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Oklahoma DEQ seeks five new staff to implement tightened federal lead-and-copper rules
Summary
Department of Environmental Quality officials told the appropriations subcommittee EPA—hanges to the Lead and Copper Rule will require new monitoring, inventory work and service-line replacement. DEQ asked for five FTEs and related funding to gain primacy to implement and enforce the rule in Oklahoma.
Rob Singletary, executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, told the House appropriations subcommittee that a recent string of EPA regulatory changes will increase DEQ workload and that the department needs staff to implement new drinking-water mandates.
"Our mission has long been to protect human health and the environment, but I added the last phrase when I was appointed last June, and that is that we do it in a manner that supports and advances a prosperous Oklahoma for current and future generations," Singletary said.
Singletary said the 2021 Lead and Copper Rule revisions and the 2024 Lead and Copper Rule Improvements together require public water systems to create lead-service-line inventories, perform more complex sampling and, in many cases, replace lead or galvanized service lines. "There are approximately 1,500,000 service lines in the state of Oklahoma," he told the committee, and building statewide inventories and replacement plans is time-consuming.
Kathy Abisher, DEQ chief financial officer, said DEQ had identified staff and system modernization needs. The department requested five new FTEs and a one-time and recurring funding package totaling just over $400,000 to implement the inventory, sampling and replacement-tracking requirements that EPA requires before DEQ can obtain primacy to enforce the program in Oklahoma.
Singletary described other agency work in 2025, including a $16 million state-funded project to replace a downtown parking garage, ongoing development of a new customer revenue-management platform, the operator-certification system overhaul, and implementation of the Water Quality Standards program moved to DEQ by the 2023 legislature.
On PFAS and other contaminants, Singletary said current federal requirements are largely at the monitoring and information-gathering stage (for example UCMR5) and that future policy steps will follow federal guidance. Committee members asked about rural systems' capacity to meet more stringent standards. Singletary and Abisher said DEQ uses grant and loan programs to help small systems plan and finance upgrades, and DEQ coordinates with the Rural Water Association to distribute funds.
The department also briefed the subcommittee on recent appropriations and the agency's share of one-time grants for rural infrastructure, noting that about $13 million of the $30 million appropriated for those projects has already been dispersed.
