How do you deal with competing demands on your time or resources? Are your decisions based on emotions or reason—or a combination of both? Does it make a difference if a decision is required now or if it can be delayed?
Boards and councils that manage water and wastewater utilities are confronted continually with decisions that impact the sustainability of their systems and the level of service provided to customers. Choices made today (or delayed to another day) impact the future viability, sustainability or resilience of the utility.
RCAP works with communities to increase knowledge of a utility’s operations, finances, management and planning, to provide support to decision makers and managers confronting difficult decisions, and to offer informed guidance on how to best meet competing demands. Many times RCAP staff can draw upon their experiences with other communities that have faced similar demands to provide examples of how to navigate seemingly uncharted waters.
Regardless of any assistance provided, it remains the responsibility of the utility’s governing body, based on its own unique situation, to decide how to respond to current and emerging demands placed on its system. Many of the articles in this issue deal with the types of demands being placed on utilities and how they have responded.
A primary and ongoing demand facing all utilities is how to pay for repairs and improvements. For many small systems, financing alternatives are impacted by decisions made or decisions postponed by other groups. For instance, there has been no movement on the reauthorization of the Drinking Water or Clean Water State Revolving Funds, funding has been reduced for federal water infrastructure programs such as those operated by EPA or USDA, and there has been a reluctance to look at new or alternative methods of financing such as the creation of a water trust fund or infrastructure bank. Coupled with small systems’ inability to access low-cost financing through the municipal bond market and the difficulty of raising rates to create reserve funds, the backlog of needed improvements continues to grow. As seen from a recent Black & Veatch survey of utility leaders, funding for system improvements remains the top concern.
The article on Appalachia in this issue speaks of the complementary demands of traditional and human infrastructure, while an insightful story from one of our partners, Ram?n Lucero Jr., describes the process for planning and managing finite water resources in New Mexico that is applicable to all small utilities across rural America, especially those facing water-supply constraints. Looking at cooperative service-delivery approaches among nearby systems is one means to meet some of the new challenges or demands facing rural systems.
Finally, I would like to report that RCAP recently received funding from EPA to conduct an assistance program aimed primarily at developing the capacity of personnel and decision makers of tribally operated systems in EPA Regions 6, 8 and 9; and another award was received from EPA that enables RCAP to provide training and technical assistance to small, publicly owned wastewater systems, onsite/decentralized systems and to private water well owners. As always, more information is available on our website.
Robert Stewart
RCAP Executive Director
Other articles in this issue:
- Rural Developments [1] (news briefs)
- The presidential candidates and rural America [2]
- Report: Aging infrastructure, capital costs and funding top concerns for U.S. water utility leaders [3]
- Why it’s important to discuss water-sector interdependency in your community [4]
- New study describes challenges and ways to strengthen rural communities in Appalachia [5]
- Guest editorial: Managing our finite water resources [6]