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ODW Now January 2026
A Tale of Two Updates: PFAS Action Levels and WQMS Downtime
Every year, we take the Water Quality Monitoring Schedule (WQMS) offline so we can review monitoring requirements and make any needed updates. We sent an email December 22 telling you that we took the WQMS offline December 31. Normally, our main points of focus are disinfection by-product monitoring and quarterly monitoring requirements. This year, we needed to make additional changes to PFAS monitoring requirements.
The State Board of Health (the Board) made changes to align the State Action Level (SAL) with the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL). On January 15, 2026, the MCL values will replace the existing SAL. This eases confusion about which set of health-based standards apply by having one consistent public health message until federal regulations become effective in April 2029. Since exceeding an MCL is based on results above a running annual average, the SAL will be the same.
This year, we’re updating monitoring for both the federal rule and the lowered SAL. We want to ensure water systems have the correct requirements to meet their initial PFAS requirements per the federal rule, so sources might qualify for the one-time option to reduce monitoring. We also need to update monitoring to account for reduced SAL values. Some of you who have sources with PFAS detections will see an increase in monitoring requirements based on the updated percentages of the reduced SALs. Others may need to start conducting public notification in 2026. While we will use prior data to determine monitoring changes, the running annual average calculations will start using data collected as of January 15.
We expect to have the WQMS back online in March. We will email those of you who need to meet the initial rule by collecting a PFAS sample in the first quarter while the WQMS is offline. To ensure you receive our emails, set our address ODW.WQviolations@doh.wa.gov as an approved contact. If you do not see an email from us, check your spam and trash folders. We will also message all primary contacts on the Water Facilities Inventory (WFI) when the WQMS is online again.
A Word from the Director
Holly Myers
2025's Stormy End
With record statewide flooding, windstorms, and power outages, 2025 went out with a bang. Public water system operators, emergency response personnel, and many others worked hard to protect Washington's people and communities. Here at the Office of Drinking Water (ODW), our statewide team addressed emergency scenarios and worked together to continue assistance and monitoring of all water systems, track public notifications, and support community messages to ensure safe and reliable drinking water to our residents. Thanks to all our partners for making 2025 a success!
Emergency Response Amid Changes
Emergencies and day-to-day services may seem like business as usual for outsiders, but last July 1 our entire office structure changed in response to budget and subsequent management reductions. Our staff demonstrated resilience, commitment, and collaboration as we responded to two large scale drinking water emergencies, while adapting to new managers and teams. A huge thank you goes to the managers and supervisors that modified teams, adapted to new programs, and took on additional responsibilities. We continue to adjust to our new structure while providing a high level of services to water systems and our drinking water partners. We continue to put our customers first and foremost with our new One ODW structure.
Customer Service Survey
In 2026 we will conduct a customer service survey to ensure we are listening and learning from our partners and regulated community. This past year, under One ODW, our team of committed and passionate staff members learned from each other and from our partners. We provided technical assistance, emergency response support, and met our regulatory obligations to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We are developing standardized processes we will implement with one goal in mind—consistent service regardless of where you live in the state.
Budget Impacts
As we move into the new year, Washington State and the Department of Health continue to have budget impacts. The hiring and spending freeze that impacts our travel continues into the new year. With budget reductions, our travel ability is reduced, and we ask for your patience as we continue to find ways to serve water systems, our partners, and the people of Washington. We continue to look for ways to engage virtually or with reduced travel costs.
Rule and Regulation Changes
As we address new rules from EPA, emerging contaminants, and budget pressures, we continue to make the most of our capable and skilled workforce by building teams with flexibility and expanded support across the state.
We continue to share updates and develop guidance on compliance with new PFAS rules, effective in January 2026, the Consumer Confidence Report rule, and the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements that become effective in 2027 and 2028.
The last of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding will be available in the 2026 loan application cycle. We continue to have funding for mitigating PFAS and other emerging contaminants in our small and disadvantaged communities' grant.
Our team, alongside the State Board of Health, completed rule revision for WAC 246-290-315(4) to align current State Action Levels (SAL) values to the federal Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) values. The purpose of this rule change is to revise existing rule language related to PFAS to keep health protective levels in place until federal regulations go into effect April 2029.
DWSRF
In 2025, we funded 47 DWSRF loans for a total of $184,720,123 of which $52,928,741 is provided as principal forgiveness. We also provided $3,581,628 in pre-construction loans and $250,000 in consolidation feasibility grants. In 2026, we plan to provide $167,000,000 in DWSRF loans.
Certified Operators and BATs
We supported and kept qualified operators and backflow assembly testers (BATs) certified—ensuring renewals and hands-on testing, tracking and enforcing compliance issues.
Thank You!
Thank you all for the year of adaptation, commitment, lifting others up during challenges, and forging ahead with new ideas, grace, and patience while reductions and cuts impacted many. Please continue to communicate and work together to provide Washington residents with safe and reliable drinking water for generations to come.
Consumer Confidence Rule Changes in 2027
On June 24, 2024, the final EPA Consumer Confidence Rule (CCR) became effective. EPA revised it after reviewing comments from public, water systems, and state agencies, including the Office of Drinking Water. The revised CCR attempts to make the annual drinking water report more understandable and more accessible to water system customers. Your CCR provides a valuable source of information about your system’s water quality and any contaminants found in your drinking water. It's also an excellent opportunity for you to showcase positive changes happening in your system.
You must implement changes in your CCR program starting January 1, 2027, with the first CCRs, subject to the new rule, distributed on or before July 1, 2027.
Summarized List of Key Rule Changes
- Inclusion of a summary section. All CCRs are required to display a summary section at the beginning of the report. The summary should include:
- An overview of violations and compliance information
- Information needed to request a paper copy.
- How to obtain language assistance or translation.
- Twice a year CCR distribution requirements for larger systems. Water systems serving 10,000 or more people will need to produce and distribute CCRs twice a year with a July 1 and a December 31 due date.
- The July 1 CCR must contain information and data collected during the previous calendar year.
- The December 31 CCR must contain a six-month update based on the data/information collected between January 1 and June 30 of the current calendar year if the system receives a violation or experiences an Action Level Exceedance. Systems are also required to include UCMR results collected during the first half of the year. Systems without violations, ALE(s), or UCMR reportable results may simply resend their previous CCR.
- Increased internet access to CCRs. Systems serving 50,000 or more people will be required to post CCRs on a publicly available website.
- Ensuring accessibility of CCRs for people with limited English proficiency. This includes a requirement that CCRs provide information on where consumers can obtain either a translated copy of the report or assistance in other languages.
- Compressed timeline for certifying CCR delivery. Signed CCR Certification Forms will be required to be completed and delivered to us within 10 days of the July 1 and December 1 deadlines for smaller systems and larger systems, respectively. We strongly recommend sending the Certification Forms with your CCRs.
Subtle Changes You Already Do
The rule changes make existing best practices into requirements. Most systems already follow these best practices. Please become familiar with the new CCR requirements before the 2027 implementation date. For more detailed information regarding the rule revisions, please review EPA’s Consumer Confidence Reports Rule Revisions webpage.
We will ask the State Board of Health (Board) for delegated rulemaking authority on January 14, 2026. Visit the Board’s Meeting Information webpage for their meeting schedule, agendas, or meeting materials.
If approved, we will expedite the rulemaking and:
- File a CR-102 in late winter 2026.
- Open comment period for roughly five weeks in late Winter/Early Spring 2026.
- File a CR-103 Spring 2026.
Drinking Water Week Awards 2026
Drinking Water Week is May 3-9 and will be here soon! The nomination form is open until February 16. If you know someone in the drinking water industry who has done an outstanding job, overcome a challenge, or is retiring after a long career, tell us their story and nominate them for an award! If you’re proud of what your water system has accomplished in the last year—submit a nomination form and tell us what they’ve done.
You can read about past winners to get an idea of others’ award-winning accomplishments. Fill out a nomination form today!
PFAS Monitoring—Don’t Hit Snooze on This Deadline!
There is an important deadline for initial PFAS monitoring that you really don't want to miss. You must complete and submit your federal initial results to us by April 26, 2027. The number of samples needed and the timing are based on your system’s size and source type, as listed below. Systems that don’t complete all federal initial mandatory monitoring requirements, even if all their results are non-detections, will not qualify for the one-time option to reduce to triennial monitoring—the lowest monitoring frequency of one sample every three years. Instead, we will require sources for which we don’t have sufficient data by April 26, 2027, to complete a year of quarterly monitoring, followed by three years of annual sampling before they can qualify for reduced monitoring for non-detect results.
If you don’t complete the federal initial PFAS monitoring—you can’t qualify for the one-time option to reduce PFAS monitoring in 2027.
Federal PFAS Monitoring Requirements
All PWSs serving more than 10,000 people, no matter the source type.
- Collect four quarterly samples within a twelve-month period.
- Samples must be collected two to four months apart.
All surface water sources no matter the PWS population, including GWI sources.
- Collect four quarterly samples within a twelve-month period.
- Samples must be collected two to four months apart.
All groundwater sources for systems serving 10,000 people or less. We consider sea water as ground water for this rule.
- Collect two samples within a twelve-month period.
- Samples must be collected five to seven months apart.
Water systems relying on results from their fifth round of UCMR 5 sampling for federal initial monitoring should check that results are reported at the lower reporting limits if no contaminants are detected above the source trigger. Using the UCMR 5 results with PFOA or PFOS reported at less than 4 ppt will result in increased quarterly monitoring followed by three years of annual monitoring, even if there are no detections at that reporting limit.
EPA provided this November 21, 2024, memorandum for systems required to participate in UCMR 5, which explains the options. The memo includes a discussion on how they asked their contracted labs to reprocess the data to the lower limits for the smaller systems with populations under 10,000. For systems with non-detection or detections below all triggers, reprocessing or even resampling would likely allow for more cost savings. The UCMR 5 results will not cause quarterly monitoring if there are other PFAS results for the same quarter.
New Year, New Renewals!
All certified operators are required to renew their Waterworks certifications every year.
If you have not paid your renewal fee yet, you have until January 20. The renewal fee is now $68.
If you pay your annual Waterworks certification renewals on or after January 20, you will pay an additional late fee, for a total cost of $125.
Failure to pay your renewal fee results in losing all of your Waterworks certifications. You would also be required to apply and pass the Waterworks certification exams again to become certified as a Waterworks operator.
Find information about certified operator and public water system certification fees in WAC 246-292-995.
Fee Changes
The Department of Health adopted fee changes for all programs within the Office of Drinking Water on October 31, 2025. The new fees became effective December 1, 2025. The adopted changes amend fees for operating permits, public water system annual certification, certified operator, project and plan review, and sanitary surveys fees.
Fee increases ensure we maintain service to water systems and the public through implementation and enforcement of both state and federal regulations. We have not raised or changed the fee structures since 2014 and have been subsidizing costs with federal funds. The loss of general state funds to meet federal grant match requirements and increased program costs prompted this fee increase.
New fee structures are set out in WAC 246-294-070, 246-292-995, and 246-290-990. You can find all the rule language changes and new fees on our Drinking Water Operating Permit Fees webpage and our Rulemaking webpage.
For project and plan reviews that are in process, we will implement the new fees as follows.
- Submittals actively under our review submitted prior to December 1, 2025, will be invoiced with the comment letter or approval under the previous fee structure.
- Submittals in response to previous comments received on December 1, 2025, or after will be charged the new hourly rate of $220 per hour for our review time.
- All new submittals received after December 1, 2025, or after will be charged according to the new fee structure.
We understand fee increases impact you and your customers. We commit to reviewing our fee structure more often to reduce impact of these large fee adjustments in the future.
New Year, New Staff Changes
Last year, we reorganized from a regional structure to a program-based model. This year, as we continue to settle into our functional teams, we’ve had some staff updates and new reporting lines. While our structure continues to evolve, our mission and core services remain unchanged: ensuring safe, reliable drinking water for the people of Washington.
Several staffing changes took effect at the beginning of the year. Along with some familiar faces, we’re pleased to welcome new team members.
We added two new engineering supervisors: Nathan Ikehara, P.E.; and William Weaver, PhD, P.E.
Nicole Grimm, P.E. moved into our new planning supervisor position. Scott Mallery, P.E. moved to our engineering staff.
To help everyone stay oriented, we’ve created an updated functional organization chart, available on our Contacts and Office Location webpage. Additionally, our Staff Directory webpage also reflects these updates and highlights our One-ODW approach.
Drinking Water Advisory Group (DWAG) March 2, 2026, Meeting
We hold all our meetings through Microsoft Teams video, so you can join our meeting with your computer, laptop, tablet, or phone from wherever you are. You can find the Teams links and meeting agenda on our DWAG Meeting webpage. After the meeting we post any handouts or presentations and, within a month, we post the meeting notes.
Do you want to receive advance notice of meetings and their agendas? Join our advisory group email list. Do you have questions or topics you want to discuss? Email John Freitag or DWInfo@doh.wa.gov with your ideas and questions.
New Population Guidance for Updating Your Water Facilities Inventory
Do you work for a Community water system with more than 100 non-residential connections? Did your system send in an updated Water Facilities Inventory (WFI) by the annual due date of December 15, 2025?
If you have, great job! Thank you for doing your part.
If not, please check out our updated guidance and send in your updated WFI by January 31, 2026.
Pay special attention to Box 31 and 32 on the form, especially if it’s blank.
We use the WFI reported population to determine monitoring requirements for the DBP, LCR, PFAS, SOC, coliform, and surface water programs. We also use it to figure out the WDM operator certification level, Consumer Confidence Report requirements, as well as EPA deadlines for RRAs and ERPs.
We understand it's difficult to estimate, so we made these tools to help systems identify the minimum level of monitoring required under federal law.
- How to Estimate Water System Population 331-791 (PDF). Step-by-step guide on how to use the Web App, with links to additional residential, visitor, and commuter population resources.
- Details about Change—Population Tool Letter (PDF). Check out this two-pager for more background.
- Drinking Water Service Area Population Web App. The main tool systems use to get their population estimates.
For questions about the new tools and guidance, reach out to wfi@doh.wa.gov. We’re here to help!
EPA Proposed Perchlorate Rule—Comment Period
On January 6, 2026, EPA announced the proposed perchlorate rule. The proposed rule is open for comment until March 9, 2026. You can find the draft rule and how to provide comments at Federal Register | National Primary Drinking Water Regulation for Perchlorate.
We are reviewing the proposed rule for comment. EPA is proposing perchlorate Maximum Contaminant Level Goal (MCLG) of 0.02 mg/L and taking comments on setting the maximum contaminant level (MCL).
With setting the MCL, EPA proposes requirements for water systems to:
- Conduct monitoring for perchlorate in drinking water,
- Take mitigation actions if the level exceeds the MCL.
- Provide information about perchlorate to their consumers through public notification and consumer confidence reports.
- Report to their respective primacy agency.
Updated Lead Service Line Loan Eligibility
On November 24, 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released updated guidance regarding the eligible uses of lead service line funding under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law). Through the Lead and Copper Rule Revisions and Improvements, EPA required the identification and replacement of galvanized pipes known to have ever been or are currently downstream of lead components. Defined in 40 CFR 141.2, these are known as galvanized pipes requiring replacement (GRR).
The updated guidance removes restrictions on the use of lead service line funding for the replacement of GRR when the pipes are located downstream of lines of unknown materials. For more details, please see the accompanying guidance memo from EPA.
Based on the changed guidance, our Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) is extending its lead service line application cycle through March 1, 2026, to allow systems with identified GRR downstream of unknown lines and components the opportunity to apply for funding to replace these service lines.
Small and disadvantaged systems are encouraged to apply, as we must provide 49 percent of the funding as subsidy to these systems. Please see our DWSRF webpage and our DWSRF Construction Loan Guidelines 331-196 (PDF) for additional details. We accept applications through our Washington Loan Tracking (WALT) online system.
We recognize systems may need to update their lead service line inventories to document GRR within their systems. You can find more information on lead service lines and the associated guidance on our Lead Service Line Inventory—EPA's Lead and Copper Rule Revisions webpage.
Please do not hesitate to email us at lccrrassistance@doh.wa.gov for help with inventories. We continue to provide Free Technical Assistance for water systems to complete their inventories as required by law.
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