AWWA WQTC71501

Many water providers are taking steps now to protect source water quality to ensure future regulatory compliance. In California, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board is conducting the technical studies needed to determine if a comprehensive drinking water policy is needed for its surface waters (the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and its tributaries). In developing this policy, both the ability to protect source water from constituents of concern and the ability of drinking water treatment plants to remove constituents of concern is being assessed. The latter is being addressed in a drinking water treatment evaluation. As part of that evaluation, a team of industry experts hypothesized the drinking water regulatory horizon in the next twenty years. "Plausible" and "outer boundary" regulatory scenarios were developed for key constituents of concern, including disinfection byproduct precursors, disinfection byproducts, dissolved minerals, algal toxins, and pathogens. The hypothetical regulatory scenarios are being used in the evaluation to determine the water quality conditions that will trigger the need for treatment changes (treatment triggers) for existing water treatment plants. Includes 48 references, tables.