AWWA JAW64352

The contaminants identified on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Contaminant Candidate List are a natural focus for monitoring by utilities, industry, government, and academicians. If contaminants are chosen that are not of real concern, then resources will be wasted monitoring these contaminants while contaminants of real concern are left unchecked. Prioritizing contaminants for monitoring and for consideration as candidates for regulation is complex. Both occurrence and health effects data must be factored into the decision. Often, data for unregulated contaminants are scarce and difficult to interpret. An understandable and repeatable process is necessary in order to effectively assess, organize, summarize, and use available data to prioritize contaminants for further monitoring and regulation. Significant progress has been made in mining and organizing the available data, however the classification of contaminants of potential concern still needs an understandable approach. The method proposed here will allow all stakeholders to visualize and understand the relative priority of contaminants that are of possible concern to the drinking water industry.