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How to Notify Customers of a Community PWS of an MCL, MRDL or TT Violations

Step-by-step instructions for preparing and issuing mandatory notices of violations of maximum contaminant levels for chemicals (other than nitrate or nitrite), maximum residual disinfectant level and treatment technique violations in drinking water.

These instructions apply to you if you own or operate a community public water system.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

  1. Notify customers within 30 days of when we notify you of the MCL, MRDL or TT violation. [Title 30 Texas Administrative Code (30 TAC) 290.122(b)(2)]
  2. Use the appropriate mandatory language. [30 TAC 290.122(b) and (d)]
  3. Issue the notice in each of the following ways that is necessary to reach persons who are regularly served by your PWS: [30 TAC 290.122(b)(2)]
    • To each customer receiving a bill, issue the notice by mail or by direct delivery.
    • To other service connections to which your PWS delivers water, issue the notice by mail or by direct delivery.
    • To tenants, dormitory residents, nursing home residents, employees of local businesses, prison inmates, and other people who regularly receive water from your PWS but do not have service connection addresses, issue the notice by a reasonable method— for example, one or more of these methods:
      • Publish the notice in a local newspaper.
      • Post the notice in one or more conspicuous places in the area served by your PWS.
      • Post the notice on the Internet.
      • Give your customers who provide drinking water to others copies of the notice for them to distribute to their customers, employees, inmates, or tenants.
  4. Within 10 days of when you issue this notice, submit a copy of the actual notice and the signed Certificate of Delivery of Public Notice to Customers (form TCEQ-20208) to us via email to PWSNotice@tceq.texas.gov.[30 TAC 290.122(f)]
  5. For as long as the violation exists, reissue the notice at least once every three months by mail or by direct delivery. This reissued notice may be mailed with the water bill. (If you posted copies of the notice, leave those copies in place until the violation no longer exists.) After each reissued notice, complete TCEQ-20208 as described in Step 4 and submit it to us with a copy of the notice issued. [30 TAC 290.122(b)(3)(A)]
  6. When you have corrected the violation, issue another notice in the same way you issued the original notice. Then, as described in Step 4, complete TCEQ-20208 and submit it to us with a copy of this notice. [30 TAC Paragraph 290.122(b)(4)]

If you have any questions about these instructions, e-mail us at PWSNotice@tceq.texas.gov or call us at 512-239-1069.