The 1996 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) require that EPA establish criteria for a program to monitor unregulated contaminants and identify no more than 30 contaminants to be monitored every five years. Known as the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule, or UCMR, the proposal for the third Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 3) was signed by EPA Administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, on February 17, 2011. All Public Water Systems (PWSs) serving more than 10,000 people and 800 representative PWSs serving 10,000 or fewer people would monitor for these 28 contaminants during a 12-month period some time between January 2013 through December 2015. Groundwater only systems would have to sample twice, with each sampling event 6 months apart, while surface water systems would have to sample 4 times, with each sampling event being 3 months apart. The contaminants to be tested for can be divided into Hormones, Volatile Organics, a Synthetic Organic, Metals, an Oxyhalide Anion, and some Perfluorinated compounds. This last group of compounds is particularly interesting. They are used in products such as Teflon, Scotchgaurd, and other stain, oil, or water-resistant products. They are extremely persistent in the environment, and have been found in blood samples from people almost everywhere researchers have looked.
