Graphic organizer Grade 10 Social Studies & Civics
From the Federal PFAS Limit to Inglecombe's Water Bill
A grade 10 cause-and-effect organizer tracing a federal PFAS limit through state primacy, a utility decision, and a rate case to a fictional household's bill.
Objectives
- Students will order the steps that carry a federal drinking water limit to a local household bill.
- Students will identify which level of government acts at each link and who pays for the action.
- Students will explain what a delay at one link does to the people waiting at the next.
Vocabulary
- Maximum contaminant level (MCL)
- A maximum contaminant level, or MCL, is the highest amount of a certain substance that federal rules allow in drinking water. Water systems test regularly to prove their water stays under each limit.
- Rate case
- The public process a utility goes through to change what it charges for water. Officials review the utility's costs, and customers can speak up before new rates are approved.
- Ratepayer
- A person or business that pays a utility bill. Ratepayers provide most of the money that keeps a water system running.
Also: primacy, compliance deadline, capital project
Teacher overview
A national drinking water limit is a number set in Washington that changes nothing until several other governments act on it, and the last actor in the sequence is usually a local board deciding how to pay. This organizer is a cause-and-effect chain of seven links, running from the statute that gives EPA its authority to the monthly bill a household receives, with a second table marking the points where a delay changes who is protected and when. The chain is built to keep two questions in view throughout: when the limit actually reaches the water a household drinks, and who pays at each step along the way.
Organizer
Fill in each row of the chain. Every link should name a single actor and a single decision, and the last column should say what that decision hands to the next link. The town of Inglecombe is fictional, and the figures in its rows are invented for this exercise.
Table 1. The chain, from statute to bill.
| Link | Who acts | What they decide | What moves to the next link |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Federal statute | |||
| 2. Federal rulemaking | |||
| 3. State adoption | |||
| 4. Local sampling | |||
| 5. Local compliance choice | |||
| 6. Rate setting | |||
| 7. Household |
Table 2. Pressure points.
| If this link stalls | Who waits | What happens while they wait |
|---|---|---|
| Link 2, a system is granted an exemption from the deadline | ||
| Link 3, the state is slow to adopt | ||
| Link 6, the rate case is denied |
Synthesis slot. In one sentence, name the first link at which an Inglecombe household has a chance to be heard, and say how it would take that chance.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Completed Exemplar
Table 1. The chain, from statute to bill.
| Link | Who acts | What they decide | What moves to the next link |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Federal statute | Congress | Gives EPA authority under the Safe Drinking Water Act to set national limits for contaminants in public water systems | A power to regulate, not yet a limit for any particular chemical |
| 2. Federal rulemaking | EPA | Sets the maximum contaminant level for PFOA and PFOS at 4.0 parts per trillion each in its April 2024 rule, with a compliance deadline of April 2029; in May 2026 EPA proposed letting eligible systems apply for a two-year exemption, to April 2031, a proposal not yet final as of September 2026 | A national number and a date by which systems must meet it |
| 3. State adoption | The state drinking water agency, under primacy | Adopts a rule at least as strict as the federal one and sets the monitoring schedule utilities must follow | A sampling requirement that names which wells are tested and how often |
| 4. Local sampling | The Inglecombe water utility | Samples its three wells on the state schedule and reports results; one well returns a result above the limit | A documented exceedance at one named well |
| 5. Local compliance choice | The Inglecombe utility board and its engineers | Chooses among treating the well, blending it with clean sources, or retiring it and buying water from a neighbor; selects treatment | A capital project with a price tag and a construction schedule |
| 6. Rate setting | The Inglecombe city council, sitting as the rate-setting body | Holds a public rate hearing and approves a rate increase and a bond to fund the project | An approved rate schedule that assigns the cost to customers |
| 7. Household | An Inglecombe household | Pays a bill about $4.10 a month higher, and may apply to the assistance program the council attached to the increase | The federal requirement, now an amount the household pays each month |
Table 2. Pressure points.
| If this link stalls | Who waits | What happens while they wait |
|---|---|---|
| Link 2, a system is granted an exemption from the deadline | Every household served by that system while it is above the limit | The utility gains time to plan and finance, and its households keep drinking water above the limit for the length of the exemption |
| Link 3, the state is slow to adopt | Utilities and their customers in that state | Sampling does not begin on schedule, so exceedances go undiscovered and the local clock at links 4 through 6 starts late |
| Link 6, the rate case is denied | The utility and its customers | The project is delayed or scaled back, the utility may draw on reserves or seek a state loan, and the exceedance at link 4 remains unaddressed |
Synthesis slot. The first real opening is link 6, the public rate hearing, where a household can testify about the size of the increase and ask for an assistance program, although a household could also comment earlier during federal or state rulemaking if it knew the proceeding was open.
Differentiation
Support
Give students the seven actors already placed in the first column and ask them to fill only the decision and handoff columns, then check their handoffs against a partner's before adding Table 2. A word bank containing primacy, exceedance, capital project, and rate hearing helps students name the decisions in the language the chain uses.
Extension
Ask students to add an eighth link showing what happens if the household cannot pay the higher bill, naming the actor, the decision, and what moves next, then explain why that link is usually missing from a diagram of how a federal rule takes effect.
ELL supports
Provide the chain as seven cut-apart cards to be sequenced physically before anything is written, with a small icon on each card for the actor, such as a capitol, an agency seal, a well, and a house. Allow Table 2 to be answered in short phrases, and supply the frame "While they wait, ... keeps happening" for the third column.
Extensions
Have students repeat the chain for a rule already in force in their own state, such as the lead action level, and mark which links they can find public records for, including a state adoption notice, a utility sampling report, or a city council rate hearing agenda. A short comparison can then ask which links leave a public trail and which are hardest for a resident to observe.