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.