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Effective planning is essential for water and wastewater systems to manage their operations and infrastructure and ensure the sustainability of the communities they serve.  To this end, EPA has issued Planning for Sustainability: A Handbook for Water and Wastewater Utilities.  The handbook describes a number of steps utilities can undertake to enhance its planning processes to ensure that water utilities are sustainably managed using cost-effective life-cycle analysis.

Developed after extensive consultation and input from utilities, states, and other stakeholders, EPA believes utilities that incorporate sustainability considerations into planning consistent with the steps in this handbook will realize many benefits because they will be able to better:

• Optimize environmental, economic, and social benefits by setting goals and selecting projects through a transparent and inclusive process with the community
• Consistently assess a range of alternatives that address both utility and community goals
• Enhance the long-term technical, financial, and managerial capacity of the utility.

PDF, 75 pages, 812K

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