Rural Community Assistance Partnership

Improving the quality of life in rural communities
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The Safety and Security Training and Technical Assistance project

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Funded by the Office of Community Services of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services ($400,000 annually) 

This project assists water and wastewater systems in rural communities to develop the capacity and networks to assure protection of public health in the event of a natural or human-caused disaster. RCAP assists small communities with their security and emergency-preparedness needs by:
 
  1. Providing security and emergency-response training and technical assistance to small water and wastewater utility staff and local officials through workshops and site visits
  2. Developing a national set of training products for water boards and other local officials of small, rural communities to help them incorporate security, risk reduction and emergency preparedness and response into their best management practices
  3. Distributing an electronic newsletter (the eBulletin) for utility directors, managers and operators about small utility and security needs that also allows access to direct, on-site technical assistance
  4. Sponsoring The Water We Drink Small Community Outreach Campaign along with the National Environmental Services Center (NESC), located at West Virginia University. The campaign targets small utility board members and small community decision makers via their state membership organizations. The campaign produces newsletter articles that address holistic approaches to community readiness and resilience so that small communities and utilities are better prepared to address any risk that threatens their public health, water resources, and water and wastewater systems. 
  5. Working with states and utility and regulatory officials to establish mutual aid agreements under which utilities will support each other in the event of an emergency and to assure that these agreements include small communities. One key type of mutual aid agreement is state Water/Wastewater Agency Response Networks (WARNs). RCAP assists state WARNs in these ways:
    1. serving on steering committees
    2. educating small utilities on the benefits of membership
    3. providing input to state WARNs’ website designs, construction, and maintenance
    4. training to meet the needs of small communities
    5. facilitating interstate application of WARNs
    6. consulting on emergency-response strategies
  6. Collaborating with consortia of federal, state, private, nonprofit and professional associations to disseminate tools that have been developed specifically for small communities
  7. Addressing workforce issues, specifically operator recruitment, training and retention. RCAP is developing a curriculum for introducing the basics of water treatment and fundamental math, chemistry and biology used in the water-treatment field. RCAP also collaborates with national efforts to recruit operators. 
  8. Identifying appropriate technologies for securing systems. RCAP and the National Environmental Services Center (NESC), located at West Virginia University, are partnering to research technologies and resources for improving a small utility’s capability to plan for, withstand, recover from, prevent, or protect against significant multi-hazard threats and to restore critical services rapidly.
  9. Conducting vulnerability assessments (VAs) and emergency-response plans (ERPs). RCAP works with state water and wastewater agencies to assist them with completion of VAs and ERPs at utilities that have not yet completed these tasks.
  10. Integrating asset management with vulnerability assessments (VA) and emergency-response planning. RCAP is producing a training tool that integrates VAs and ERPs with asset management. 
Through this project, small, rural water and wastewater systems and the officials responsible for them receive the training and tools to integrate security, emergency-response and recovery actions into the day-to-day operation and management of their systems.