ORS 448.273: Federal Safe Drinking Water Act administration.

The Legislative Assembly finds that an agreement between this state and the federal government to assume primary enforcement responsibility in this state for the federal Safe Drinking Water Act is in the best interest of this state, subject to the following assumptions: (1) The federal government provides an annual program grant in an amount no less than that allocated for the state in the 1984 fiscal year. (2) The federal government provides technical assistance to this state, as requested, in emergency situations and during outbreaks of waterborne diseases. (3) The federal government must negotiate an annual work plan for the Oregon Health Authority that can be accomplished within the amount of program grant funding available. (4) The authority adopts standards no less stringent than the National Primary Drinking Water Regulations of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. (5) The authority provides engineering assistance through regional offices in at least four geographically distributed areas in this state. (6) In cooperation with representatives of local health departments, the authority develops an equitable formula for distribution of available funds to support local health department water programs. (7) The primacy agreement may be canceled by the authority, upon 90 days’ notice, if at any time the federal requirements exceed the amount of federal funding and the cancellation is approved by the legislative review agency as defined in ORS 291.371 (1). (8) The federal government can impose financial sanctions against this state if the state fails to meet the objectives of the annual negotiated work plan without reasonable explanation by tying the next annual funding to specific state production and by withholding of funds a possibility if continued unexplained failures occur but no sanction exists to interfere with other types of federal funding in this state. (9) The federal government may seek to enforce the safe drinking water standards if this state fails to take timely compliance action against a public water system that violates such standards. (10) Enforcement under subsection (9) of this section may be by injunctive relief or, in the case of willful violation, civil penalties authorized by 42 U.S.C. 300g-3(a) and (b). [1985 c.178 §1; 2001 c.900 §257; 2009 c.595 §856]