House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda

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House of Representatives
Session of 2015 - 2016 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted:	May 31, 2016 03:23 PM
From:	Representative David H. Zimmerman
To:	All House members
Subject:	Cosponsorship - Amend "Community Water Systems" as defined in PA Safe Drinking Water Act

Recent events in Flint, Michigan and elsewhere illustrate the grave importance of safe drinking water in our communities. And, new water regulations promulgated by our federal government and implemented by our DEP require more stringent testing to insure the safety of our public water supplies. Unfortunately, however, our Pennsylvania Safe Drinking Water Act (Act 43 of 1984) relies upon an overly broad definition for “Community water systems” as public water systems which serve at least 15 service connections used by year-round residents or regularly serves at least 25 year—round residents. Under this definition, a private school, church, or business that uses its own water well generally will meet this definition and are regulated accordingly, even though they are not what most of us would consider to be water purveyors or public water systems. Our residents and businesses are subject to ever-increasingly rigorous and more costly regulations. While we must ensure the safest of drinking water, we do not need to hold one-room schools to the standards as our public water companies. Accordingly, in the near future, I will introduce legislation amending our Safe Drinking Water Act to clarify that our religious institutions are not community water systems when they are relying upon their own privately-own water wells as their water source. Please consider cosponsoring this important piece of legislation.

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