If you think the job of establishing strong cross-connection programs in the United States is finished, you are wrong. If you think the job of establishing a strong cross-connection program in your state is finished, you are wrong. If you think the job of establishing a strong cross-connection program in your city or town is finished, you are wrong. The job of establishing a strong cross-connection program in all jurisdictions will never be complete. Change is the only constant that exists in our industry. We need to stay focused on public education for every segment of the population including government officials and elected officers.
We need to monitor legislation and be active in code and regulation updates. There have been changes made over the past year in several states including, but not limited to, Colorado, North Carolina, and California. While some recent changes have benefited our industry, others have had adverse effects on cross-connection programs in certain jurisdictions, which are desperately needed to protect public health. Weakening or eliminating the testing and installation requirements for backflow protection to possibly reduce building costs or to reduce regulation for political reasons is shortsighted, misguided, and frankly dangerous. Policy and regulation changes aimed at limiting the ability of certified testers to test assemblies in specific jurisdictions in order to increase market share for specific groups is also counterproductive. Our goal as an industry should be to ensure that the protection needed is the protection installed, and also that this protection is installed and maintained by certified testers and repairers. Prioritizing a specific testing certification or a specific test procedure should not be No. 1 on our list. Protecting public health should always be our most important concern.
Regulations such as those recently passed in North Carolina, shown below, open the door to so many problems.
A public water system owned or operated by a local government unit, and its employees, including the Cross Connection Control Operator in Responsible Charge, is immune from civil liability in tort from any loss, damage, or injury arising out of or relating to the backflow of water into potable water supply systems where a backflow preventer is not required by State or federal law, or where the degree of hazard from the customer’s connection is not determined to be high by the Department.
The Department shall determine whether the degree of hazard for a service connection is high when the installation of a backflow preventer is not otherwise required by State or federal law. The Department shall provide notice of such determinations on its website.
Nothing in this section shall prohibit a public water system owned or operated by a local government unit from requiring the installation of a backflow preventer if the system pays all costs associated with the backflow preventer, including the device, installation, and appropriate landscaping.
No public water system owned or operated by a local government unit shall require periodic testing more frequently than once every three years for backflow preventers on residential irrigation systems that do not apply or dispose chemical feeds.
If you are a public water system being told that you cannot be held financially responsible for a backflow incident unless the backflow assembly was required by state or federal regulations, why would you mandate containment protection? It is not required by state or federal law. These rules also say if the water system decides to require protection, the operator must pay the costs for the protection. No water system will take on that burden. The last regulation concerning testing on irrigation systems seems to be written simply to give homeowners an excuse to avoid testing annually. We should not rush to deregulate necessary regulations to lower costs or to score political points. This is the type of deregulation we need to work together against. In many cases the deregulations are put forward by people who do not understand the importance of backflow prevention and crossconnection control. These are the people and groups we need to educate.
With the recent November election, it is difficult to predict what will happen at the federal level with regulations related to water quality, water conservation, water reuse, and a host of other issues. It is clear that changes will occur and all of us need to be ready to work to ensure these changes do not roll back all the progress we have made in the past. Regulation is necessary to protect the public health and our public water systems. We need to always remain vigilant about any proposed changes.
On a brighter note, in California, the development of the state Cross-Connection Control Policy Handbook is making major changes to regulations in the Golden State. In this article we are going to look at one specific part of the Policy Handbook that deals with professional certifications for backflow testers. To understand how this occurred we need to go back to the beginning of the process. In the past there was a lack of specific regulations as to what was acceptable in California. County health departments and water authorities were allowed to pick and choose what backflow tester certification they would accept in their jurisdiction and which certification they would not. Many county health departments set up their own certification programs. As a result, it was difficult if not impossible for a certified tester to test backflow assemblies statewide without multiple different backflow tester certifications.
The state attempted to change regulations starting in 2016 with Assembly Bill (AB) 1529. That legislation passed the general assembly by a large margin and was sent to the governor’s desk for his signature. After an intense lobbying effort by a number of groups that wanted to maintain the status quo, then Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the bill in September of 2018. During this time, another Assembly Bill (AB), 1671, was working its way through the legislative process, passed the general assembly and was signed into law. AB 1671 required the State Water Board to adopt standards for backflow protection and cross-connection control through the creation and adoption of a Cross-Connection Control Policy Handbook (CCCPH) on or before Jan. 1, 2020. That requirement was not met and the process to develop the handbook took several years longer than the deadline contained in the legislation. The statutes also require that the State Water Board hold at least two public hearings before adopting the CCCPH. The first public hearing took place on April 27, 2021, about 16 months after the handbook was required to be adopted by AB 1671. The second required public hearing took place on Dec. 5, 2022. Stakeholders and groups from all parts of the industry participated in the handbook development, including the public hearing and within the comment periods. A significant amount of time and effort from many parties produced the finished product.
On Dec. 19, 2023, the State Water Resources Control Board adopted the Cross-Connection Control Policy Handbook (CCCPH) with an effective date of July 1, 2024. A number of factors contributed to the delay in adoption, including the COVID pandemic, but although arriving four years and six months later than planned the CCCPH became the law of the land on July 1. The CCCPH regulations replace the language contained in Title 17 related to crossconnection control. The California Plumbing Code also addresses backflow testing. Section 603.2 states: Testing or maintenance shall be preformed by a certified backflow assembly tester or repairer in accordance with ASSE Series 5000, Cross-Connection Control Professional Qualifications Standard, or otherwise approved by the Authority Having Jurisdiction.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN TO BACKFLOW ASSEMBLY TESTERS IN CALIFORNIA?
It means changes are coming; they will be phased in over a three-year period and are already causing confusion in the state with both testers and regulators.
A major change is that on July 1, 2027, backflow assembly testers and cross-connection control specialists/surveyors will need to be certified by an organization that has had its certification program ANSI accredited. This is where confusion, and in other cases disinformation, is happening with individual testers and specialists being given incorrect information or misinterpreting the regulation itself. Testers are being told that this requirement becomes effective on July 1, 2025. That is not what the new regulation requires.
The California Water Board website, on its Frequently Asked Questions CCCPH page states: Certifying Organizations — When do they need to have ANSI accreditation? Certifying organizations, who certify backflow prevention assembly testers and cross-connection control specialists, do not need to have a certification from an ANSI-accredited organization until July 1, 2027. While they can have a certification from an organization with ANSI accreditation before then, it is not a requirement. Between July 1, 2025, and July 1, 2027 (when ANSI accreditation is required), the State Water Board will recognize organizations that plan to have ANSI accreditation but do not yet have it and which meet the requirements listed in the CCCPH. CCCPH requirements for testers and specialists do not start until July 1, 2025.
ASSE International’s 5110 Backflow Tester certification program has been officially recognized by the California Water Board and is an approved tester certification until July 1, 2025. ASSE has begun the process for its certification to become ANSI and ISO approved in the near future and because of this action is expecting California Water Board approval in the next several weeks as an approved certification agency through July 1, 2027. ASSE expects to receive its complete ANSI and ISO approval in the next 12-18 months, well in advance of the handbook requirement of this approval after July 1, 2027. These developments should result in the acceptance of the ASSE 5110 tester certification on a statewide basis in California. Change is difficult and I do anticipate resistance in some areas, but the handbook was envisioned, developed, and adopted to provide statewide standards that should be acceptable everywhere in California.
The CCCPH also contains language which will result in changes in how Public Water Systems (PWS) conduct hazard assessments (cross-connection surveys) for both residential and commercial customers and establishes a timeline for completion of these assessments. It also addresses cross-connection protection requirements for fire protection systems. There is concern with many of the PWS about meeting what they view as difficult if not impossible timelines to achieve and how flexible the California Water Board will be in granting extensions to the handbook requirements. Only time will tell as to what the future will bring, but these changes are necessary and, in many cases, long overdue.
Another change in the CCCPH is related to the approval of backflow prevention assemblies for installation in California. As of July 1, assemblies that are approved by USC or assemblies which have been ASSE approved with the one-year field test seal are now allowed for installation statewide. The CCCPH, while not perfect, is a long overdue upgrade and modernization of the state regulations, and while it will undoubtedly create concern and some problems in its implementation it is a large step in the correct direction for the Golden State.
In some areas we are going forward. In others we seem to be moving in reverse. It is vital that all of us in the industry be as active as possible in acting as stakeholders in the creation and in the amending of codes, standards and regulations. It’s time to become part of the solution; inaction is not an option. We need to protect the health of the nation.
