How to Write a Tier 3 Public Notice

A Tier 3 public notice is still a write-and-deliver job. 40 CFR 141.204 says you provide the notice as soon as practical, but no later than 12 months after the system learns of the violation or situation. Community systems may use the next Consumer Confidence Report as the vehicle when that report actually reaches persons served inside that year.

This page is how to write that notice, pick a delivery method that counts, and certify it. The clock itself (which events are Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3) lives on SDWA public notice tiers, deadlines. The 24-hour write is How to write a Tier 1 public notice. The 30-day write is How to write a Tier 2 public notice. The day you find a missed VOC, IOC, SOC, or DBP period is a different job: How to handle a missed monitoring period. That page is the make-up path. This page is the notice write. Confirm the template and any tighter state deadline with your primacy agency. This isn't legal advice.

What 141.204 actually puts in Tier 3

Most operators meet this rule on a monitoring or reporting miss. The federal list is wider than that one miss:

• Monitoring violations under Subpart Q, except where 141.202 already requires a Tier 1 notice or the primacy agency requires Tier 2.
• Failure to comply with a testing procedure the rule required.
• Operation under a variance or exemption.
• Special public notices the rule names, including a fluoride secondary-standard exceedance and the availability of unregulated-contaminant monitoring results.
• Other situations the primacy agency determines require a Tier 3 notice.

A nitrate or nitrite maximum contaminant level is not this page. Failure to take a nitrate or nitrite confirmation sample inside 24 hours is already Tier 1. If you are not sure which tier you are in, ask the same day. Wyoming, the District of Columbia, and tribal systems ask the EPA region with primacy. Many states want the notice sooner than one year.

The 12-month clock, and when the CCR can carry it

Learning usually means the lab result, the state's written notice, or the day you discover the gap, not the day the clerk files it. Put three dates on one line: the day you learned, the day a qualifying delivery will go out, and the day the 10-day certification is due after that delivery.

141.204(b) lets a community water system use the Consumer Confidence Report as the Tier 3 vehicle when two things are both true:

• The CCR is provided to persons served no later than 12 months after the system learned of the violation or situation.
• The CCR actually carries the public-notice content in 40 CFR 141.205 and is delivered by a method that counts for both the CCR rule and Subpart Q.

A July 1 CCR does not rescue a miss you learned about the previous June if that report will land after the 12-month mark. A CCR that never names the violation is not the notice. See how to deliver and certify your CCR for the annual report itself. Do not restage that page. A later CCR rule change does not add a year to 141.204.

If the violation or situation is still open, you repeat the notice annually for as long as it persists. A posted notice stays up as long as the situation lasts, and in no case less than seven days. Each repeat notice is its own Subpart Q event, with its own 10-day certification.

The ten content elements the notice has to carry

141.204 is the Tier 3 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 and 30-day writes. 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. For a monitoring miss, that health-effects line is the standard "we did not monitor" sentence in 141.205(d)(2), not an MCL paragraph you invent.

141.205(c) also controls the look of the page: conspicuous, not tiny type, not so technical that nobody can use it, 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. 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 141.204(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. A CCR that is mailed or otherwise directly delivered can be that mailing when it also meets 141.205.
• 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. Keep a same-day log: method, date, where it went, and a copy of each type.

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 CCR and a landlord packet are two types. Send both.

Use the state's certification form if it has one. Using the CCR as the vehicle does not erase this certification. Keep the notice, the certification, and the delivery log for three years under 40 CFR 141.33. See water system record retention.

Do not wait for a formal notice of violation to start the calendar. Write the learn date and ask the primacy contact for the template the same day. See How to read your SDWIS violation record.

FAQ

Can I put the Tier 3 notice only in the Consumer Confidence Report?

A community system may, when that CCR is delivered to persons served inside 12 months of the day you learned and the report carries the 141.205 elements. A non-community system does not file a CCR. If the next July 1 report will miss the year, write a stand-alone notice.

Is every missed sample Tier 3?

Most monitoring and reporting misses start in Tier 3. The state can elevate a miss to Tier 2. A missed nitrate or nitrite confirmation after an MCL exceedance is already Tier 1. Ask. Do not assume you have a year on a nitrate miss.

Check my system at /find-my-system.

Orevant provides compliance information tools. This page isn't legal advice. Confirm the Tier 3 template, whether the CCR can carry it, the delivery methods, and the certification with your primacy agency.