How to Write a Tier 2 Public Notice

A Tier 2 public notice is a 30-day write-and-deliver job. 40 CFR 141.203 says you provide the notice as soon as practical, but no later than 30 days after the system learns of the violation or situation. The notice has to reach all persons served, not just the people who pay the water bill.

This page is how to write that notice, pick a delivery method that counts, run the repeat-notice clock if the problem is still open, and certify it. The clock itself lives on SDWA public notice tiers, deadlines. The 24-hour write is How to write a Tier 1 public notice. A nitrate MCL is Tier 1: nitrate violation public notice. Confirm the template and any extra methods with your primacy agency. This isn't legal advice.

What 141.203 actually requires in 30 days

Learning usually means the lab result, the state's written notice, or the inspector's finding, not the day the clerk files it. Three things start that day:

• Write and deliver the notice in a form and manner reasonably calculated to reach all persons served in the required time.
• Use a method that counts for your system type. Community systems mail or directly deliver. Non-community systems post, or mail, or directly deliver. That is a different minimum from the Tier 1 broadcast-or-post list.
• Calendar the repeats if the violation or situation will still be open in three months. 141.203(b)(2) is a separate clock from the first mailing.

Put three dates on one line: the day you learned, the day the first qualifying delivery went out, and the day the 10-day certification is due. A longer initial window needs a written extension. 141.203(b)(1) lets the state add time, up to three months from the day you learned, in appropriate circumstances. It will not extend an unresolved violation, and it will not grant a blanket extension by policy. A verbal "that's fine" is not an extension. Wyoming, the District of Columbia, and tribal systems ask the EPA region with primacy. If the notice is posted, it stays up as long as the violation or situation persists, and in no case less than seven days, even if you already fixed the problem.

The ten content elements the notice has to carry

141.203 is the Tier 2 delivery rule. The content list sits in 40 CFR 141.205 and is the same ten elements as every public notice, including the 24-hour write. Use the state's template. Do not rewrite the mandatory health-effects sentence. The notice must include the violation or situation (and the level found when it applies); when it occurred; the standard health-effects language in 141.205(d)(1) or (d)(2); the population at risk; whether people should use an alternate supply; what consumers should do; what the system is doing; when it expects to return to compliance; a name, business address, and phone number; and the 141.205(d)(3) "please share this notice" sentence.

141.205(c) also controls the look of the page: conspicuous, not tiny type, and no sentence that talks the reader out of taking it seriously. If the primacy agency has determined that you serve a large share of people with limited English proficiency, you also owe 141.205(c)(2). Put the system name and the PWSID at the top. If you need the identifier, use PWSID lookup.

Who must receive it

All persons served. That is a wider list than "customers on the billing file."

• Community systems. Residents, including tenants who never see a water bill. Consecutive buyers still owe their own customers. See consecutive and purchased-water obligations.
• Non-transient non-community systems. Employees, students, and regular occupants. A school or factory cannot notify only the board.
• Transient systems. Guests and same-day users. Post at the taps people actually use.

A billing-list email, by itself, misses renters and visitors. 141.203(c)(1)(ii) says you add another method reasonably calculated to reach people the mailed notice would miss. If the situation continues, 40 CFR 141.206 also requires community systems to give the most recent notice to new billing units when service begins.

Delivery methods that count under 141.203(c)

Unless the primacy agency directs otherwise in writing, the federal minimum is not the Tier 1 broadcast list.

• Community water systems must mail or otherwise directly deliver the notice to each customer who receives a bill, and to other service connections to which the system delivers water. Then they must use any other method reasonably calculated to reach people the bill does not reach.
• Non-community water systems must post the notice in conspicuous locations throughout the distribution system that people actually frequent, or mail or directly deliver it, and then add any other method needed to reach people who would miss that post.

Direct delivery means the occupant can hold the notice. A press release you never confirmed ran is not mail. Text or a website post can be the extra method, or the minimum if the state said so in writing. Keep a same-day log: method, date, where it went, and a copy of each type.

Repeat notices if the problem is still open

If the violation or situation is still open, 141.203(b)(2) says you repeat the notice every three months until it is resolved. The state can set a different repeat frequency in writing, but not less often than once per year, and it should not thin out repeats for an MCL or a treatment-technique problem under the Revised Total Coliform Rule or the Surface Water Treatment Rule.

Each repeat notice is its own Subpart Q event. It needs the ten elements, a qualifying delivery, and its own 10-day certification. Update the "what we are doing" and "when we expect to return" lines. If you returned to compliance in week five, keep a posted notice up through day seven. You do not owe the three-month repeat after the situation is actually closed, unless the state says otherwise.

How you certify to the state

40 CFR 141.31(d) is the closeout. Within 10 days of completing the public-notification requirements for the initial notice, and again for any repeat notice, submit to the primacy agency:

• A certification that the system fully complied with Subpart Q (content, delivery, and deadline).
• A representative copy of each type of notice you distributed, published, posted, or made available to persons served and to the media. A mailed letter and a landlord packet are two types. Send both.

Use the state's certification form if it has one. If it does not, a signed statement with the PWSID, the violation or situation, the date you learned, each delivery method and date, and a line that the ten elements were included is the usual packet. Keep the notice, the certification, and the delivery log for three years under 40 CFR 141.33. See water system record retention.

The day you learn of a Tier 2 event

• Write the learn date. Count 30 days. Ask the primacy contact for the template and any extra methods.
• Fill the state template. Do not invent health-effects language. Put the PWSID on the first line. Mail or directly deliver if you are a community system. Post or deliver if you are non-community. Add a method for people the bill does not reach.
• If the notice is posted, write the take-down date (not earlier than day seven, and not while the situation is still open). Calendar the 10-day certification and the three-month repeat if the problem will still be open.

FAQ

Can I put the Tier 2 notice only in the Consumer Confidence Report?

No. A CCR is an annual report. Tier 2 is a 30-day notice. Some Tier 3 notices can ride in the CCR. A Tier 2 notice cannot wait for July 1. See how to deliver and certify your CCR.

The state said I could have 60 days. Does that count?

Only if the extra time is in writing and the violation is not one 141.203(b)(1) says cannot be extended. A phone call is not the extension.

Check my system at /find-my-system.

Orevant provides compliance information tools. This page isn't legal advice. Confirm the Tier 2 template, the delivery methods, the repeat clock, and the certification with your primacy agency.