Rural Community Assistance Partnership

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management

EPA launches online training to assist Tribes in managing water systems

To help tribes and Alaska Native Villages manage their drinking water and wastewater systems, EPA is releasing a series of 10 online training modules covering an array of operation, maintenance, and system management issues at smaller drinking water and wastewater facilities. Training topics include information on managing and maintaining drinking water, sewer, lagoon, and decentralized infrastructure as well as information on sustainably managing water systems, including asset management and techniques for developing rate structures.

Webcast on effective utility management and Lean at water-sector utilities

On November 8, from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. ET, EPA will host a webcast to explore the connections between Effective Utility Management and Lean tools. Lean methods combined with the effective utility-management framework have enabled water and wastewater utilities to save millions of dollars, avoid customer rate increases, improve product quality, enhance customer service, reduce energy costs and environmental pollution, and improve employee morale.

NYTimes op-ed: 'Don’t Waste the Drought'

An Aug. 16 editorial in The New York Times calls us to not let the opportunity pass us by in the current drought to address water problems and consider how we use and think about water.

The editorial begins:

"We're in the worst drought in the United States since the 1950s, and we’re wasting it.

"Though the drought has devastated corn crops and disrupted commerce on the Mississippi River, it also represents an opportunity to tackle long-ignored water problems and to reimagine how we manage, use and even think about water.