LCRR Compliance for the State of Indiana

The Indiana Finance Authority (IFA) and the Indiana Department ofEnvironmental Management (IDEM) worked together to secure funding to develop a service line inventory database to comply with the Lead and Copper Rule Revisions (LCRR) issued by the EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA).

An RFP was issued in October 2022 outlining the need for a reporting tool to collect and store inventories from that state’s community water systems and non-transient non-community water systems, report the resulting data to the EPA, and share information about service line materials with the public.Interagency collaboration and the 120Water Digital Water Platform help Indiana utilities meet service line inventory deadline

Challenge

Implementing and enforcing a new EPA regulation is a multifaceted challenge for states, including understanding its requirements and impacts and aligning them with current regulatory frameworks. Every state must also determine how it will operationalize the new rule, track compliance progress, and allocate funding and resources. Creative budgeting and securing grants or other funding assistance also may need to be considered. Every step of the compliance journey also warrants communication and collaboration with various state agencies and other stakeholders.

In this case, IFA and IDEM decided to view LCRR as an opportunity to improve overall operations. Standardizing and streamlining data management and automating processes with the right technology, not just technical services, would be more efficient and cost-effective over the long term in meeting this—and future compliance objectives

120Water and the State of Indiana had collaborated previously to run state-wide lead testing for schools and childcare facilities.

In December 2022, the company was again contracted to use three of the modules of its digital water platform. The PWS Portal would enable water systems to manage location and service line data and then submit inventories to IDEM from the State Dashboard.

This allows IDEM to view inventory data from each water system, track their inventory submissions year over year, and export all the data in the required federal format.

Following software provisioning and configuration, training for all the water utilities, and with 120Water’s ongoing support, the state began accepting inventory submissions on April 16, 2024—only 15 months after 120Water was awarded the contract to help meet LCRR.

Results

Thanks to the visionaries of IFA and IDEM working in tandem, they secured state funding to provide free access to 120Water’s software to nearly 1,400 water systems subject to LCRR compliance. Thus far:

• 99.9% of water systems have had a user log intoPWS Portal.120Water also would like to acknowledge the Arcadis engineering firm and Alliance of Indiana Rural Water for helping the smaller water systems throughout the state use the software in starting their inventories.
• 32% of water utilities have inventory data in the software.
• 127 inventories have been submitted from PWSPortal to IDEM via the State Dashboard.

Once the state began accepting submissions, they had valuable insights about the work in progress. Compliance is achieved with the click of a button, and inventories are submitted without any missing requirements. IDEM can see aggregated data in a map view and act on the submissions received, sorting, filtering, and making comments. Having the software gives everyone a jumpstart on their next steps because they can prioritize and track work in real-time.

120Water also would like to acknowledge the Arcadis engineering firm and Alliance of Indiana Rural Water for helping the smaller water systems throughout the state use the software in starting their inventories.