Rules & Regulations

The City of Houston Cross-Connection Control Group is mandated on the federal, state, and local level. On the federal level the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), passed in 1974 by Congress, authorized the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set standards for drinking water quality. In addition to this the EPA watches over all the state and local public water suppliers who implement the standards.

In Texas the state entity responsible for implementing the EPA standards is the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). In addition to the standards set by the EPA the TCEQ has enforced its own, more stringent, rules and regulations related to public drinking water. These regulations are found in Title 30 of the Texas Administrative Code (30 TAC) Chapter 290 Subchapter D.

On the local level the City of Houston, with the authority of TCEQ, has imposed additional regulations, not in conflict with the state regulations, which can be found in the City Plumbing Code. This threefold scheme is what regulates the City of Houston operations related to cross-connection control. The following links are for the above-mentioned rules and regulations mandating this program.

EPA
http://www.epa.gov/safewater/sdwal

TCEQ
http://info.sos.state.tx.us/