By:Luis, SJ (Luis, Steven J.)^[ 1 ] ; Miesner, EA (Miesner, Elizabeth A.)^[ 2 ] ; Enslin, CL (Enslin, Clarissa L.)^[ 1 ] ; Heidecorn, K (Heidecorn, Keith)^[ 3 ]

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When regulators decide if a chemical needs controls, they often look at how much the public might be exposed to it, especially in food and drinking water. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) did this for perchlorate. They sampled public water systems, called PWSs, as part of the first Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 1) between 2001 and 2005. This paper aims to see if that UCMR 1 data is still relevant today. To do that, we searched publicly available information to get updated perchlorate numbers for most of the large PWSs that had perchlorate detections under UCMR 1. Comparing the new data with the old UCMR 1 data shows that the UCMR 1 set isn’t representative anymore. Why? Because the amount and spread of perchlorate have actually gone down since UCMR 1 was put in place. This tells us that if regulatory bodies are making decisions over several years, they should probably check back in on the original issues that started the whole effort. That way, rules and regulations really address the problems we’re facing right now.

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