

[Federal Register: September 15, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 179)]
[Notices]               
[Page 54481-54482]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr15se06-43]                         

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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[FRL-8220-2; EPA-HQ-Docket ID No. EPA-ORD-2006-0666]

 
Approaches To Estimating the Waterborne Disease Outbreak Burden 
in the United States: Uses and Limitations of the Waterborne Disease 
Outbreak Surveillance System; External Review Draft

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Notice of public comment period.

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SUMMARY: EPA is announcing a 30-day public comment period for the draft 
document titled, Approaches To Estimating the Waterborne Disease 
Outbreak Burden in the United States: Uses and Limitations of the 
Waterborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System (EPA/600/R-06/069). The 
document was prepared by the National Center for Environmental 
Assessment (NCEA) within EPA's Office of Research and Development.
    EPA is releasing this draft document solely for the purpose of pre-
dissemination peer review under applicable information quality 
guidelines. This document has not been formally disseminated by EPA. It 
does not represent and should not be construed to represent any Agency 
policy or determination. EPA will consider any public comments 
submitted in accordance with this notice when revising the document.

DATES: The 30-day public comment period begins September 15, 2006, and 
ends October 16, 2006. Technical comments should be in writing and must 
be received by EPA by October 16, 2006.

ADDRESSES: The draft Approaches To Estimating the Waterborne Disease 
Outbreak Burden in the United States: Uses and Limitations of the 
Waterborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System (EPA/600/R-06/069) is 
available primarily via the Internet on the National Center for 
Environmental Assessment's home page under the Recent Additions and 
Publications menus at http://www.epa.gov/ncea. A limited number of 

paper copies are available from Ms. Donna Tucker, Technical Information 
Manager, NCEA-Cincinnati; telephone: 513-569-7257; facsimile: 513-569-
7916; e-mail: tucker.donna@epa.gov. If you are requesting a paper copy, 
please provide your name, your mailing address, and the document title, 
Approaches To Estimating the Waterborne Disease Outbreak Burden in the 
United States: Uses and Limitations of the Waterborne Disease Outbreak 
Surveillance System (EPA/600/R-06/069).
    Comments may be submitted electronically via EPA's E-Docket, by 
mail, by facsimile, or by hand delivery/courier. Please follow the 
detailed instructions provided in the Supplementary Information section 
of this notice.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For information on the public comment 
period, contact the Office of Environmental Information Docket; 
telephone: 202-566-1752; facsimile: 202-566-1753; or e-mail: 
ORD.Docket@epa.gov.

    For technical information, contact Glenn Rice, NCEA; telephone: 
513-569-7813; facsimile: 513-487-2539; or e-mail: rice.glenn@epa.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Information About the Project/Document

    Information about waterborne disease outbreaks (WBDOs) in the 
United States is voluntarily reported by State, territorial and local 
public health agencies to the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention (CDC). CDC and EPA jointly maintain a WBDO database. The 
database describes outbreak attributes including, among other things, 
the drinking water system deficiency, the etiologic agent, and the 
number of individuals who became ill. Underreporting of such events is 
assumed but the magnitude of underreporting is unknown.
    This draft document presents an approach for estimating the 
epidemiologic and economic burden of disease associated with 665 WBDOs 
reported in the U.S. between 1971 and 2000. The term disease burden 
broadly refers to the magnitude of the impact incurred by society as a 
consequence of disease in the community (e.g., decrements in a 
population's health or the associated economic effects) and there are 
various metrics that can be employed by analysts to quantify burden. In 
order to capture some of the benefits of drinking water regulations, 
EPA has typically expressed waterborne disease impacts in terms of 
epidemiologic and monetary measures; this WBDO burden analysis employs 
those same measures. Because not all WBDOs in the United States and 
associated cases of illness are reported, the WBDO database on which 
this draft document is based is not comprehensive. The extent to which 
WBDOs are not recognized is unknown and is not examined in this 
analysis. This draft report develops several quantitative sensitivity 
analyses to characterize some of the uncertainty in the burden 
estimates but does not provide an evaluation of the potential impact of 
under- or overreporting of WBDOs or their associated severity 
characteristics. The draft report includes recommendations for the 
collection and reporting of additional outbreak information that would 
improve the usefulness of the WBDO database for future disease burden 
estimates.

II. How To Submit Technical Comments to EPA's E-Docket

    Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-ORD-2006-0666 
by one of the following methods:
     http://www.regulations.gov: Follow the on-line instructions for 

submitting comments.
     E-mail: ORD Docket@epa.gov.
     Fax: 202-566-1753.
     Mail: Office of Environmental Information (OEI) Docket 
(Mail Code: 2822T), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 
Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460. The phone number is 202-
566-1752.
    If you provide comments by mail, please submit one unbound original 
with pages numbered consecutively, and three copies. For attachments, 
provide an index, number pages consecutively with the comments, and 
submit an unbound original and three copies.
     Hand Delivery: The OEI Docket is located in the 
Headquarters EPA Docket Center, EPA/DC; EPA West Building, 1301 
Constitution Ave., NW., Washington, DC. The EPA Docket Center Public 
Reading Room is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through 
Friday, excluding legal

[[Page 54482]]

holidays. The telephone number for the Public Reading Room is 202-566-
1744. Such deliveries are only accepted during the Docket's normal 
hours of operation, and special arrangements should be made for 
deliveries of boxed information.
    Instructions: Direct your comments to Docket ID No. EPA-ORD-2006-
0666. EPA's policy is that all comments received will be included in 
the public docket without change and may be made available online at 
http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided, 

unless the comment includes information claimed to be Confidential 
Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is 
restricted by statute. Do not submit information that you consider to 
be CBI or otherwise protected through http://www.regulations.gov or e-mail. 

The http://www.regulations.gov Web site is an ``anonymous access'' system, 

which means EPA will not know your identity or contact information 
unless you provide it in the body of your comment. If you send an e-
mail comment directly to EPA without going through http://www.regulations.gov, 

your e-mail address will be automatically captured and included as part 
of the comment that is placed in the public docket and made available 
on the Internet. If you submit an electronic comment, EPA recommends 
that you include your name and other contact information in the body of 
your comment and with any disk or CD-ROM you submit. If EPA cannot read 
your comment due to technical difficulties and cannot contact you for 
clarification, EPA may not be able to consider your comment. Electronic 
files should avoid the use of special characters, any form of 
encryption, and be free of any defects or viruses. For additional 
information about EPA's public docket visit the EPA Docket Center 
homepage at http://www.epa.gov/epahome/dockets.htm.

    Docket: All documents in the docket are listed in the 
http://www.regulations.gov index. Although listed in the index, some 

information is not publicly available, e.g., CBI or other information 
whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such 
as copyrighted material, will be publicly available only in hard copy. 
Publicly available docket materials are available either electronically 
in http://www.regulations.gov or in hard copy at the OEI Docket in the EPA 

Headquarters Docket Center.


    Note: The EPA Docket Center suffered damage due to flooding 
during the last week of June 2006. The Docket Center is continuing 
to operate. However, during the cleanup, there will be temporary 
changes to Docket Center telephone numbers, addresses, and hours of 
operation for people who wish to make hand deliveries or visit the 
Public Reading Room to view documents. Consult EPA's Federal 
Register notice at 71 FR 38147 (July 5, 2006) or the EPA Web site at 
http://www.epa.gov/epahome/dockets.htm for current information on docket 

operations, locations and telephone numbers. U.S. mail and the 
procedures for submitting comments to http://www.regulations.gov are not 

affected by the flooding and will remain the same.


    Dated: September 7, 2006.
Peter W. Preuss,
Director, National Center for Environmental Assessment.
[FR Doc. E6-15335 Filed 9-14-06; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 6560-50-P
