Rural Community Assistance Partnership

Practical solutions for improving rural communities

November 2011

Former EPA Administrator: Keep the Clean Water Act Strong (NYTimes op-ed)

Posted Tue, 2011/11/29 - 5:24pm by RCAP

William Reilly, EPA Administrator during the first Bush administration, wrote an editorial in The New York Times published Nov. 28 about protecting the Clean Water Act against attempts to weaken it. Next year is the 40th anniversary of this landmark law.

Reilly advocates keeping the law strong.

Read his editorial

From the "What'll they think of next?" files

Posted Wed, 2011/11/23 - 3:46pm by RCAP

You've heard of bottled water. Introducing boxed water.

A Grand Rapids, Mich.-based company bills itself as "part sustainable water company, part art project, part philanthropic project, and completely curious. Boxed Water Is Better, is a boxed water company."

The description on its website continues:

The Hill's Congress blog: Infrastructure we can bank on

Posted Wed, 2011/11/23 - 3:40pm by RCAP

The Hill's Congress Blog had a recent post in which Gregory Baird, a former financial officer and CFO of large cities and utilities and who now consults utility financial staff on infrastructure asset management best practices in the U.S. and Canada, wrote:

...before we start throwing private-public funding at our [water] infrastructure problems via an Infrastructure Bank or some other federal funding vehicle we must get a firm grasp on the crux of our problems and the most cost-effective, sustainable ways to solve them.

Ohio RCAP receives award

Posted Wed, 2011/11/23 - 11:49am by RCAP

The village of Russells Point and Ohio RCAP were honored at the Ohio Conference of Community Development, Inc.’s summer meeting for their water treatment plant upgrade project, which involved installing granular activated carbon (GAC) to the existing treatment plant to reduce total organic carbon in treated water. The village was under findings and orders from the Ohio EPA to correct MCL violations for trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids. The deficiencies relate to the disinfection by-products rule in the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Glossary for water utilities (operational, technical, chemical, managerial and financial terms)

Posted Mon, 2011/11/21 - 12:54pm by RCAP

Notes

Read more

EPA training webinars on the Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool

Posted Thu, 2011/11/10 - 5:00pm by RCAP

The Climate-Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool (CREAT) supports water-sector utilities in conducting climate-related risk assessments, evaluating adaptation options, and understanding climate threats. EPA is currently delivering a nine-webinar series of training materials for CREAT that will continue through November 15 including: CREAT 101, an introduction to the tool; CREAT 201, an overview of setup steps and climate science information within the tool; and CREAT 202, an overview of the analysis and reporting functions within the tool.

EPA energy-management webcast series for water and wastewater utilities

Posted Thu, 2011/11/10 - 2:53pm by RCAP

EPA is offering the first Energy-Management Webcast Series webcast on Reducing Operating Costs with Energy Use Assessments and Auditing on Thursday, December 1 at 1:00 PM Eastern. This webcast will focus on two key elements of energy management for utilities

RCAP among partners that renew agreement with EPA on septic-system improvements

Posted Thu, 2011/11/10 - 2:48pm by RCAP

Published Nov. 9

By Paul Quinlan, E&E reporter

US EPA photo by Eric Vance The EPA renewed and expanded a six-year-old agreement with industry and government organizations today aimed at improving the performance of septic systems.

Mark National Rural Health Day

Posted Wed, 2011/11/09 - 6:09pm by RCAP

RCAP will join the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health (NOSORH) and other state/national rural stakeholders in marking the first-ever National Rural Health Day on Thursday, November 17.

NOSORH created National Rural Health Day as a way to showcase rural America; increase awareness of rural health-related issues; and promote the efforts of NOSORH, State Offices of Rural Health and others in addressing those issues. Plans call for National Rural Health Day to become an annual celebration on the third Thursday of each November.

Times Union: Pioneering technology used to free natural gas from rocks, avoiding the pollution of vast amounts of water

Posted Wed, 2011/11/09 - 12:27pm by RCAP

Upstate New York's Times Union newspaper reports in a Nov. 7 article that an emerging technology developed in Canada does away with the need for water in the process of extracting natural gas from the earth, popularly known as fracking. "Instead, it relies on a thick gel made from propane, a widely available gas used by anyone who has fired up a backyard barbecue grill," the article says.

Read the article