Jack Reed: “today I am proud to be joined by my colleague Senator Fitzgerald in introducing the Private Well Testing Assistance Act…”

“today I am proud to be joined by my colleague Senator Fitzgerald in introducing the Private Well Testing Assistance Act of 2002. This legislation seeks to protect the health of our Nation's rural families by providing Federal assistance to State health and environmental agencies for sampling of drinking water wells near suspected areas of groundwater contamination. More than 15.1 million households are served by private drinking water wells in the United States. At times, these wells are affected by serious groundwater contaminants, including industrial solvents, petroleum, nitrates, radon, arsenic, beryllium, chloroform, and gasoline additives such as MTBE. While private well owners generally are responsible for regular testing of drinking water wells, cases of serious or potentially widespread groundwater contamination often require State agencies to conduct costly tests on numerous wells. Many of these sites are included in the Environmental Protection Agency's Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Information System, or CERCLIS, for which Federal funding is available for initial site assessments, but not for subsequent regular sampling to ensure that contaminants have not migrated to additional household wells.”