Drinking water: when the system must notify you, and whom

It is Puerto Rico’s drinking water purity law, and the first thing it clears up is a common confusion: the body that regulates and oversees water quality under this law is the Department of Health, not the company that supplies your water. What the law requires of that company — the “supply system” — is to give notice, and to notify specific people: the local public health office, the Secretary and the media in your area.

Users of a “drinking water system,” which the law defines as a system providing drinking water through piping and other mechanisms for human consumption, if it has at least fifteen (15) service connections or serves at least twenty-five (25) people daily for at least sixty (60) days a year. The duty-bearer is the water supplier: any person who owns or operates a water system for human consumption, including individuals, corporations, municipal governments and state or federal agencies.

• That it be a drinking water system under the law’s definition: at least fifteen (15) service connections, or serving at least twenty-five (25) people daily for at least sixty (60) days a year.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: Who regulates: the Department of Health

   Under this law, “Department” means the Department of Health and “Secretary” the Secretary of Health. It is that agency the law empowers to set the Drinking Water Regulation, grant variances and exemptions, issue orders and fine. If your claim is about water quality and safety, this is the door the law names.

2. 2

   Step 2: The five cases that trigger the notice

   The law lists them: where the system (i) does not comply with the Drinking Water Regulation; (ii) does not establish the monitoring system required by the regulations approved by the Secretary; (iii) is subject to a variance granted for failing the maximum contaminant level requirement; (iv) is subject to an exemption; or (v) fails to satisfy the requirements prescribed by a variance or exemption. Any of the five triggers the duty to notify.

3. 3

   Step 3: Whom to notify, and what to say

   The supply system shall immediately notify three recipients: the local public health office, the Secretary, and the media in the area served by the system. And the content is set: the situation, and the nature and scope of the possible public health effects. That the media in your area must be told is the part that lets you find out without having to ask.

4. 4

   Step 4: The quarterly notice and the notice on the bill

   The law adds two vehicles: the notice may also be published in a newspaper of largest circulation, as the Secretary determines, at least once every three months while the violation or variance exists or the exemption continues; and it may be included in at least one of the system’s bills to each user. The Secretary may prescribe an alternative to the notification requirements by regulation.

5. 5

   Step 5: Imminent hazard: what the Secretary can do

   On learning that a contaminant is present, or may be present, in a water system and poses an imminent or substantial risk to human health, the Secretary shall take the measures they deem necessary to protect health. Those measures shall include, without limitation, issuing the orders necessary to protect the health of users of such systems — including travelers — and bringing any civil action, including temporary or permanent injunction.

6. 6

   Step 6: There is also an emergency plan

   The Secretary shall promulgate an adequate plan to supply drinking water in emergency situations, and where in their judgment emergency situations require it, may take the measures they deem necessary so that water is supplied where it is not available.

7. 7

   Step 7: The fine runs per day

   Any person who intentionally violates the notification section, violates the regulations promulgated by the Secretary, or intentionally violates or refuses to comply with an order issued by the Secretary, commits an offense punishable by a fine of no more than five thousand dollars ($5,000.00) for each day the violation occurs or the regulation is not complied with. The Secretary may also seek an injunction to prevent the violation of any order or regulation.

The Department of Health is the agency this law charges with regulation, orders and fines on drinking water quality, and the local public health office is one of the three recipients of the mandatory notice. If your matter is billing, connection or service from your water supplier, those dealings are with the company and we cover them in other guides. If it is an environmental matter of discharges or contamination of land and bodies of water, a complaint to the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources is a different route.

• Complaining only to the water company: under this law the regulator and overseer is the Department of Health.
• Expecting notice only on the bill: the immediate notice goes to public health, the Secretary and the media in your area.
• Assuming a variance or exemption suspends the duty to notify: being subject to one is precisely one of the five triggers.
• Believing it covers a private well for one house: the definition requires fifteen connections or twenty-five people daily sixty days a year.
• Reading the fine as a total: it is up to $5,000 for each day the violation occurs.
• Looking in this law for contaminant limits: they are in the Secretary’s regulation, not the statute.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Departamento de Salud de Puerto Rico

  Salud

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov

• Department of Health

  Departamento de Salud

  www.salud.pr.gov