation of BLL. CCT benefits should apply to entire city water-systems and are likely to improve WLLs in offices and schools as well, whereas LSL removal is localized to residence. Simulations did not vary lead exposure through dust, soil, and inhalation across intervention categories (Stanek et al., 2020). In general, although SHEDS-IEUBK simplifies exposure scenarios, the simplification is carried out in the same manner for individuals in each of the intervention categories, and is unlikely to bias results toward an over- or under- estimate of benefits but increases uncertainty.
EPA disagrees that the lead levels observed in historical compliance data indicate an overestimate of benefits. Historical LCR compliance sampling in most areas contained only data for the first-draw liter after stagnation and were often collected from locations that do not have LSL or other risk factors for elevated lead concentrations. As such, historical lead 90[th] percentile compliance data could under-estimate rather than over-estimate potential exposure at the tap for those locations. Therefore, EPA used central tendencies for more detailed studies with more realistic sampling methods than historical compliance data to produce estimates of exposure.
EPA also disagrees with the characterization that the final LCRR poses excessive unquantified costs to individuals without elevated BLL. The final LCRR requires targeted notification of consumers at risk of elevated lead exposure through drinking water. Notifications allow consumers that do not have elevated BLL at the time of notification to avoid elevated lead exposure through drinking water that could cause elevated BLL.
WLL Dataset Sample Size Differences
Summary of Comments
One commenter stated that the data used for WLL analysis:
Contained many more samples for some cities than others, complicating analysis of intervention effects, particularly for CCT improvements,
Contained relatively few samples and systems relevant to estimates of the effects of CCT,
Did not provide enough information for examination of the effects of specific CCT methodologies (i.e., high-dose orthophosphate) or unexpected corrosion control (lead IV),
Dontained potentially inaccurate assessments of CCT level and mechanism of action in some cities (Flint, MI and Providence, RI), and
Lacked clarity in the description of CCT data selection and assignment for Flint, MI.
This commenter expressed the following concerns regarding the approach to the analysis and modeling based on the dataset:
The use of a pooled dataset and mixed-effects modeling rather than two-step meta-analysis of results aggregated within individual studies, and
The use of the peak predicted concentration estimates in simulating exposure rather than total mass of lead released over a sequential profile.
Agency Response
EPA agrees with the commenter that the data are unbalanced, with many more samples from some cities and sites than others, and with unequal numbers of locations and samples for different intervention categories. EPA agrees that Flint, MI and Washington, DC represent a larger portion of the overall dataset then other locations. However, EPA does not agree that the use of these data produced biased estimates. In part to normalize the contributions of systems with relatively many or few samples in the fitted output, EPA employed LME models with nested random effects for sampling events within sites, within cities. A two-step meta-analytical approach based on study-level summary statistics may also have been reasonable. However, aggregating study-level data before analysis greatly limits power and reduces the level of detail available for comparisons. LME provided a more straightforward and powerful method for estimating the variability among systems, sites, and sampling events while statistically controlling for different sampling procedures through the inclusion of terms for cumulative volume ("Profile Liter"). Although analyzing new data from a large, balanced study would improve reliability of results, LME limits the impact of unbalanced data. In particular, predictions of random intercepts are weighted by inverse group-level variance as well as by sample size. This reduces the impact of number of samples or locations alone on the level of pooling (Bates, 2010 and Bolker et al., 2009). Additionally, LME allows for the assessment of panel data to compare before and after results in the same locations for LSL and CCT optimization where data are available, while not requiring that all locations have both before and after measurements for comparisons. Text has been added under Section 6.2.2 of the Final LCRR EA to provide a more descriptive justification for the approach (USEPA, 2020a).
EPA disagrees with the commenter that the data do not support estimation of CCT implementation effects on WLL concentrations. While only four cities within the dataset included data from before and after CCT improvements, the fitted effects found for corrosion control are largely driven by comparisons among cities with no corrosion control and cities with representative corrosion control. LME allows for the assessment of panel data to compare before and after results for LSL and CCT optimization where data are available, while not requiring that all locations have both before and after measurements for comparisons. Both points allow estimation of effects of CCT optimization on WLL from the available data, in absence of a large study designed to assess CCT optimization techniques specifically.
EPA acknowledges that the benefits assessment profile dataset does not allow for a detailed assessment of the effectiveness of specific types of CCT technology (e.g., orthophosphate or lead IV) and the resultant chemical scaling within the distribution system. However, the dataset does allow estimation of average changes in lead concentrations when shifting between varying broad categories of CCT. This generalized data allows the Agency to estimate national scale benefits for the regulatory policies being considered under the rulemaking. Because detailed comparisons of particular technologies were not feasible with these data, EPA categorized represented systems as having "Representative," "Partial," or "None" (i.e., no CCT) based on available information regarding pH, orthophosphate levels, and other available water quality information. The EPA benefits model tracks systems implementing CCT changes as a result of rule requirements and changes the concentration of lead modeled people are exposed to in those systems. Because EPA uses this generalized modeling approach tracking broad category changes, there is uncertainty in the estimated national benefits associated with CCT changes. This uncertainty is acknowledged in the Final LCRR EA (USEPA, 2020a).
The commenter goes on to specifically assert that data from Flint, Michigan and Washington, DC is insufficient to support "high" dose orthophosphate as a successful CCT. This characterization of the economic analysis is inaccurate. Although the LME results in the primary benefits analysis demonstrate a relationship between CCT characterized as "Representative" and lower WLLs, multiple factors, including orthophosphate dose and pH, were considered in the determination of whether CCT was "Representative" in each system. As such, data from Flint and Washington were not the only means of justifying the final rule requirement that corrosion control studies be required to evaluate multiple options for corrosion control, including 1 and 3 mg/L PO4. Other information, including studies from the United Kingdom, where most systems are dosed with orthophosphate at levels 2-3 times that in the United States (Hayes and Hydes, 2010), contributed to the development of requirements for corrosion control studies. In addition, EPA does not agree that the PO4 dosage in Flint constitutes "high" dose orthophosphate. 3 mg/L PO4 doses for CCT optimization is at the low end of the range of concentrations used in the United Kingom (UK) (Hayes and Hydes, 2010).
EPA also does not require the use of orthophosphate as the only CCT technology, only that a study of the effectiveness of different types of CCT must include consideration of orthophosphate. The commenter discusses lead IV as a possible primary controlling mechanism for lead in the Flint, Michigan water system as a counterpoint to the potential effectiveness of orthophosphate as CCT in that system. Although lead IV is present in pipe scale in Flint, its presence and formation cannot be reliably predicted from water quality and CCT implementation factors (Tully et al., 2019), and it is therefore not relevant to the requirement for testing orthophosphate in CCT studies. For additional discussion in regard to the inclusion of orthophosphate in the CCT study requirements, see response to comment Section 4.3.
Public comment on the proposed rule analysis resulted in the following changes for the final rule analysis. Several city water systems were re-categorized as "Partial" rather than "Representative." Providence was updated to a categorization of "Partial" CCT based on the commenter's concern. That change also applied to Cranston, RI, a city that receives its water from the Providence water system. Additionally, a system in Halifax, Nova Scotia, was identified by a journal reviewer as being optimized for factors other than lead concentration. As such, this system was also re-categorized as "Partial." The model was re-fit with the changes. These changes have been made to all exhibits and text containing the data, summary statistics, results of the fitted model, and resulting simulations and estimated BLL. The updates to the data had little effect on the simulated lead concentrations or BLLs estimated by the model.
EPA agrees with the commenter that the Agency's description of the coding of Flint CCT data was ambiguous in the proposed rule materials. Therefore, EPA added a footnote to Section 6.2, and a longer description to Appendix F of the Final LCRR EA to better describe this characterization (USEPA, 2020a). In short, Flint sample data from January to July of 2016 were categorized as having "Partial" CCT and samples from November and December 2016 were considered "Representative."