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<br />2.0 California Drinking Water Regulatory Process <br />California Health and Safety Code Section 116365 requires the State to develop a PHG <br />for every contaminant with a primary drinking water standard or for any contaminant the <br />State is proposing to regulate with a primary drinking water standard. A PHG is the <br />level of a contaminant in drinking water that poses no significant health risk if consumed <br />for a lifetime. The process of establishing a PHG is a risk assessment based strictly on <br />human health considerations. PHGs are recommended targets and are not required to <br />be met by any public water system. <br />The State office designated to develop PHGs is the California Environmental Protection <br />Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA). The PHG is <br />then forwarded to the State Water Resources Control Board, Division of Drinking Water <br />(DDW) for use in revising or developing a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) in <br />drinking water. The MCL is the highest level of a contaminant that is allowed in drinking <br />water. California MCLs cannot be less stringent than federal MCLs and must be as <br />close as is technically and economically feasible to the PHGs. DDW is required to take <br />treatment technologies and cost of compliance into account when setting an MCL. <br />Each MCL is reviewed at least once every five years. <br />Two radiological contaminants (gross alpha particle and gross beta particle) have MCLs <br />but do not yet have designated PHGs. For these contaminants, the Maximum <br />Contaminant Level Goal (MCLG), the federal U.S. Environmental Protection Agency <br />(USEPA) equivalent of PHGs, is used in the 2022 PHGs Report. <br />3.0 Identification of Contaminants <br />Section 116470(b)(1) of the Health and Safety Code requires public water systems <br />serving more than 10,000 service connections to identify each contaminant detected in <br />drinking water that exceeded the applicable PHG. Section 116470(f) requires the <br />MCLG to be used for comparison if there is no applicable PHG. <br />City of Santa Ana 2 2022 PHGs Report