The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is forming a panel to develop a rule to regulate perchlorate in drinking water. The EPA is inviting small businesses, governments, and not-for-profit entities to apply to join the panel.

The new EPA committee is the Small Business Advocacy Review (SBAR) panel, and its members are to provide advice and recommendations to develop a National Primary Drinking Water Regulation (NPDWR) for the chemical contaminant perchlorate, according to EPA.

EPA plans to issue a proposed NPDWR for perchlorate by November 2025 and a final regulation by May 2027.

In support of that effort, EPA is providing $11.7 billion to the drinking water state revolving funds, of which $4 billion is allocated to address emerging contaminants, while $5 billion is appropriated to address emerging contaminants in small or disadvantaged communities, which can all be used to address perchlorate in drinking water.

What are they? Perchlorates are found in the environment as either a solid or dissolved in water and impact human health by interfering with iodide uptake into the thyroid gland and the production of thyroid hormone.  

Furthermore, perchlorates are colorless and odorless and can form naturally in the atmosphere, particularly in arid regions such as the southwestern U.S. This leads to trace levels of perchlorate in precipitation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies. In addition, five perchlorates are manufactured in large amounts including magnesium perchlorate, potassium perchlorate, ammonium perchlorate, sodium perchlorate, and lithium perchlorate. 

The Regulatory Flexibility Act requires agencies to establish an SBAR panel for rules that may have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities, according to the EPA.  

In addition, once established SBAR panelists are to request a selected group of “small entity representatives” (SERs) to provide recommendations and advice to inform the panel members about the potential impacts on small entities of a proposed perchlorate drinking-water rule.

The EPA said it seeks self-nominations directly from the small public water systems (serving 10,000 or fewer people) that may be subject to the rule’s requirements, while other representatives, such as trade associations that exclusively or at least primarily represent potentially regulated small public water systems, may also serve as SERs.