The agreement assists the state of rhode island to develop and implement a public water system supervision program to adequately enforce the national primary drinking water regulations and the…

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 1 awarded the State of Rhode Island Department of Health a formula grant of $647,257 effective October 1, 2025, through September 30, 2026, under the State Public Water System Supervision program (CFDA 66.432). This award supports the development and implementation of Rhode Island's public water system supervision program to enforce the National Primary Drinking Water Regulations and requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act. The department will deliver comprehensive regulatory oversight and technical support services to ensure public water systems comply with federal drinking water standards.

The deliverables include developing state drinking water regulations that are no less stringent than federal regulations, maintaining an inventory of drinking water systems, conducting sanitary surveys according to required schedules, operating a water system operator certification program, and providing technical assistance to public water systems. Additional key activities encompass managing public water system information, ensuring public participation in drinking water system decisions, enforcing drinking water regulations, determining compliance status, and reporting violations to the EPA's Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) database. These efforts support the EPA's goal of ensuring 90% of community water systems deliver drinking water that meets all applicable health-based standards. No sub-awards are included in this assistance agreement.

The agreement assists the state of rhode island to develop and implement a public water system supervision program to adequately enforce the national primary drinking water regulations and the requirements of the safe drinking water act. Specific activities include developing state drinking water regulations no less stringent than the federal regulations, maintaining an inventory drinking water systems, managing information on public water systems, ensuring that public participation occurs regarding drinking water systems, providing technical assistance to public water systems and enforcing drinking water regulations.activities:the proposed work in this agreement includes: developing state drinking water regulations no less stringent than the federal regulations, maintaining an inventory of drinking water systems, managing information on public water systems, ensuring that public participation occurs regarding drinking water systems, providing technical assistance to public water systems, conducting sanitary surveys of water systems in accordance with required schedules, maintaining operator certification program and enforcing drinking water regulations. These activities will support implementation and enforcement of national primary drinking water standard, reaching EPA goal of 90% of community water systems that receive drinking water that meets all applicable health-based drinking water standards. Program activities include implementing and enforcing drinking water regulations, making compliance determination, tracking compliance status, reporting violations to EPA database, providing technical assistance to water systems, conducting sanitary surveys of water systems in accordance with required schedules and maintaining operator certification program.subrecipient:no subawards are included in this assistance agreement.outcomes:the deliverables include quarterly compliance data reporting to sdwis database; responses to EPA inquiries on water system health-based violations, lead or copper exceedances, follow-up actions and enforcement taken, annual compliance report and responses to annual program review. The expected outcomes include 92% of the population served by community water system which receive drinking water that meets all health-based standards through effective treatment and source water protection, 87% population served by water system had no violations and continue to strive for 95% of residents in rhode island are served by clean and safe drinking water in all communities in the state. The intended beneficiaries are the residents of rhode island.