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WaterOperator.org Blog

Resources and Tools to Help Secure Your Utility's Infrastructure

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Infrastructure Security Month is held annually in November to promote the vital role of critical infrastructure and to remind us why it is important to strengthen the security and resilience of America's critical infrastructure. Below are some useful resources and tools to help your utility secure your infrastructure and increase resilience to natural disasters and malevolent acts that threaten the water sector.

Water Contaminant Information Tool (WCIT)
WCIT is a secure database containing information on priority contaminants of concern for drinking water and wastewater systems to help systems prepare for, respond to, and recover from contamination incidents.

Creating Resilient Water Utilities (CRWU)
CRWU initiative assists drinking water and wastewater utilities in building resilience to climate impacts.

Resilient Strategies Guide for Water Utilities
The Resilient Strategies Guide introduces drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater utilities to the adaptation planning process. Utilities can use the Guide to identify their planning priorities, vulnerable assets, potential adaptation strategies and available funding sources.

Incident Action Checklists for Water Utilities
These 12 checklist templates help with emergency preparedness, response and recovery activities. Incidents include wildfires, flooding, power outages, cybersecurity, and more. 

Federal Funding for Water and Wastewater Utilities in National Disasters (Fed FUNDS)
Fed FUNDS provides information tailored to water and wastewater utilities on federal disaster and mitigation funding programs from FEMA, USDA, EPA, HUD, SBA, and USBR.

Better ERPs Part 4: Is Your System All-Hazard Ready?

Last year saw record-breaking heat, severe storms, and worsening drought conditions across the country. And current NOAA predictions suggests the first half of 2016 won’t be much different as El Nino continues to have widespread effects. If these events have left you asking, “What would I do if something like that happened in my community,” you’re not alone. 

In part four of our series on improving emergency response plans, we want to help you find an answer. The tips and resources below will walk you through the process of developing an all-hazards response plan and provide specific guidance for some of the most common hazards.

  1. Understand your vulnerability to extreme weather. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is a great resource here. Their Ready.gov website has information on when and where extreme events are most likely to take place.
  2. Identify vulnerable assets. Are key equipment located in the floodplain? Are your circuitry and control panels secured for high winds?
  3. Identify possible mitigation measures would protect vulnerable assets and priority operations. Putting in place a procedure to top off water in storage tanks prior to a hurricane or bolting down chemical tanks in advance of a flood are just a few examples.
  4. Determine which mitigation measures should be implemented. Keep in mind costs, effectiveness, and practicality when making this decision.
  5. Identify actions that will need to be taken immediately before and after an event. For example, sandbagging treatment sheds or turning off water meters at destroyed homes and buildings.
  6. Write a plan to implement mitigation and rapid-response measures. This should be revised periodically and integrated into your utility's overall asset management process.
  7. Be prepared to act. Include rapid-response measures in your employee training programs and keep staff and other stakeholders up-to-date on any changes.

For more planning tips and information on common hazards, check out these resources and visit our documents database. You can also learn more about drought preparedness in part two of this series.

Water/Wastewater All-Hazards Boot Camp Training
This training course is designed for water and wastewater employees responsible for emergency response and recovery activities. It also explains why and how to implement an all-hazards program. The program walks you through a scenario with Our Town Utility staff, lets you hear from water sector representatives, and tests your knowledge on prevention and mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.

Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene (WASH)-Related Emergencies & Outbreaks
This CDC portal offers a comprehensive set of tools and resources for not only responding to a crisis but also preparing for the worst. Preparedness resources include preparedness toolkits, preparedness training, and directions for emergency disinfection of water.

Climate Ready Water Utility: Adaptation Strategies Guide & Planning for Extreme Weather Events
This webinar presentation highlights the Workshop Planner and the Adaptation Strategies Guide, and how a utility can use them both when developing adaptation plans. It also highlights utility experiences with the tools.

Flood Resilience: A Basic Guide for Water and Wastewater Utilities
With a user-friendly layout, embedded videos, and flood maps to guide you, EPA's Flood Resilience Guide is your one-stop resource to know your flooding threat and identify practical mitigation options to protect your critical assets.

Incident Action Checklist – Tornado
Use this comprehensive list from U.S. EPA to prepare for, respond to, and recover from a tornado.

Emergency Response for Drinking and Wastewater Utilities
This EPA portal has a variety of tools, including mobile-friendly websites, to support utility preparedness and response.

Better ERPs Part 2: Templates

So you've held a water emergency roundtable discussion and are ready to put pen to paper, so to speak. Fortunately, you don't have to start with a blank piece of paper. There is a suite of resources available for utilities—and small water suppliers particularly—to help you prepare for the unknown and plan for the rare events.

The free templates provided here will help you get started. If you don't see something that fits your system's needs, search "emergency response plan templates" in our documents database to find more resources.

Emergency Response Planning Template for Public Drinking Water Systems

This 22-page document developed by the Rural Community Assistance Partnership is intended for use by any water system serving a population of 3,300 or fewer and can be modified to fit specific system needs. The template is intended to be used as a starting point based on what is relevant for the type, size, and complexity of the system.

Rural & Small Water and Wastewater System Emergency Response Plan Template

This 47-page template is designed to be a guide for Emergency Response Planning. Emergency response planning should be a coordinated and planned process. Proper planning can lessen the impact of an emergency. All staff should be trained as to their responsibility within the plan and how it will be implemented. This template was designed to address various emergency hazards that may occur in rural and small systems. It incorporates emergencies that may be the result of terrorism. Regardless of the type of emergency whether natural or man-made each system has the responsibility to be prepared to protect the public health and to restore services that may be impacted.

Disaster-Specific Preparedness/Response Plan for Public Drinking Water Systems - XYZ Water System Template

This 69-page template has been developed to help you prepare your Emergency Response Plan. The ERP Guide (see separate document, here) and Template is intended for use by any water system and may be modified to fit the specific needs of each system. The ERP guide follows the outline in the template—section by section

Emergency Response Plan Template
This 26-page form is an outline of an emergency response plan for water operators to fill out and complete. This document is in pdf form, but the fillable Word format of this document can be found here.

Emergency Response Plan of Action
This 40-page template is used to create an emergency response plan for a public water system. There are many situations that may cause impairment of water quality or disruption of service. In Maine, the most common is loss of water pressure or contamination of the water supply, source, or lines. Some common examples include main breaks, power outage, treatment failure, numerous types of contamination, extreme weather and or structural damage, floods, and equipment failure. This template goes over each topic to create the most efficient ERP. 

Better ERPs Part 1: Hosting a Roundtable Discussion

Creating a strong emergency plan is often easier said than done—and the middle of an emergency is the worst time to discover you’ve forgotten something. This is the first of a four-part series with guides and tips to help you build a comprehensive emergency response plan. 

Before you start drafting, though, consider hosting a water emergency roundtable discussion. These events provide a unique opportunity to connect water security with broader preparedness and community resiliency efforts underway in your region. Here’s a quick glance at what you can do to host a successful discussion: 

  1. Consult with partners within your water community to identify the groups that need to be at the table. Some groups to consider include hospitals, schools, farm operations, industrial parks, municipal pools, and first responders.
  2. Set a date and secure a meeting place that meets your meeting needs.
  3. Work with partners or co-hosts to ensure that the room has the equipment needed, such as a laptop, PowerPoint projector, and pens and pads for meeting participants.
  4. Have your water utility manager or superintendent call the groups to invite them to the event. A personal call typically results in a more positive response and can be followed by a formal invite and RSVP request.
  5. Call confirmed participants to outline what types of information participants will need to bring with them, how the discussion will be facilitated, and how sensitive information will be treated.
  6. Confirm with partners or co-hosts who will be responsible for facilitating the discussion, compiling participant data, putting together registration packets, welcoming participants, presenting, taking notes, and writing a meeting summary.
  7. Arrive at least on hour before the event is scheduled to set up materials and manage last minute details.
  8. Use meeting notes and discussed action items to develop a short report for participants.
  9. Write and distribute an internal and external report on progress towards action items approximately six months after the event.
  10. Determine the need for a follow-up meeting.

For more tips and sample invitation scripts, read the Water Emergency Roundtable—Outline for Discussion developed by the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators and EPA Region 5. And check back for part two of our series for free templates you can use when you're ready to write your emergency response plan.