Consumer Confidence Reports

On this page:

• Introduction & Rules
• Tools & Resources
• Technical Assistance
• Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule and CCRs

Introduction & Rules

• According to Oregon Administrative Rule (OAR) 333-061-0043, all community water systems are required to submit an annual Consumer Confidence Report (CCR) to their customers. A CCR must cover the previous calendar year and be delivered to customers by July 1st. A copy of the CCR must also be submitted by July 1st to Oregon Drinking Water Services (DWS). See Tools & Resources, below, for resources to assist your water system in developing a CCR.
• Community water systems must certify their CCRs and submit certification to DWS. The purpose of certification is to confirm that water systems delivered CCRs to their served customers and that information contained in the CCRs was correct and consistent with compliance monitoring (i.e., water quality) data already submitted to DWS. The certification report is due to DWS by October 1st. See Tools & Resources, below, for resources to assist your water system in developing a certification report.
• All community water systems are encouraged to develop their own dedicated CCR web page so that customers can access past and current reports. DWS no longer maintains a list of these online CCRs; customers should contact their water system directly for this information.
• Submit your CCR and certification reports by mail, fax, or email:
  Drinking Water Services - CCR
  PO Box 14350
  Portland, OR  97293-0350
  
  Fax: 971-673-0694
  Email: dwp.dmce@odhsoha.oregon.gov 

 

Tools & Resources

The following tools and resources are designed to assist community water systems in developing CCRs and certification reports.

• CCR Certification Form: PDF -or- MS Word - Revised February 2023
  
• CCR Checklist of Required Components - Revised February 2023
  
• Consumer Confidence Reports: Update on electronic delivery - April 2013 Pipeline article
• CCR iWriter Tool: An online tool from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for producing a regulation-compliant CCR.
• Compliance Help/Tools for Systems: EPA's resource site for community water system owners and operators to facilitate compliance with CCR requirements. Resources include guides, communication tips and training materials.

Technical Assistance

DWS provides assistance for community water systems that have questions about CCR development, requirements and rules. Contact DWS for assistance. You can also contact the organizations listed below for additional information and technical support:

• American Water Works Association (AWWA): Located in Denver, CO, AWWA is an international nonprofit and educational society that is the world's largest and oldest organization of water professionals.
• Oregon Association of Water Utilities (OAWU): OAWU is an independent nonprofit association of water and wastewater utilities and professionals formed to provide technical assistance and represent water utility interests in the legislature. OAWU is a state affiliate of the National Rural Water Association.
• Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC): RCAC is a non-profit corporation that provides a broad spectrum of technical, managerial, and financial assistance to small, rural, and historically disadvantaged communities through their environmental division. RCAC staff can assist communities with completing current CCRs and provide coaching to assist with future compliance. Submit a request for assistance online.
  

Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule and CCRs

Oregon Administrative Rule (OAR) 333-061-0043(3)(l) requires community water systems to report detections of unregulated contaminants monitored under the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR) in their annual CCR. Specifically, they must report the average and the range at which the contaminant was detected. Water systems may want to briefly explain in the CCR why they are monitoring for unregulated contaminants. EPA has provided the following general suggested explanation: "Unregulated contaminants are those that don't yet have a drinking water standard set by USEPA. The purpose of monitoring for these contaminants is to help EPA decide whether the contaminants should have a standard."

Although not required, a water system may also choose to add additional information about reference concentrations in order to provide context for their customers around the detection of a particular contaminant. See the following document for reference concentration information from EPA:

• UCMR5 Health-Based Reference Values

Additionally, Oregon Administrative Rule (OAR) 333-061-0042(6) requires community and non-transient non-community water systems to notify persons served by the system of the availability of the UCMR test results no later than 12 months after the monitoring results are known. Community systems can satisfy this requirement by providing a notice of availability in their annual CCR. While there is no mandatory language required for notifying customers of the availability of the UCMR data, systems may find the language used in the following public notice template useful as a guide.

• UCMR Availability of Data Notice