6.5 National and international guideline values (2016)

For some chemical substances, an Australian drinking water guideline value may not be available. It is recommended that water suppliers seek advice from the appropriate state or territory health regulatory agency when chemicals that do not have a guideline value in the Guidelines are detected in drinking water. In such cases, interim water quality advice may be obtained from alternative sources.

The following list details a hierarchy of documents in which national and international drinking water guideline values can be found. The sources are listed in order of preference of acceptance, based on recommendations from the NHMRC and the Environmental Health Standing Committee (enHealth) in relation to risk assessment of environmental hazards (enHealth 2012). The recommendations are derived from the relevance to the Australian context and the methodologies used to calculate guideline values. Starting at the top of the hierarchy, the most recent final version of the document should be consulted until a suitable interim guideline value is identified:

• Australian Guidelines for Water Recycling – Phase 2: Augmentation of Drinking Water Supplies (Environment Protection and Heritage Council (EPHC), NHMRC and the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council (NRMMC), 2008

• WHO Guidelines for Drinking-Water Quality, fourth edition (WHO, 2017)

• Drinking Water Standards for New Zealand, New Zealand Ministry of Health, New Zealand (New Zealand Ministry of Health, 2018)

• Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality (Health Canada, 2020)

• Health Advisories for Drinking Water Contaminants (United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) Office of Water, various dates)

• Drinking Water Contaminants Lists (US EPA Office of Water, 2007)

• Public Health Goal for Chemical Substances in Drinking Water (Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, California, various dates).