AWWA ACE56238

This paper focuses on Louisiana's Primacy Program for administering the State's Safe Drinking Water Program (SDWP). Louisiana has nearly 1,800 public water systems regulated under the SDWP, almost all of which are medium to small systems. The SDWP is located in the Department of Health and Hospitals, Office of Public Health, Center for Environmental Health Services. Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals is one of the oldest state health organizations in the United States. The emphasis in Louisiana is the provision of drinking water, which meets EPA primary drinking water standards for health reasons. Secondary contaminants are not regulated by the State. Drinking water sources in Louisiana are primarily either groundwater sources or river sources for surface water. Louisiana has numerous aquifers, which historically have produced excellent quality drinking water, often with artesian pressures. Much of the state's hydrogeography is dominated by the flow and depositional r¿gime of the Mississippi River. Today, safe drinking water in Louisiana faces many challenges, including salt water intrusion, aquifer drawdown and loss of artesian pressures, groundwater quality changes, increasing contamination of surface and groundwaters, and pressures to meet changing federal drinking water requirements and standards, and rapidly increasing technology demands. To meet today's challenges, the Safe Drinking Water Program must coordinate and share information with an increasing number of state, federal, public and private shareholders, and at the same time develop and increase protections to water system security. Louisiana has approached these challenges in progressive and unique ways. This paper discusses these challenges and the various approaches that Louisiana is developing to meet them.