(a) A State exercising primary enforcement responsibility for public water systems (or the Administrator for other systems) may grant a small system variance to public water systems serving 3,300 or fewer persons.

(b) With the approval of the Administrator pursuant to §142.312, a State exercising primary enforcement responsibility for public water systems may grant a small system variance to public water systems serving more than 3,300 persons but fewer than 10,000 persons.

(c) In determining the number of persons served by the public water system, the State or Administrator must include persons served by consecutive systems. A small system variance granted to a public water system would also apply to any consecutive system served by it.