As the state's Primacy Agency for Drinking Water, the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) was required by the 1996 Amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) to develop a Source Water Assessment Program. The goal of the Source Water Assessment Program is to establish procedures and provide a foundation of support for protecting the State’s drinking water resources from the threat of contamination resulting from accidents or unwise practices from residential, industrial, commercial, agricultural, waste management, or transportation activities. As part of this program, the Department of Health has created a Wellhead Protection Plan Development Program for small community groundwater waterworks in central and western Virginia.
The program provides technical support to assist small water systems serving less than 3,300 people in the Wellhead Protection Plan Development Approach. Participation in this program has enabled several small water systems to prepare and implement site-specific Wellhead Protection Plans while a number of other waterworks are currently in the process of completing Wellhead Protection Plans.
On May 26, 2005, EPA granted final approval to Virginia’s Wellhead Protection Program. Protection of ground water based public water supplies will be achieved through ongoing regulatory and non regulatory State programs and through voluntary participation by local governments with land use management authorities. DEQ will serve as the lead agency for coordination of this voluntary protection program. The Virginia Department of Health will continue as the Commonwealth’s regulatory authority for public water supplies, including ongoing oversight of the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Program.
For information on this voluntary plan visit http://www.deq.virginia.gov/gwpsc/whp.html.