EPA ties rise in health-based water violations to missed service-line inventories

Federal records count a missed service-line inventory as a health-based violation, and 67 Alaska systems appear in that count. EPA files it as a treatment technique violation, grouping a failure to submit the inventory with contamination violations.

The Lead and Copper Rule required community and non-transient, non-community systems to inventory all service-line materials by Oct. 16, 2024. EPA's Drinking Water Dashboard documentation attributes the rise in health-based violations since the first quarter of federal fiscal year 2025 to systems that missed that deadline.

Alaska's 2024 annual compliance report counted 549 inventories submitted and about 53 outstanding. EPA records show 22 of the 67 still open, at systems serving about 6,900 people. Koyuk's system, missing an inventory in April 2025 state records, returned to compliance in June.

Systems that still owe an inventory see it flagged in the compliance-schedule section of their monitoring summary, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation says.