May 11, 2018 - On May 7th, EPA released its 2017 Five-Year Review of the 2012 Recreational Water Quality Criteria (RWQC). As the summary of the review states, the goal of this review and report is to document the assessment of whether revisions to the 2012 RWQC are necessary and the focus was the science related protection of human health in waters designated for primary contact recreations (including swimming, surfing, etc.).
The report specifically looked at these five areas:
- Health Studies
- Indicators and performance of qPCR methods
- Microbial source tracking
- RWQC implementation tools
- Criterial adoption by states, territories and authorized tribes
Based on the results of the review, EPA has decided not to revise the 2012 Recreational Water Criteria during this review cycle. As a reminder, the 2012 RWQC replaced the 1986 bacteria criteria.
