Featured Video: Lower Rio Grande Public Water Works Authority

Lower Rio Grande Public Water Works Authority from RCAC on Vimeo.

To see more resources for water utilities from RCAC, check out their Guidebooks.

Water Loss and Conservation for Small Utilities

Water loss is an unavoidable part of distribution systems, yet too much can stress the supply and efficiency of your utility. The average water loss for systems is estimated at 16 percent, up to 75 percent of which is recoverable. This water may be disappearing due to faulty or aging infrastructure via pipe breaks and leaks, storage overflows, and house connection leaks. It’s also possible the water loss is only apparent, not real, due to errors like unauthorized consumption or inaccurate meters.

Identify your water loss

Your utility can calculate water loss as the difference between system input (the volume of water your utility delivers), and consumption (the volume of water that can be accounted for by legitimate consumption, whether metered or not.) The EPA outlines the following calculations in their overview of water audits and water loss control:

1. Determine the amount of water added to the system, typically for a one year period,
2. Determine authorized consumption (billed + unbilled), and
3. Calculate water losses (water losses = system input – authorized consumption)
   1. Estimate apparent losses (unauthorized consumption  + customer meter inaccuracies + billing errors and adjustments)
   2. Calculate real losses (real losses = water losses – apparent losses)  

For a quick estimate, you can also use the Monthly Water Loss Calculator from the Missouri Rural Water Association. If you aren’t sure of the right numbers to plug into these calculations, your system may need a water audit. Maryland’s Water Supply Program offers guidance on preparing for water audits and linking them to a water loss reduction plan.

Identify your action items

Once your water loss calculations have determined whether you should take conservation actions, you’ll have a host of options to choose from. One of the most comprehensive overviews in our WaterOperator.org library comes from the Florida Rural Water Association, which not only lists options available but grades the water savings, cost effectiveness, and ease of implantation for each. In general, most of your options will fall under:

• Meter installation, testing and replacement
• Leak detection and management
• Pipe repair and replacement
• Correcting water theft and meter tampering
• Setting conservation rates, if appropriate

If your utility is functioning well, or if you’re unable to make changes but facing a water shortage, you can also work directly with customers to change their usage habits. We’ve found few compilations of home water conservation tips more extensive than this 100+ item list compiled by the Water Use It Wisely.

Evaluate performance

Finally, your utility will want to set benchmarks for the interventions and check back on your calculations periodically to see how the system improves. To find more resources on how to identify and correct water loss, including those specific to your state, be sure to check our document database at wateroperator.org/library. 

Featured Video: This American Land: Critical Aquifer

Featured Video: Communicating Science

Preparing a consumer confidence report

July 1 is around the corner, the deadline for community water suppliers to deliver their annual Consumer Confidence Report (CCR) to their customers. The CCR is a water quality report or a drinking water quality report, and is required under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Consumer Confidence Report Rule.

Every community water system serving at least 15 service connections and/or 25 people year round must prepare and distribute a report. To assist with preparing these, the EPA provides compliance tools and documents.

Gathering Results

The reports are based on calendar-year data, so your report due to customers this July 1, 2017 will be based on data collected between January and December 2016. CCRs must show the highest level of each detected contaminant (this is usually the value you report to the state to determine compliance) and the range of levels of that contaminant you found during the CCR calendar year assuming more than one sample was collected.

Additionally, the CCR Rule requires that drinking water standards and water sample results are presented as numbers greater than or equal to 1.0 in order to enhance consumer understanding of their drinking water quality. These units are often referred to as CCR units. For conversion assistance, view Converting Laboratory Units into CCR Units.

Writing the Report

Briefly, CCRs must include contact information for your utility, identify the water source, define acronyms and technical terms, report and explain levels of contaminants, explain any violations, variations and exemptions, and finally, include some required educational language. A complete explanation of CCR requirements begins on page 7 of the EPA document Preparing Your Drinking Water Consumer Confidence Report: Guidance for Water Suppliers. The document also includes sample language and definitions you can use, a certification form, and examples of CCRs.

As you begin formatting your CCR report, be sure to check the EPA’s Best Practices Fact Sheet for tips on formatting and language that will make your report easy for customers without your technical knowledge to understand.

Distribution to Customers

Distribution requirements can vary. In some states, the mailing requirement may be waived for systems serving less than 10,000 and substituted with a different option, such as publishing the CCR results in one or more local newspapers. If the mailing requirement is waived and your system serves less than 500, then you do not need to publish in a newspaper, but at least once a year, you must notify customers through a mailed, delivered, or posted notice that the CCR is available from your water system upon request.

In addition to sharing sampling results with your customers, the CCR is an opportunity to share the work you’ve completed to produce their drinking water, manage problems, and introduce future improvements and requirements for your utility.

Information for Your State

And finally, don’t forget to visit WaterOperator.org’s document library to find help documents and samples specific to your state. Simply select your state from the filters and enter a keyword search for “Consumer Confidence Report” or “CCR.”

Raise your profile with AWWA’s Drinking Water Week

This week marks the American Water Works Association’s drinking water awareness week, and they are offering a suite of free materials for water operators and utilities to raise you profile in your local communities.

“This year’s Drinking Water Week will motivate water consumers to be actively aware of how they personally connect with water,” said AWWA Chief Executive Officer David LaFrance. “We should all know how to find and fix leaks, care for our home’s pipes and support our utility’s investment in water infrastructure.”

The materials – which include artwork, public service announcements, press and social media posts and more – provide an introduction four key steps AWWA is highlighting for water users this year:

• Drinking Water Week Introduction – AWWA encourages getting to know and love tap water.
• Get the Lead Out – Replace lead-based water pipes and plumbing.
• Check and Fix Leaks – Conserve water by checking and fixing leaks inside and outside the home.
• Caring For Pipes – Stop clogs before they happen by learning more about what can and can’t be flushed.
• Water Infrastructure Investment – Protect your water supply by advocating for investment in the repair and replacement of infrastructure.

Help celebrate the rest of Drinking Water Week, and bookmark their materials for the next time your program wants to promote these issues.

Featured Video: Rural Missouri Climate Adaptation

Though it may still feel like spring, depending on where you are in the country, summer is just around the corner. And with summer comes the possibility of drought. Is your utility at risk of drought conditions? Do you know what you'd do if a drought visited your community? Occasional but severe weather events can feel hard to plan for, but not planning at all can make the situation worse. In this 2-minute video, a small rural community in Missouri talks about the planning efforts they're taking on to be prepared for drought in the future, after a particularly tough 2012. Interestingly, their plans to combat drought mesh well with their concerns about sediment in their source water supply as well.

If you'd like to learn more about climate adaptation planning for your utility, check out the tools available through the EPA's Climate Resilient Water Utilities portal, and in particular their risk assessment tool.

Drought Resources for a Dry Summer

If you live in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina or parts of the Southwest, your utility may be facing drought conditions this summer. Recently, we’ve shared resources for setting rates to encourage water conservation, gaining community buy-in through social marketing, and helping customers track their water use through smart metering.

Yet if you’re not sure yet what your utility needs, you can find a start-to-finish planning guide in the EPA’s comprehensive Drought Response and Recovery Guide, which provides worksheets, best practices, videos and key resources for responding to drought. The guide is paired with an interactive map of case studies of small and medium-sized drinking water utilities in the U.S. that have successfully responded to drought. Video interviews of utility managers and officials will walk viewers through how these towns located emergency resources and then built up their long term resilience.

Rural development specialist Dean Downey of RCAC recommends four steps below to developing a water shortage contingency plan.

Step 1: Establish your utility priorities. The EPA and USDA's Rural and Small Systems Guidebook to Sustainable Utility Management lists ten key management areas of sustainably managed utilities.  By addressing priority areas such as product quality, financial viability, operation resiliency, and others, water system managers can address challenges and increase their effectiveness.

Step 2: Identify your potential water shortage events. Drought, water quality degradation, or equipment failure can reduce or eliminate supply. Water treatment or distribution system failure can also cause major water shortage events. Events can be natural, man-made, or due to equipment failure. As utility system personnel you will most likely have the best idea where to focus your limited resources in planning for water shortages.

Step 3: Assess risks. Don’t spend your time on events that probably won’t occur or that will have limited impact on your utility. Assess both the likelihood and impact of a failure to evaluate the risks.

Step 4: Involve other stakeholders. Don’t forget to include other agencies and groups in the process. Utility personnel are prone to believe they can handle just about any incident. This may be true to a certain extent, but usually utilities underestimate available resources and abilities needed to handle larger or more complex water shortage events.

Downey writes that additional steps include, examining water supply and demand, identifying trigger mechanisms for implementing the plan, and ensuring financial and legal backing.

You can view a full list of RCAC materials for drought planning here, including the Action Plan for Emergency Drought Management, a template for water systems serving fewer than 3,300 people to help assess a drought situation and take immediate actions to mitigate its impact on the community.

Still can’t find what you’re looking for? Search WaterOperator.org’s resource library for more guidance and example plans to keep your utility running smoothly through a dry (or wet!) summer.

Featured Video: Is Your Drinking Water Protected?

For the last two weeks, our featured videos have talked about the benefits of stormwater management. While stormwater management and green infrastructure are great ways of protecting your source water, a lot more goes into source water protection. Source water protection plans, wellhead protection plans, and watershed protection areas can all play a vital role in ensuring your source water enters your treatment plant in the best condition possible. This week's video takes three minutes to summarize the financial, environmental, and water quality benefits of formal source water protection planning. It does mention the state of Pennsylvania specifically, but much of the information is useful to anyone considering these questions.

If you're interested in learning more about how source water protection planning works, you might be interested in the materials offered by the Washington Department of Health's Source Water Protection program and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's Wellhead Protection program. 

Featured Video: Green Infrastructure for Small Rural Communities

Last week, we shared videos for educating your consumers in ways to improve stormwater quality and increase infiltration. But maybe you're interested in these topics as well. In that case, this week's video is for you. This hour-long webinar recording highlights green infrastructure efforts taken on by two small, rural communities. Representatives from the utilities in those communities discuss reasons why they wanted to take on stormwater management, reasons why they chose green infrastructure, the projects and programs they implemented, lessons learned, and project funding. It includes before and after and process images, but is not a highly detailed build guide.