RCAP Webinar | Supporting Rural Communities Through Policy and Legislative Changes in New Mexico

Every US state and primacy agency grapples with the tensions of enforcing the Safe Drinking Water Act while supporting small communities who lack resources to comply. The combination of limited TA and isolated, often unaffordable, solutions have some communities requiring ongoing, annual assistance for basic tasks, and other communities falling between the cracks. Regional collaboration between local CWSs presents a new management model for water services that has been gaining momentum across the US.

The State of New Mexico has shaped a new approach to rural water system support through implementing innovative programs to encourage regional collaborations. Data presented will highlight a 20-year history of key events and programs in the state that have encouraged these changes. Results show that as New Mexican communities began demanding regional support structures, complex policy and legal barriers prevented large-scale progress. Today, some of those barriers have been strategically alleviated, and state agencies now have a diverse set of tools from which to draw when supporting rural water utilities, and there is even more momentum to institutionalize and scale regional collaborations. As a result, numerous successful regional entities have been formed, providing drinking water in technically, managerially, and financially sustainable ways to very small, resource-limited communities. This webinar is funded under RCAP’s EFC 23 – 25 grant.

The speaker for this webinar is Kate Sawyer, Ramon Lucero, and Blanca Surgeon, Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC).