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WaterOperator.org Blog

Rural Water Representation in the 2020 Census

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As we approach the execution of the 2020 decennial census, rural communities and their water and wastewater facilities should be aware of the ramifications a new count will have on funding allocation in their community. The U.S. census is updated every 10 years in an effort to enumerate every living person in the United States. While it’s common knowledge that the count is used to update congressional district lines, the census is also used by many federal programs to determine funding distribution. Census data will help programs access population characteristics of communities, the allocation of funds to eligible recipients, and the success of ongoing programs.

In 2015 132 federal programs used census data to distribute over $675 billion in funding. Many of these programs targeted rural development, source water protection, emergency water assistance, and water and wastewater infrastructure.

The upcoming census will start April 1, 2020 by issuing every home on record with a mailed invitation to participate. Responses can be submitted online, over the phone, or by mail. The questions asked by the census cover information about property ownership, gender, age, race, and the number of people living in the residence. Responses are kept confidential under federal law. Census takers will also begin visiting colleges, senior centers, and large community living groups to conduct quality checks. By May 2020, the Census Bureau will visit the homes of those who have not submitted responses. To achieve an accurate count, the U.S. Census Bureau has worked to build an inclusive address list of housing units and develop methods to improve both self-response and follow-up procedures for those who do not respond.

While intensely rural and marginalized communities are historically more susceptible to undercounting than urban, the 2020 census design poses new concerns for rural areas. In an effort to reduce field costs and visits, the upcoming census strategy will be the first to encourage internet self-response. To address known areas of low internet connectivity, the Bureau will mail identified households a paper questionnaire or request responses over the phone. Areas with noncity-style addresses such as rural route numbers will receive a paper questionnaire from a census worker at their door. In the most remote areas, a census taker will enumerate households in-person. Unfortunately, two of the three ‘End-to-End’ tests to evaluate these methods were cancelled leaving insight into how rural communities will be effected by the census design poorly assessed.

The in-person visits pose significant challenges since the homes of remote areas are often spread apart, hidden from the main road, and made up of non-traditional living quarters. As a result, communities in rural Alaska and tribal lands are typically the most undercounted. Furthermore, minority groups, low-income individuals, and rural areas with slow internet connections will find response more difficult than those of urban areas.

Encouraging participation will ensure that your community receives a fair share of rural development and water infrastructure funding. Undercounts can impact anything from justifying water rights to determining eligibility of grants and loans. Public water and wastewater systems, especially those in Indian Country, should request that their local government promote census participation. To start this process, towns or tribal governments can become a Census Bureau partner to have access to promotional materials and census updates. Using local media, radio stations, social media, public meetings, and flyers, rural communities can host outreach campaigns that advocate the significance of the census and how to pro-actively participate. When possible, we encourage communities to make internet response publicly available at local churches, libraries, community centers, etc. With community planning and education, rural communities can be accurately represented in the 2020 census.

Featured Video: Regional Collaboration for Clean Water in York County

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Over 500 communities in the Chesapeake Bay watershed are working to meet NPDES permit standards for stormwater discharges from their municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4s). MS4s that discharge to impaired surface waters or directly to the Bay are required to develop Pollutant Reduction or TMDL Plans. Meeting these requirements while also addressing important local issues such as increased flooding can be a challenge for any municipality, regardless of size.

However, Pennsylvania's York County has proven that there is strength in numbers. This video from MOST (Municipal Online Stormwater Training Center, an initiative of the University Of Maryland's Environmental Finance Center) features Felicia Dell, the director of the York County Planning Commission discussing how municipalities in her county banded together in a consortium to attract funding, and then distributed this funding in an equitable way to construct projects that would benefit all.

Solving the Rural Water Crisis

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Every fall, Americans from all walks of life and locations drive through the countryside to enjoy the changing foliage, apple orchards and park-lands, often barely glancing at the small water or wastewater utilities along the roadsides that serve area residents. Yet if they took the effort to speak to the people who are struggling, often at great odds, to provide or clean water in these rural areas, they might begin to understand that even in this country, with all its resources and technological advances, there are many places — just around the bend — where clean water is not a given. In fact, according to this recent article, of the 5,000 drinking water systems that racked up health-based violations in 2015, more than 50 percent were systems that serve 500 people or fewer. 

The challenges of these small rural systems are many: aging infrastructure (add to this a lack of overflow capacity for wastewater systems), water quality issues, comparatively lower water operator wages, increasing man-made and natural disaster hazards such as extreme rain events, stricter health standards, a small pool of paying customers, and, always, a lack of funding. The new infrastructure bill just recently signed by the president is providing some hope for the future (it has a significant catch, though — its authorizations still require yearly appropriations installments), but for now, many communities live in a constant state of worry about their water.

On top of this, many rural communities are dealing with the political and economic pressure to sell their utilities to private companies, if they haven't already done so, a particularly tempting option in times of crisis. According to a recent special series on the rural water crisis from NPR, this "complicated mix of public and private ownership often confounds efforts to mandate improvements or levy penalties, even if customers complain of poor water quality or mismanagement."

But there is hope on the horizon. Certainly increased funding for infrastructure is part of the solution. But according to California water commissioner Maria Herrera in this recent article, more can be done. She suggests that legislation should also increase technical assistance funding and give communities an opportunity to hire consultants to develop shovel-ready projects and fund safe drinking water projects. Also on her wish list: "We need to not only fund mitigation of contaminated wells and treatment plants, but also help communities develop redundant water sources, promote consolidation of small systems to larger ones, and help them with drought contingency planning. Communities need guidance and technical assistance in order to develop solutions and participate in water planning."

In Louisiana, circuit rider Timmy Lemoine says in this article that he is "seeing a shift as small systems allow larger systems with a certified operator take over management." And at the University of Iowa, engineers are testing new wastewater treatment technologies, hoping to defray costs for aging small-town systems. In addition, organizations such as the Rural Community Assistance Partnership (RCAP) have a wealth of resources to support rural utilities and help them save money, such as this energy efficiency video. The question remains if solutions such as these will be sufficient to ensure that rural residents can count on clean water now and into the future. 

Featured Videos: Small Communities Benefit From Shared Resources

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The Small Communities Environmental Infrastructure Group assists small Ohio communities in finding resources to help solve their infrastructure and funding problems. These two videos feature water and sewer district officials and staff discussing the benefits of participating in SCEIG regional partnerships in order to better serve their communities. 

Drinking Water and Lead Service Lines: Partnering to Protect Human Health

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Last month, the Lead Service Line Replacement Collaborative, a group that includes the AWWA, NRWA, ASDWA, NAWC, RCAP and WRF among others, hosted a panel discussion entitled "Drinking Water and Lead Service Lines:  Partnering to Protect Human Health." The focus of this discussion was how partnerships between water utilities and public health agencies are key to helping lead service pipe replacement programs really get off the ground. 

Dr. Lynn Goldman from the Milken Institute School of Public Health started off the discussion by providing historical context, pointing to precedents that allowed lead to be "managed in place" while also allowing higher lead levels in water to be acceptable practice. She explained that when EPA's first Lead and Copper standard (1992) began to improve health outcomes for water consumers, lower-level effects began to be unmasked. This phenomenon, according to Goldman, underscores the importance of enacting revisions to the Lead & Copper Rule, as well as best practices for lead sampling strategies. Goldman emphasized the importance of developing carefully crafted lead pipe removal programs so that more lead isn't released into drinking water supplies during the remediation process.

Other takeaways from the panel of speakers include the following:

  • Some communities bear disproportional consequence of lead contamination.
  • Lead poisoning can go undetected in individuals, but even low levels of lead affect the brain.
  • Action alerts vary state-by-state, but Amanda Reddy from the National Center for Healthy Housing recommends an action level of 5 ug/dL.
  • Lead-based paint is the most widespread cause of lead poisoning, but we need comprehensive solutions to address ALL hazards. 
  • There are proven & cost effective solutions. In fact, replacing lead service lines for just the children born in 2018 would protect 350,000 individuals from future lead poisoning.
  • Solutions must include diverse stakeholders including drinking water professionals, public health officials, elected officials, community leaders and concerned consumers.
  • Lead contamination resources need to be easily accessible for individuals affected by lead in their drinking supply. 
  • Simply providing bottled water is not a long-term solution.

Public Health representatives from two municipalities (Milwaukee and Cincinnati) also spoke at the forum, and offered their lessons learned:

  • Partial Lead Service Line replacement can cause more lead to be released into drinking water supplies. Full line replacement should be the desired strategy, and working with all stakeholders to pass city-wide ordinances requiring full replacement is the most effective way to do this. 
  • Developing lead protocols for emergency leaks and repairs is critical.
  • City-wide outreach and education/awareness campaigns are a must.
  • Prioritizing schools or childcare facilities for line replacement makes sense. 
  • Milwaukee used Wisconsin's Drinking Water State Revolving Funds to replace service lines at schools, Cincinnati used a HUD grant to replace service lines for low-income residents.  
  • Cincinnati formed a county-level collaborative and pooled resources, technical providers, outreach professionals. They also targeted their outreach to PTAs, Church groups, community organizations. 
  • Challenges include: switching out interior plumbing (inside private residences), missing out on targeting some childcare/schools because they are not licensed, and finding the time and resources to communicate effectively with customers. 

Finally, Cathy Bailey, from Greater Cincinnati Water Works, a system that encompasses an area with the second highest child poverty rate and second-highest number of lead lines in the country, offered her perspective. Her system has adopted a 15-year program for full service line replacement, with cost-assistance for low-income residents and cost-sharing arrangements for other property owners. Her advice for water systems? 

  • Water Utilities should lead the effort to start the conversation about lead in drinking water and service line replacement. Utilities have a  big stake in this issue. 
  • Utilities can be proactive in providing tools and education to their community. Cincinnati provides online resources such as a lead "map' and free lead testing as well as assistance to schools funded by their general operating budget.
  • Utilities can be proactive in communicating within their organization. Cincinnati Water Works has an internal dashboard to compile lead test results, health statistics and more. They then can identify homes that qualify for free P.O.U filters. 
  • Cincinnati Water Works partners with the health department to share data, understand water quality issues and help individuals and schools mediate problems. 

The panel participant's message was clear: lead service line replacement is simply the right thing to do for communities, and partnerships with health departments and water utilities are critical to that process. Want to find out more? Check out the Lead Service Line Collaborative's online roadmap/toolkit or follow #safewater on Twitter. 

Featured Videos: Onsite Wastewater Systems

According to the US Census Bureau, one in four homes in the U.S. is served by an onsite wastewater system. Our first featured video this week explores some of these onsite options and then explains in simple terms how each of these systems work in different soil conditions and what it takes to maintain them. In the end, the video shows how the cost-effectiveness of septic systems can often more than outweigh the cost of a centralized system for many smaller communities. 


Wondering how to find the funding to get these types of decentralized systems off the ground? Our second video this week explores how innovative partnerships and Clean Water State Revolving Funds can be used for exactly these kinds of projects.


Do you want to find out more about onsite wastewater options and how to pay for them? Head over to our 
resource library and pick "decentralized ww systems" as a category! 

WaterOperator.org Staff Interviews Illinois Small Systems

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This past year, WaterOperator.org program director Steve Wilson and his staff were out and about in rural Illinois talking to water and wastewater operators about their struggles as well as their strategies. The interviews were part of a ISAWWA Small Systems Committee (SCC) initiative to bring to light the significant challenges encountered by small systems across the state. 

The results of these interviews were published as a series of eight articles entitled "Putting the Focus on Small Systems" in the Fall 2017 edition of ISAWWA's Splash magazine. Each article describes the unique challenges encountered by a specific system.

In the small town of Monticello, for instance, water works manager Scott Bailey (shown above with WaterOperator staff member Alison Meanor) describes how he manages an aging distribution system while tackling arsenic compliance issues. And in the small communities of Beason and Chestnut, Chair of the Water District Board Mark Carlin shares how the board proactively reached out to RCAP staff for help with funding much-needed infrastructure improvements. 

Many thanks to the operators, board members, technical assistance providers and government officials who agreed to meet with us and talk about their systems!  

Ten important tips to obtain FEMA financial assistance following a disaster

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While the right amount of spring rain bring a good kick-start to crops and gardens, the wrong amount can overwhelm drinking water and wastewater systems. In the past, we’ve compiled resources on how to prepare for natural hazards, but how can your utility recover if the damage is already done?

If the worst case scenario hits your utility, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) may be able to provide financial assistance for repairs. FEMA's Public Assistance grants are available to state, tribal and local governments, and certain types of private nonprofit organizations so that communities can quickly respond to major disasters or emergencies. This includes the repair, replacement, or restoration of disaster-damaged public facilities and those owned by certain private non-profit organizations.

These funds become available when your state declares a state of emergency and, if additional recovery assistance is needed, your governor sends a request letter to the president. If the president then decides to declare a major disaster or emergency, FEMA designates the area eligible for assistance and announces the kinds available. Most recently, President Trump has declared disasters in California and Nevada for damage from severe winter flooding.

In addition to the guidance offered under FEMA’s Frequently Asked Questions page and their complete 2017 Public Assistance Program and Policy Guide, the Missouri Rural Water Association has compiled the following ten points that will help ensure your project runs smoothly.

  1. Call your insurance agent, or company, to make sure of your coverage.  FEMA assistance is only there to supplement what insurance doesn't cover.
  2. Pick a person with your system to be the Point of Contact for FEMA/SEMA.  Nothing slows the process down than a large government agency talking with multiple people from one system.
  3. Make sure everything is tracked: working hours, mileage, overtime, volunteer labor, accrued expenses, contractors, etc. When in doubt, count it. You will find standardized forms for Missouri here
  4. After you count it, take a picture of it.  Take pictures of damage, take large-view pictures of your assets that have been damaged, take close up-view pictures of damage, take pictures of your equipment, take pictures of your employees who are working and volunteers that help you work, take pictures of where flood trash is at, take pictures of where you are putting the flood trash, attempt to take before and after photos of everything you see.  Use a cell phone or a camera, but take pictures, and give all of those pictures, with descriptions, to the Point of Contact stated in Item 2 so that person can organize the pictures and have them ready.
  5. It is best to have a policy in place on bidding services and follow that during the event.  Hopefully you will have this in place before the emergency rather than trying to create and follow one during the emergency.
  6. Importantly, keep in touch with your County Emergency Management Director.  This person will be your point of contact for a disaster declaration.
  7. It is encouraged that your system holds an update meeting every day during the recovery to exchange information, pictures, status reports so that everyone is on the same page, especially the Point of Contact person knows they possess the latest information.  You may consider a less frequent meeting after the incident is done but you are still performing paperwork.
  8. Many states will continue to do Preliminary Disaster Assessments (PDA's).  This is done to determine how each county is truly affected and what dollar amounts will be allocated within that county.  The President's declaration makes funds available. That doesn't mean you'll actually get them; it depends on how the funds get allocated.
  9. Your County will hold a meeting where you will fill out paper work to participate in the declaration. Find out from your County Emergency Management Director when this meeting will occur.
  10. And finally, understand that this is not a quick process and one that has to be persistently and patiently followed up on.

 If you have any specific questions about this process it is best to first talk to your County Emergency Management Director.  You may also contact WaterOperator.org’s help line at (866) 522-2681 and our staff will help connect you to the right person.