2010 National Conference Workshop/Session Information

NUMBER

TITLE

DESCRIPTION

PRESENTER(S)

E1

Sustainable Small Utilities – Creating Valuable and Efficient Infrastructure Enterprises

Rural water and wastewater utilities can be remarkably inefficient. This workshop will present ways that Technical Assistance Providers can aid utilities in providing reliable services for the long-term, at the lowest possible cost, and without harm to invaluable natural resources. Topics will include the rationale for water and energy conservation, water and energy-use statistics, and practical conservation planning. Other “green services” that utilities can provide – including energy generation, biosolids composting, and grey water reuse – will be covered.

Presentation 1 [4]

Presentation 2 [5]

Handout [6]

Stevan Palmer & Jake Salcone, Rural Community Assistance Corporation

E3

Communications: Creating a Storytelling Organization

It is not enough to do our work and expect others will notice what we do. Every service-provider who expects to stay in business must get its message out in an effective way, from McDonald’s to a plumber with his own business. This workshop will cover ways of telling our story, the importance of doing so, and how we can effectively get our message out to our key audiences.

Presentation [7] | Handout [8]

Stephen Padre, Rural Community Assistance Partnership national office

E4

Optimizing Technical Assistance to Colonias and Tribal Communities

A representative of the Indian Health Services will talk about a recent initiative to coordinate environmental infrastructure assistance to Tribes. Other government agencies working with tribes and Colonias will be invited to join the conversation and discuss set-asides. The presenter will engage participants regarding priorities, strategies, and resources for assistance to Colonias.

Dana Baer, PE, Indian Health Service
Olga Sanchez, Rural Community Assistance Corporation
EPA and USDA Rural Development staff

E5

Small System Leakage Management

This workshop will discuss and provide attendees an opportunity to help shape the recently started Water Research Foundation project, Synthesis Document on Pipe Location and Leakage Management for Small Water Systems. The goal of the project is to create a technical guidance document to assist operators of small systems to locate their buried infrastructure and to identify and locate leaks. The guidance document will include a review of technologies, provide recommendations for application and include training presentation materials that can be used to effectively communicate project output to small-sized utilities.  This will be an interactive workshop as project team members will discuss components of the approach and provide an opportunity for participants to provide comments and feedback.

Jeff Oxenford, Oxenford Consulting LLC

Russell G. Titus, New Jersey American Water

E7

a) The Water We Drink Campaign and Partnering with Local Officials Organizations
b) Collaboration and Electronic Resources: How to Extend Our Reach and Be More Effective

a) The Water We Drink Small Community Outreach Campaign provides free, re-printable newsletter articles to small utility board members and small community decision-makers via their state membership organizations. Campaign articles and media kits will be described as well as specific strategies for disseminating them through the state affiliates of the National Association of Towns and Townships (NATaT), National Association of Counties (NACo), and National League of Cities (NLC).

b) There are many sources of online information available today, along with trained technical assistance providers and opportunities for collaboration to help bring all of these resources together.  But how can we most effectively use these tools to both meet the needs of our current operators and develop programs that extend our reach to both new users and to create better partnerships with other technical assistance providers? This workshop will address how we might best answer this question by demonstrating some current approaches and allowing participants to discuss ideas, successes, and suggestions for how to build on what has been done to date.

a) Sandra Fallon, National Environmental Services Center

b) Steve Wilson, Midwest Technology Assistance Center

F1

a) Engaging the Community: Community Organizing and Needs Assessments
b) Hiring Professional Services: Steps for Success

a) A successful community-development project, whether related to utilities or other services, requires buy-in from key players. This workshop will examine how to identify and coordinate with “spark plugs” in the community; considerations for a community-needs assessment; and conducting surveys and interpreting results.
b) How does a community, municipality, or agency determine the need for professional services? How does it convert the need to a service or project description, develop an advertisement, evaluate proposals, and select a service provider? A comprehensive process will be presented for successfully managing this crucial process.

a) Joyce DeLaurentis, Maryland Rural Development Corporation

b) Peter Kittany, North Carolina Rural Communities Assistance Project, Inc.

F3

Community Training Techniques – Effective Strategies for Knowledge Retention

Effective training of a community’s residents consists of more than just content.  How you present is just as important as what you present. Join a train-the-trainer team in an exploration of adult learning: facts about adult learners, the importance of a participant-centered training approach designed to increase participant involvement and participant responsibility for learning, and techniques to improve knowledge retention. Throughout the workshop, the trainers will model simple techniques that you can integrate into lesson plans to produce quality learning results.

Presentation [9]

Kevin Baughman &
Lucy Castillo-Riley,
Rural Community Assistance Corporation

F4

Your Roles and Responsibilities in Construction Management

To help ensure your project is completed on time and within budget, all parties need to know their roles and responsibilities throughout the construction process. This workshop covers topics from bidding and award through warranty inspection and operations and maintenance.

Presentation [10]

Ben Shuman, USDA Rural Utilities Service
 

F5

What’s Important to USDA Rural Development?

Officials from the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) will discuss priorities and how they impact RCAP’s work under the Technitrain project. The workshop will include financial sustainability, SDWA/CWA compliance, ARRA implementation, a new USDA strategic plan, and aspects of the RUS funding process.

Presentation [11]

Additional presentation: Rural Utilities Service: Funding Rural America’s Water and Waste Infrastructure [12]

F7

EPA Briefing on 21st Century Tools and Resources for Technical Assistance Providers

Increasingly vital to Technical Assistance Providers, regulators, and planners serving rural areas are tools and resources that transform the collection, use, and availability of data to address water and wastewater treatment and compliance issues as well as issues relating to operations and management.  This workshop will cover these and other topics: “What’s Up with CUPSS-2010 and Beyond;” “Energy and Water Efficiency Tools and Information for Water Utilities;” “Self-paced Online Courses for Learning about SDWA Rules;” “Update on Wastewater Programs for Small Communities.”

Presentation by:

• Adrienne Harris [13]
• Ed Moriarty [14]
• Leon Latino [15]
• Maura Browning [16]

Adrienne Harris,
Maura Browning,
Ed Moriarty, EPA Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water;
Leon Latino, EPA Office of Wastewater Management

G1

Trouble-shooting: Q&A with Treatment & Operations Experts

Have you run into tough technical questions at the systems you’ve assisted? Have you seen some things work or not work, and you’re not sure why? A panel of water and wastewater operators and engineers will be on hand to answer participants’ questions and discuss treatment and operations snafus and success stories.

Bill Hogrewe, Rural Community Assistance Corporation; Pat Kline, RCAP national office; Rebecca Reynolds, RCAP Solutions; Steve Clark, The Vannet Group, LLC

G3

Introduction to Wastewater Collection, Treatment, and Disposal

This workshop is for administrative staff and others who want to gain an understanding of what’s involved in wastewater collection, treatment, and disposal. In non-technical language, this presentation will cover sources of wastewater and address the following questions:
What are the contaminants in wastewater? Why do we care? How do we get wastewater to the treatment plant? How do we treat it? What do we do with the water and byproducts?

Bill Hogrewe, Rural Community Assistance Corporation

G4

Introduction to Water Treatment and Supply

This workshop is for administrative staff and others who want to gain an understanding of what’s involved in getting safe drinking water from its source to customers’ taps. In non-technical language, this presentation will cover origins and health effects of contaminants, common water-treatment processes, challenges, regulations to be met, and what operators do.

Joy Barrett, Rural Community Assistance Partnership national office; Bill Hogrewe, Rural Community Assistance Corporation

G5

SCADA: Is it Appropriate for Small Water and Wastewater Systems?

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems hold the promise of being particularly appropriate for oversight of water and wastewater facilities that schedule unstaffed or minimally staffed shifts. But is SCADA feasible for small systems? We’ll examine technological and financial aspects, and review some case studies and lessons learned from SCADA use. 

Presentation [17]

Steve Clark, The Vannet Group, LLC

G7

Current Topics in Decentralized Wastewater Management

Members of the EPA Decentralized Wastewater MOU Partnership will describe tools, resources, and expertise available as a result of this partnership. New practices, training and certification programs, and resources will be discussed, and participants’ input will be sought regarding ways to “mainstream” decentralized wastewater treatment options.

Maureen Tooke's presentation [18]

Victor D'Amato's presentation [19]

Maureen Tooke, EPA Office of Wastewater Management; Victor A. D’Amato, PE,
Tetra Tech

R1

Orientation to RCAP

This workshop is for staff who are new to RCAP in the last year or so. An orientation to the national RCAP network will be given – its mission, how the parts of the network relate to each other, how funding works, and challenges we face. Also covered will be expectations of TAPs and how they can manage their daily tasks.

Handout [20]

Robert Stewart, RCAP national office; George Schlender, Rural Community Assistance Corporation; H.B. Calvert, Midwest Assistance Program;
Karen Conrad, Community Resource Group

R2

Asset Management Tool Updates: What’s New with CUPSS?

In 2010, Ohio RCAP began offering a new, hands-on, full-day training session for local officials titled “Asset Management for Local Officials and Applied Asset Management Featuring CUPSS.” Ohio RCAP will demonstrate and explain the CUPSS Finance Section, provide an update on the changes made to the CUPSS program, and review a completed My CUPSS Plan.

Handout 1 [21] | Handout 2 [22] | Handout 3 [23] | Handout 4 [24] (all four handouts were distributed at the workshop in hard copy as a single packet)

Wayne Cannon, Josh Eggleston, and Larry Baxa, Ohio RCAP

R3

Cross-connection Control and Backflow Prevention: From Horror Stories to Safeguards

Have you heard about water customers finding toilet paper in their ice makers? Hear about this case and other examples where cross-connection control and backflow prevention were inadequate. This workshop will provide an overview of best practices, as well as hardware, resources, and training programs available for cross-connection control and backflow prevention.

Handout [25]

Len Klandrud,
Texas Rural Water Association

R4

Bring Your Questions: A Conversation with Utility Association, Local Government, and Primacy Agency Representatives

A panel of representatives of state primacy agencies, water utility associations (both public and private), and local government organizations will answer your questions and facilitate discussion on where states will go with the new emphasis on re-structuring; efficient management of small, private water companies; and other timely priorities in the water and wastewater industry.  RCAP staff will have the opportunity to inform the panelists of the work they do related to common interests, and partnership opportunities will be explored.

Bridget O'Grady,
Association of State Drinking Water Administrators; J. Alan Roberson, PE, American Water Works Association; Fran Eargle, Environmental Protection Agency; Cade Clark, National Association of Water Companies; Brian O’Hara, National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners

R5

WARNs: What’s New? How are They Working with Small Utilities?

In this workshop, EPA Water Security Division staff will share lessons learned from the eight WARN tabletop exercises it sponsored this year and provide an update from the recent WARN Chairs Meeting held in September.  EPA will share information about new tools and resources to assist WARNs, and give details on additional WARN support being planned.  Participants will be asked to share their challenges, successes, and needs regarding spreading the word about WARNs’ benefits among small utilities and recruiting small utilities to become members of WARNs.                                                                                                                   

Nushat Thomas, MS, RS, EPA Water Security Division

R6

Advanced Topics in Water Treatment

This workshop will cover new technologies and processes available for an array of water-treatment challenges, such as arsenic removal and disinfection byproduct control. Participants are expected to have a background in water-treatment concepts.

Pat Kline, Rural Community Assistance Partnership national office

R7

Rate Study Tools: Effective and not Overwhelming!

After a utility establishes its budget’s revenue target, it’s time to modify rates to help achieve that target. This workshop features a demonstration of some rate-setting tools that are user-friendly for small systems with tips on how to help system managers win their customers over to sustainable service charges.

Skip Rand, Rural Community Assistance Corporation