The seeds planted in 2005 are beginning to bear fruit.  The Model Aquatic Health Code is well on the way to being a single public document containing best practice health and safety standards for public aquatic facilities.  However, as you will see in the outline of the process below, the final completed code is probably quite a long way off (think in terms of a couple years rather than months).

Technical Committees and Modules

Each of the 12 Technical Committees is responsible for drafting the best practice standards for their area.  Thus, each committee will produce one ‘module’ in draft form to insert into the review, revision and approval process set up by the CDC (for more on these areas of expertise, see the companion post on Model Aquatic Health Code  modules).

The final code will be a compilation of modules that have been drafted by a technical committee, approved by the steering committee, opened to review and comments by the public, revised, and finally published.

A Summary of the Process

There is ample opportunity for public comment on the MAHC.  Here’s the steps:

1. A technical committee drafts a module and submits it to the steering committee for review (this is a fluid process to allow the steering committee to integrate the work of multiple technical committees on the fly).
2. The steering committee review of the module may call for further work by the technical committee.  A module will not receive steering committee approval until its concerns have been addressed (there may be iterations).
3. Upon approval by the steering committee and a final edit to ensure cross-module compatibility, a module is released for a 60-day public comment period.
4. The steering committee and technical committee consider the public responses and revise the module as appropriate.
5. The module may then be submitted again to public comment for another 60-day period.  (There is no stated, fixed limit on how many times a module can be submitted for public comment prior to being incorporated in the complete document, but time and successive improvements will cut them off at some point.)
6. Once all the modules are revised following public comment, they will be compiled into the full Model Aquatic Health Code document and submitted for comment yet again.
7. After a final revision, the complete document will be published.  However it is clear that this process will be on-going with continuous revisions to the code.

How You Can Comment

Comments will be accepted only for specific modules that are in a public comment period.  And, you MUST submit comments on a specific form (this is a Word document that will download in a new window) sent to either:

• By email as an email attachment to MAHC@cdc.gov or
• By mail (postmarked by the submission deadline) to:
 MAHC Coordinator
, Waterborne Disease Prevention Branch, 
Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases, 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mailstop F-22, 
4770 Buford Highway, NE
, Atlanta, GA 30341

Which Modules Are Open for Comment?

At this moment, no modules are open for comment.  Please see our companion post on the Model Aquatic Health Code modules.  The authoritative calendar will be kept and publicized by the CDC, and unfortunately there is little visibility on when subsequent modules will be released. Stay tuned.