Global public health organisation NSF International has published the first consensus-based American National Standard to evaluate the performance of municipal water filtration technologies in removing cryptosporidium from public drinking water supplies.
The new standard – NSF/ANSI 419: Public Drinking Water Equipment Performance – Filtration incorporates state and federal regulatory requirements, assisting state regulators in verifying compliance while reducing time and costs for manufacturers by streamlining the testing process.
Products from Dow Chemical Company, Hydranautics, Hyflux Limited, Inge GmbH and Qua Group LLC are the first to earn certification to NSF/ANSI 419. Several other water filtration technologies are currently undergoing the testing and certification process.
Municipal water treatment plants that use surface waters such as lakes, rivers and streams as a source of public drinking water are required to filter out microorganisms and bacteria such as Cryptosporidium unless exempted by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
To ensure cryptosporidium is effectively removed from public drinking water, the EPA created the Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule (LT2), which applies to all public water systems that use surface or ground water that is under the direct influence of surface water.
The NSF/ANSI 419 standard incorporates the EPA LT2 Rule as well as other federal and state requirements such as certification to NSF/ANSI 61: Drinking Water System Components – Health Effects, which sets contaminant limits for components that come into contact with drinking water such as plumbing components and pipes. By incorporating all regulatory requirements into one standard, NSF International is able to streamline the testing and certification process for these technologies while simplifying the purchasing process for municipal water treatment facilities.
"Water treatment technologies certified to the NSF/ANSI 419 standard have been tested to verify they effectively remove Cryptosporidium in drinking water, which is known to cause gastrointestinal illness," said Clif McLellan, vice-president of NSF International’s global water division.
"Instead of every state drinking water agency having to review each validation report for each product, state regulators can now verify compliance through the official listings found on NSF’s website."
NSF International developed the NSF/ANSI 419 standard utilising nearly two decades of experience managing the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Technology Verification Drinking Water Systems Center (ETV DWSC) with balanced input from industry, regulatory and end-user groups. The standard covers microfiltration, ultrafiltration and nanofiltration systems, as well as bag and cartridge filtration systems used in the treatment or production of public drinking water.
For more information, please contact NSF.
