(1) The Legislature finds that:

(a) An adequate supply of safe, pure drinking water is essential to the public health and welfare and the maintenance of that supply through viable water systems is an important natural resource in the economic development of the state;

(b) The federal Safe Drinking Water Act, as amended, provides a comprehensive framework for regulating the collection, treatment, storage and distribution of potable water; and

(c) It is in the public interest of the state to assume primary enforcement responsibility under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, as amended.

(2) The purposes of this chapter shall be:

(a) To establish a state program to assure provision of safe drinking water to the public by establishing drinking water standards consistent with the federal act and developing a state program to implement and enforce the standards. The standards shall protect the public health and welfare to the extent feasible using technology, treatment techniques and other means which are generally available.

(b) To develop a process for implementing plans for the provision of safe drinking water in emergencies;

(c) To provide public notice of potentially hazardous conditions that may exist in a water supply; and

(d) To authorize the director to prevent the creation of new potentially non-viable community water systems, to provide technical assistance to existing potentially non-viable systems to help those systems become viable and to encourage the elimination of non-viable systems whose problems cannot be corrected.

(3) It is the intent of the Legislature that the board in implementing Section 41-26-5(3) shall work cooperatively with organizations which provide training and assistance to public water systems. The board shall, consistent with state and federal law and rules and regulations and subject to the availability of funds, contract annually with and provide funding for those organizations. Any contract and funding shall be contingent upon receipt of an acceptable scope of work and cost proposal, as determined by the department and upon the contractor satisfactorily meeting performance objectives established in the contract.