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Open Recommendations (73 total)

Drinking Water: Additional Data and Statistical Analysis May Enhance EPA's Oversight of the Lead and Copper Rule

GAO-17-424
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Environmental Protection Agency
Priority Rec.
The Assistant Administrator for Water of EPA's Office of Water and the Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance should develop a statistical analysis that incorporates multiple factors--including those currently in SDWIS/Fed and others such as the presence of lead pipes and the use of corrosion control--to identify water systems that might pose a higher likelihood for violating the LCR once complete violations data are obtained, such as through SDWIS Prime. (Recommendation 3)
Open
EPA agreed with our recommendation. In April 2023, the agency proposed revisions to the Consumer Confidence Report Rule that, if finalized, would require states and others with primary enforcement authority to annually report drinking water compliance monitoring data, starting in 2025. We think this proposed rule is a good step forward. Revisions to the rule are scheduled to be finalized by March 2024, after which EPA will need to demonstrate plans for using the improved compliance data. We are keeping this recommendation open until EPA provides us information that it has finalized its efforts. By implementing our recommendation, EPA will be better able to target its oversight of water systems.

Clean Water Act: EPA Should Track Control of Combined Sewer Overflows and Water Quality Improvements

GAO-23-105285
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Environmental Protection Agency The Assistant Administrator of the Office of Water should develop a performance goal and measure(s) to track and assess the status of long-term control plans or other control plans for municipalities with CSOs. (Recommendation 1)
Open
In January 2023, EPA generally agreed with this recommendation. To enable tracking of the progress of CSO control efforts as described, EPA officials said full implementation of Phase 2 of the 2015 NPDES Electronic Reporting Rule would help. EPA said they expect that by December 2025, states, permittees, and others will report data electronically in a national database that can be used to track and measure performance goals for the CSO program. According to EPA, such data would enable it to track and measure progress as it will include the status of long-term control plans or similar efforts and elements related to water quality improvements. EPA also stated that the data will be made available online for regulators and the public to use to track progress and completion of control efforts. We will continue to monitor implementation of these actions.

Private Water Utilities: Actions Needed to Enhance Ownership Data

GAO-21-291
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Environmental Protection Agency The Assistant Administrator for EPA's Office of Water should conduct another Community Water System Survey to establish an updated, accurate baseline of drinking water utility information for rulemaking and other purposes. (Recommendation 2)
Open
As of December 2023, EPA officials said they had initiated work to conduct another Community Water System Survey. EPA officials said they designed the survey in 2023. They plan to conduct a pilot study of the data collection in 2024, with full data collection in 2025. GAO will review agency documents and actions when they become available.

Puget Sound: Further Actions Could Improve Efforts to Address Impaired Water Quality That Threatens Salmon

GAO-24-105687
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Environmental Protection Agency The Administrator of EPA should work with the Washington State Department of Ecology to develop a plan documenting the actions the agencies will take to meet the required submission and approval deadlines for the state's impaired waters lists. (Recommendation 1)
Open
EPA agreed with this recommendation. We will update the status of this recommendation when we receive additional information from the agency.

Cybersecurity: Agencies Need to Fully Establish Risk Management Programs and Address Challenges

GAO-19-384
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Environmental Protection Agency
Priority Rec.
The Administrator of EPA should establish a process for conducting an organization-wide cybersecurity risk assessment. (Recommendation 40)
Open
The Environmental Protection Agency did not state whether or not it concurred with this recommendation. As of March 2024, EPA officials stated that they were continuing to plan for an organization-wide cybersecurity risk assessment, but that due to a recent programmatic delay, the planned date of February 2024 had been delayed 6-8 months. EPA officials added that they were in the process of updating an internal procedure to address ongoing risk assessment activities. We are continuing to follow up with EPA to verify whether implementation has occurred.

Water Quality: Agencies Should Take More Actions to Manage Risks from Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia

GAO-22-104449
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Environmental Protection Agency
Priority Rec.
The Administrator of EPA, working with the other members of the working group, should develop an interagency framework, including prioritizing water bodies and identifying resource needs, to expand forecasting of freshwater HABs and hypoxia. (Recommendation 4)
Open
EPA agreed with this recommendation. EPA stated in March 2024 that it was collaborating with NOAA and other member agencies of the working group to develop a framework to expand monitoring and forecasting of freshwater HABs and hypoxia. This framework will identify resource needs for freshwater monitoring and forecasting as well as prioritize water bodies in which to expand freshwater monitoring and forecasting capabilities. EPA also stated that this framework would be completed in June 2024. We will continue to follow up on these efforts.

Drinking Water: EPA Should Strengthen Ongoing Efforts to Ensure That Consumers Are Protected from Lead Contamination

GAO-06-148
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Environmental Protection Agency The Administrator, EPA, should take a number of steps to further protect the American public from elevated lead levels in drinking water. Specifically, to improve EPA's ability to oversee implementation of the lead rule and assess compliance and enforcement activities, EPA should ensure that data on water systems' test results, corrective action milestones, and violations are current, accurate, and complete.
Open
As of May 2023, we are keeping this recommendation open awaiting progress with the Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) modernization and the extent to which EPA can assess whether SDWIS data are current, accurate and complete. In December 2022, EPA indicated that it expects states to begin transitioning to SDWIS by the end of 2024 and to involve the primacy agencies in establishing data quality goals for monitoring violations and other information.

Clean Water Act: EPA Should Track Control of Combined Sewer Overflows and Water Quality Improvements

GAO-23-105285
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Environmental Protection Agency The Assistant Administrator of the Office of Water should develop a performance goal and measures to track and assess the improvements to water quality resulting from CSO controls implemented by municipalities with CSOs. (Recommendation 2)
Open
EPA generally agreed with this recommendation. In January 2023, officials cited the need for full implementation of Phase 2 of the 2015 NPDES Electronic Reporting Rule. By December 2025, EPA expects states, permittees, and others to report data electronically in a national database that can be used to track and measure performance goals for the CSO program. According to EPA, such data would enable it to track and measure progress as it will include the status of long-term control plans or similar efforts and elements related to water quality improvements. EPA also stated that the data will be made available online for regulators and the public to use to track progress and completion of control efforts. However, EPA did not explicitly state that it plans to develop any goals and measures that it can use to track and assess the status of plans and improvements to water quality resulting from CSO controls. Even before it completes implementation of Phase 2, EPA can work with its state partners and others to develop goals and measures. We will continue to monitor this recommendation.

Private Water Utilities: Actions Needed to Enhance Ownership Data

GAO-21-291
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Environmental Protection Agency The Assistant Administrator for EPA's Office of Water should develop definitions for all utility ownership types for regional offices and states to use when entering data on ownership type in EPA's Safe Drinking Water Information System and should verify and correct the data as needed. (Recommendation 1)
Open
As of December 2023, EPA officials said they are currently working to modernize SDWIS and plan to incorporate the definitions into the updated version of SDWIS, which is expected to be available to states by early 2026. GAO will review these actions when they are completed.

Cybersecurity: Federal Agencies Made Progress, but Need to Fully Implement Incident Response Requirements

GAO-24-105658
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Environmental Protection Agency The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency should ensure that the agency fully implements all event logging requirements as directed by OMB guidance. (Recommendation 15)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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