Ten important tips to obtain FEMA financial assistance following a disaster

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.

Featured Video: Freddy the Fish

If April showers have arrived at your utility, then stormwater topics are probably at the forefront of your mind---and your customers' minds too. This makes it a great moment for public education. There are things utilities can do to mitigate stormwater quality, but nothing works quite as well as having your community pitch in to clean up the watershed. This week's video presents basic practices that improve stormwater quality, in terms aimed at your youngest consumers. Freddy the Fish focuses on reducing litter, picking up dog poop, and eliminating storm sewer dumping, and combines these messages with animated and live-action video and brief singalongs. The video would be a particularly good fit for presentations to young school-age children, which in turn can be a great way to engage your community.

For more stormwater public outreach materials, search our document database using the category Stormwater and the type Factsheets/Case Studies. You might also be interested in the EPA's video on stormwater (for adults) here.

Cellular Metering for Small Systems

Guest post from Brenda Koenig, Illinois State Water Survey.

Cellular-enabled water meters – also called smart meters – can make all the benefits of smart grid technology attainable for even for small systems on a budget. In this post, we’ll review the pros and cons of cellular vs. traditional metering systems.

Cellular meters offer service benefits

Due to their independence from physical infrastructure, a cellular system is better equipped to continue working through emergencies, such as floods, that might damage a large physical network. Cellular networks also make it easier to service dispersed or geographically diverse areas.

One of their greatest benefits is the speed of data. Cellular meters allow utility managers and customers to monitor their activity in real-time on the web. This improves leak detection and provides more opportunities for water conservation.

Weighing the costs

Cellular meters have potential to save utilities money on some fronts. Their use of cloud-based advanced metering analytic (AMA) software eliminates the need for expensive software installations at the plant. They also eliminate the need for a physical network of antennas, repeaters, wiring installations, and data collection units. Without the need for physical site visits to read traditional meters, utilities may also save staff time.

However, start-up costs for cellular metering can be significant, even without the expense of physical infrastructure. Buying and installing cellular meters can cost two to three times more than traditional meters. Staff and infrastructure costs will depend on what system you currently have in place. Cellular monitoring is compatible with most DEP and AWWA approved, AMR-compatible meters, but incompatible meters would need to be replaced. Staff may need to be retrained to install, maintain, and operate the new systems, as well as manage data, train customers, and set rates.

A growing trend

By 2020, it is estimated that 600,000 cellular water meters will be distributed annually, with companies such as Badger Meter, Arad Group, Neptune Technology Group, and Master Meter introducing cellular metering technologies.

So how does a small system decide if and when they too should adopt these new, game-changing cellular-based tools that are becoming more widely available and affordable? Much depends on each unique system’s needs and priorities, as well as the funding and political context in which they operate. Systems that are leak-prone or that need to step up their water conservation efforts may benefit from the daily feedback offered by cellular meters. Pilot programs or a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis can help utilities decide whether the tradeoffs in staff time, technology, and infrastructure expenses make sense. Finally, one of the best things to do is to talk to other systems about their experiences. Utilities with similar budgets, sizes, and goals can provide a lot of advice and references.

Resources:

Novato water district rolls out ‘smart’ meter pilot project news article, Marin Independent Journal 3/21/17

Big Data Flows: Water, Outsourcing, and the Flood of Data news article, EarthZine 6/30/15

Moving Towards Sustainable and Resilient Smart Water Grids journal article, Challenges 3/21/14

City looking to tap new water meters news article, Kingsville Record 3/1/15

RCAP - Water Metering Technologies presentation, RCAP Prezi 4/29/15

Advanced Metering Infrastructure, memo, City of Novi 4/24/15 

Featured Video: Arsenic Treatment in a Rural Town

Over time, low levels of exposure to arsenic can result in cancer. This is a sobering fact for anyone, but it's particularly challenging for small rural towns with arsenic in their drinking water. When neither the utility nor the residents have access to other water options, treatment is of the utmost importance. But because arsenic doesn't cause taste or odor issues, or produce immediate health effects, getting that treatment in place can sometimes be difficult. Learning how other small utilities did it can help. In this week's video, the manager of a small rural utility in Montana introduces his utility and describes how they chose to put arsenic treatment in place for their system.

For more on arsenic in drinking water topics, see this USEPA factsheet (PDF), or search our document database using the category Arsenic.

Featured Video: Valve Maintenance

Spring is traditionally the time to knock out the cobwebs and dust off the high shelves. For those of us living in areas with cold winters, it's often the first time going outside has felt pleasant for months. For those in warmer climates, it's often time to batten down the hatches for the serious summer heat. But no matter where you live, spring cleaning season is officially here. And your utility doesn't need to be any different! Spring can be a great time to start your valve exercise program, whether you're making your post-winter maintenance assessment or getting things in shape for the summer. And this week's video, from our partners at the Rural Community Assistance Partnership (RCAP), is a great resources as you get started. The 4-and-a-half minute video provides a brief walkthrough of the valve exercising process, along with dos and don'ts and maintenance tips.

For more videos from RCAP, check out their channel on Vimeo. For more on valve topics, search our document database using the keywords "valve exercising" or "valve maintenance" (both without the quote marks) in the Keyword Filter.

Lessons from the California drought: Planning rates and water conservation can protect utilities from lean times ahead.

By the time California entered its fifth year of historic drought last summer, water utilities across the state were dire straits. Statewide conservation orders had succeeded in many areas at reaching their much-needed target reductions, yet water agencies were struggling to meet their operating costs while facing millions in lost revenue.

Planning ahead can be critical to operating through decreases in demand or water use restrictions like those seen in California, especially with drought predictions ahead for states like Virginia and New Jersey. In the Twin Cities of Minnesota, the Metropolitan Council has assembled a suite of programs and practices water suppliers can implement to do just that.

This Water Conservation Toolbox for suppliers deals with the practical need to align rates with revenue, reduce water losses, and develop a water conservation program for your community.

Setting water rate structures that encourage conservation

The Toolbox includes two programs to help utilities set rates that work for water conservation. Learn through videos by the Water Research Foundation, or run calculations for different scenarios through University of North Carolina’s Water Utility Revenue Risk Assessment Tool. The tool allows utilities to calculate how much of revenue is at risk of loss if their customers lower their consumption, providing estimates based on the utility's own rate structure, customer demand profile, and weather conditions.

If you find a rate increase is needed for your utility, see our blog posts on how to lay the groundwork for approval and gaining community buy-in.

Stopping water and energy loss

Programs to audit leaks, recycle and reuse water and reduce energy can all save utilities money during water conservation. The Toolbox provides resources to learn about the close tie between water and energy efficiency at your utility, and how to identify losses. If you see a need for change, the Toolbox can connect you to help like the Water Loss Control Resource Community.

Building a water conservation program

Finally, the Toolbox features a suite of water conservation programs to borrow ideas from. Browse a library of options from rebate and voucher programs to school education from the Alliance for Water Efficiency. And when a change in infrastructure is needed to stop water loss, the U.S. EPA provides a list of resources for financing new water infrastructure in your community.

Getting a head start to avoid disaster

In the height of the California drought in 2016, Water Board chair Feilcia Marcus told the Sacramento Bee that, with the state facing longer, more frequent droughts, local districts need to devise rate structures that take into account prolonged conservation.

“It’s certainly a challenge for some of them, but not one that can’t be overcome,” Marcus said. “The right answer can’t be that we can’t save water in the worst drought in modern history because we haven’t gotten around to changing our rate structures, or because somebody might yell at us.” 

Featured Video: Operator Math

In a lot of ways, the ability to do math is like the ability to use a muscle. You always have muscles, of course, but whether you're able to use a particular muscle or muscle group depends on how developed it is. In other words, it depends on how often you use those muscles, whether you're lifting weights regularly or just hauling around a heavy toolbox on a daily basis. Math is the same way. Sure, on any good day you can probably handle 2 + 2. But for more complicated problems, regular practice and a thorough understanding of the principles can help those equations go from a headache to a breeze. Since water and wastewater operators often find themselves calculating things like chemical doses, the volume of complicated objects, and rate of flow, keeping in good mathematic shape can go a long way to making your life easier. And of course, being in practice doesn't do any harm when it's time to sit for your exams either!

There are a lot of ways to brush up on your math skills, and sometimes it helps to try a couple until you find what works best for you. Our document database has collected math help in a wide variety of formats under the Certification/Exam Prep category. Use "math" (without the quote marks) in the keyword filter box to narrow it down to just math help. But if you're someone who needs to see someone else work the problem in order to get what's going on, this week's videos might be a particularly good fit.

Indigo Water Group, a water and wastewater operator trainer in Colorado, has created a playlist of videos in which their owner works common water and wastewater math problems. Most of these videos are short and broken down by kind of problem. The exception is an hour long video devoted to wastewater math. At the time of this writing, the other videos in the playlist covered unit conversions, geometry, dosing, reducing MLSS concentrations, velocity and HRT, and digester problems. But more topics have been slowly added over time, so there may be more in the future. The video below links the entire playlist, which starts with three short unit conversion videos.

The YouTube channel CAwastewater takes a slightly different approach. Instead of breaking the videos down by topic, the channel owner (who is an operator himself) breaks down the videos by the state exam level where the problems are most likely to appear. He has playlists for the California exam levels 1, 2, and 3, and one playlist that combines the math for 4 and 5. Though these videos are aimed at California wastewater operators, both water and wastewater operators from across the country will likely get something out of them. The individual videos are about 5-10 minutes long, and the playlists are about a half hour to an hour. Choose the playlist that looks most interesting to you.

Hopefully, these operator math videos will help you round out your mathematical fitness routine, leaving you well prepared for operations challenges and certification exams alike. And if there's a great free math resource that we didn't mention here that you want to be sure we know about, let us know in the comments!

Many Organizations Offer Resources for Tribal Utilities

Grants and the agencies that offer them

Of course, federal agencies don’t just offer technical assistance. Many offer grants and low-interest loans as well. If you know exactly what’s needed for your system but have no idea how you’d pay for it, these programs may be something you want to look into.

USDA Rural Development Grants

The Water and Waste Disposal Loan & Grant Program – “Provides funding for clean and reliable drinking water systems, sanitary sewage disposal, sanitary solid waste disposal, and storm water drainage to households and businesses in eligible rural areas.” Federally recognized tribes with lands in rural areas are eligible for these grants. Tribes on state reservations may be eligible as well. (See page 50 of this report for details.)

Individual Water & Wastewater Grants – These grants “provide government funds to households residing in an area recognized as a colonia before October 1, 1989.  Grant funds may be used to connect service lines to a residence, pay utility hook-up fees, install plumbing and related fixtures, i.e. bathroom sink, bathtub or shower, commode, kitchen sink, water heater, outside spigot, or bathroom, if lacking… This program is only eligible in states with Colonias, and those are Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas.”

Water & Waste Disposal Technical Assistance & Training Grants - These grants can help a local, regional, or national non-profit organization provide training and technical assistance to tribal communities.

AmeriCorps

AmeriCorps Indian Tribes Grants – Though the window for this fiscal year’s grants has closed, you can see typical funding priorities on the 2016 grant page.

HUD

Indian Community Development Block Grant Program – This program “provides eligible grantees with direct grants for use in developing viable Indian and Alaska Native Communities, including decent housing, a suitable living environment, and economic opportunities, primarily for low and moderate income persons.” Community facilities and infrastructure construction, including water and sewer facilities, are covered by the grant.

Border Community Capital Initiative – Though this program is currently hosted on HUD’S website, it’s actually a collaborative effort between HUD, USDA Rural Development, and the Department of the Treasury – Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund). “The Initiative's goal is to increase access to capital for affordable housing, business lending and community facilities in the chronically underserved and undercapitalized U.S./Mexico border region. Specifically, it will provide direct investment and technical assistance to community development lending and investing institutions that focus on affordable housing, small business and community facilities to benefit the residents of colonias.”

Professional assistance for tribal projects

While there are a lot of valuable federal resources available to tribes, you may have local or regional non-governmental organizations available to you as well. Many of them focus on broader water-related topics like environmental management or GIS training, though there are a few specifically aimed at utilities as well. To find non-governmental technical assistance providers specific to water utilities, you can visit our tribal technical assistance provider page and scroll down to the regional and tribal organizations. 

Tribal Utility Governance Program (TUG) – This tribe-specific utility program provided training and technical assistance on utility management and financial and managerial capacity issues for personnel of tribally-owned and operated public water systems. Though the training sessions have now been completed and the program has ended, you can find the program manual and recordings of the three training modules here.

Amigos Bravos – This New Mexico non-profit is a statewide water conservation organization that is inspired by and works closely with the state’s tribes and native Hispanic populations. They also work with other local communities and urban environments. They are best known as a river and water protection organization.

Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals – ITEP, based at Northern Arizona University, offers events, training, and resources on a wide variety of tribal environmental topics, including air quality (indoor and outdoor), waste & response, climate change, and energy, with occasional resources dedicated specifically to water topics. In addition to their training, they’ve collected an online database of resources on tribal or environmental issues, as well as a resource center and several tribal partnership groups.

Tribal Pollution Prevention Network – Modeled on the USEPA Pollution Prevention program, this tribe-focused network is focused on reducing the environmental and health risks associated with the generation of waste in tribal lands. Membership in the national network is open to environmental professionals from tribal entities, local state and federal agencies, and not-for-profit organizations.

Salish Kootenai College Hydrology Program – Native Americans interested in the field of hydrology may want to check out SKC’s program, which offers both Associate of Science and Bachelor’s degrees. Hydrology is the study of the earth’s water and its movement in relation to land. It’s not a field directly related to water utilities, but having a hydrologist around who understands the water in your region can be a huge asset to a utility facing certain source water problems.

American Indian Higher Education Consortium – Though Salish Kootenai College is the only American Indian college currently offering a degree specific to water issues, many of the consortium’s colleges offer environmental science degrees and certificates. Most of those programs emphasize a mix of western science and traditional environmental management approaches.

TribalGIS.com – This organization is facilitated by the non-profit National Tribal Geographic Information Support Center (NTGISC) with support from Wind Environmental Services, a 100% Native American owned and operated GIS firm. It offers a variety of GIS support services specifically for tribes, as well as an annual conference focused on tribal GIS topics. (Tribes wanting to get started with GIS might also want to check out the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ GIS training events.)

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – Sneaking in one federal agency after all. The USACE Tribal Nations Program has two main goals: to consult with tribes that may be affected by USACE projects or policies, and to reach out and partner with tribes on water resources projects. Tribes that want to know more about how to plan a water resources project with USACE will want to check out this guide and their Planning Community Toolbox. These resources will be of particular interest to tribes interested in large-scale environmental restoration projects.

Didn't find what you need? We can help.

Featured Video: Coliform Sampling Best Practices

Have you ever had a coliform sample come back positive, gone through the trouble and expense of re-sampling, and discovered your first result was a false positive? If so, you know what a frustrating, time consuming, and expensive process it can be. One way to avoid having this happen to you is to be very rigorous in your sampling technique when you collect the sample. This video from our partners at the Rural Community Assistance Partnership (RCAP) walks you through the 13 steps of total coliform sampling, and discusses how to find a good sampling site.

For more RCAP videos, visit their channel on Vimeo. For more on the Total Coliform and Revised Total Coliform Rules, see the EPA's website.

Featured Video: Community Onsite Options

If you live in a community with a large number of failing septic tanks, you're probably already familiar with the downsides of these systems: the damage to local water quality, the threats to public health. The smell. What you may not know is what you can do about it. Of course, one option is to convert the entire community to a conventional wastewater collection and treatment system. This prevents putting the entire community at the mercy of that one guy who just won't pump or repair his tank, and it ensures that a professional is involved in the wastewater treatment process.

But what if a conventional sewer system is logistically or financially impractical for your community? Are you stuck dealing with smelly, dirty water leaks forever? Thankfully, the answer is no. This 17-minute video discusses the opportunities offered by community onsite management systems. These systems combine the effluent from individual septic tanks into a community-wide leachfield, and often involve mandating activities such as basic maintenance and monitoring. The video includes profiles of five communities (most of them rural) that successfully rehabilitated failing septic systems and combined them into a community onsite management system.

If you're interested in learning more about septic systems and decentralized wastewater systems (which involve community-level septic options), browse our document database using the category Decentralized WW Systems. You can also visit NESC's wastewater page for more on the septic resources they collect and offer.