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Entries for the 'USEPA' Category
j.brown99 posted on May 02, 2012 07:02
Funding is often a major impediment to establishing and improving water resources on Tribal lands, but it is not the only one. Addressing the infrastructure needs of underserved communities, rural areas, and tribal lands requires a great deal of technical expertise as well, which can be hard to come by with budgetary limitations.
One of the EPA’s programs is designed to help bridge this gap – The Smart Growth Implementation Assistance (SGIA) Program.
The program is distinctive from those that generally award funding. Instead, the SGIA program provides technical expertise and community outreach to entities that work towards economic growth and public health improvements. While a variety of initiatives and projects could certainly meet those criteria, Tribal water concerns and needs are well within the range of possible recipients of this assistance.
For 2012, the SGIA program chose 5 recipients for assistance, one of which was the Spokane Tribe of Indians in Washington State. With the technical assistance provided by this award, the Spokane Tribe will be developing a water infrastructure plan that seeks to address significant and recurring challenges to the water needs of the community.
An additional tool available from the EPA’s Smart Growth program is the Water Quality Scorecard. Developing and protecting water resources on Tribal lands means writing and implementing both short- and long-term policies that ensure the safety and availability of water for generations. The Water Quality Scorecard provides information that communities can use to create and revise policies in order to best protect available resources and access to them.
For more information about the types of projects that have been approved or completed already under the Smart Growth Implementation Assistance Program, you can review the project summaries page at the EPA’s Smart Growth site.
Steve Wilson posted on February 16, 2012 12:32
Technical assistance providers and federal agencies that serve and support tribal water and wastewater systems have developed a unifying and comprehensive strategy to coordinate services. This approach has given everyone involved a better understanding of the roles they each play in supporting tribal systems and has resulted in improved working relationships that are paying dividends for the tribes they serve.
Tribal Technical Assistance Workgroup
A national workgroup was formed to look at the technical services being offered to tribal water and wastewater systems. The group included tribes; those providing tribal services including rural water associations, regional RCAP affiliates, tribal organizations; as well as the federal partners also serving tribes, IHS, USEPA, and USDA. The IHS found that about 12% of American Indian and Alaskan Native Village homes do not have safe water and/or basic sanitation facilities, compared to 0.6% of non-native homes in the US. The committment was made to try and reduce the number of tribal homes without access by 50% by 2015.
In evaluating services, they found that service was inconsistent across Indian Country, in some areas there was coordination among service providers, but in many some areas there was not. Lack of coordination and communication has lead to confusion, conflict, or inefficient use of limited resources. The workgroups objective was to maximize the benefits that coordination and communication would provide to create a higher level of service for all tribal systems, while minimizing the duplicate services and conflicts that were barriers to service and wasting resources. The result of their efforts was the Tribal Access Workgroup Report that describes their efforts, and provides recommendations on how to move forward to develop better coordination and communication among tribal service providers.
The Recommendations
The workgroup came up with 9 recommendations to improve coordination that revolved around two specific action items. One was development of an online tool that should be maintained to allow service providers and recipients to easily identify their respective TA partners. The other action item was to hold semi-annual technical assistance coordination meetings, and in the report, the structure, format, protocol, and justification are all provided in detail.
Outcomes
The online tool is the Tribal Contact Manager database, found under "Tribal Resources" on SmallWaterSupply.org. If you are a provider or tribe interested in knowing who your partners are, you can search the database for a list by organization, then click on the specific office to get to their contact information.
The technical assistance provider (TAP) meetings are ongoing. I have been fortunate enough to participate in these meetings, so far, in Arizona and Nevada, and its clear that this approach is providing the service providers with a new, improved paradigm with which to develop services. Region 5 is holding its next TAP meeting next week, we are already seeing the providers sharing information in advance of that meeting.
Communication and coordination are always crucial pieces of any service program. Formalizing an approach that takes advantage of everyone's strengths is already providing dividends for the providers. We are excited to see the long-term value of these coordination meetings come to light as tribal services become more consistent, efficient, and effective.
Jennifer Wilson posted on August 29, 2011 08:00 
US EPA will host three webinar sessions in September on the CUPSS asset management software for small drinking water and wastewater systems. This free training is designed with "trainers" (state staff, technical assistance providers) in mind, but can be attended by anyone with interest. Here are the details:
This 6-hour presentation will consist of comprehensive training on how to use the CUPSS asset management software. It will closely follow the CUPSS Users Guide; an overview of each module (with screenshots) followed by exercises on how to use the module. To participate in this training, users will be asked to log in from their own computer. Users can begin their asset management process through this training or they can follow the presenter's hypothetical scenario. The EPA sponsored web-based conference delivery will be separated into three 2-hour sessions.
Information on Each Session
Session 1 of 3: September 15, 2011, 1:00 - 3:00 PM (EDT)
The goals of Session 1 include the following: CUPSS preparation, download and installation of CUPSS, set-up the utility's basic information, login and navigate CUPSS, create the asset inventory, and create a customized asset report.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/735400686
Session 2 of 3: September 22, 2011, 1:00 - 3:00 PM (EDT)
The goals of Session 2 include the following: create your operation and maintenance tasks, learn how to search and print reports on assets and associated tasks, enter your past, current, and projected finances, and determine your financial forecast and print a custom report for your utility.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/593050726
Session 3 of 3: September 29, 2011, 1:00 - 3:00 PM (EDT)
The goals of Session 3 include the following: become familiar with the 10 steps in developing an asset management plan, generate an asset management plan, learn about the different troubleshooting tips to help you along the way, and get the most out of CUPSS with advanced features.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/682303950
How To Run Your System Like A Business is a series at SmallWaterSupply.org, appearing on Mondays
Steve Wilson posted on July 18, 2011 09:56 
In June, we announced the kick-off of our internship pilot program. Over the next several months, we'll be documenting the progress, challenges and lessons learned in this experience.
Two Communities So Far
We have found two communities, so far, that we will be working with this summer. They will be utilizing our intern to assist them in developing tools and information that they can use to help run their systems more effectively. Each community is in a different place, and has unique issues they want help with.
Our idea, when we started this program, was to find a few communities interested in developing ERP's, asset management plans, and long range plans, and have our intern, who is a Class C water and Class D wastewater operator in Illinois, provide some of the man power necessary to develop the inventories, look up information, etc.
Every System Is Unique
Boy is this an understatement. Neither community fit the model we envisioned for this project. Community A, for lack a better name, is actually in really good shape. Their operator and village president are on the same page, they have an idea of where they want to go, they have an ERP (with help from ILRWA), and they have a little money in the bank. It's a community of only 800 people, and they are doing a great job managing their system. They actually contacted us, after seeing the article in our newsletter, and asked for specific help with asset management.
The best way to describe the situation in Community A is they are doing well and are being proactive and moving further forward. They are in a classic situation where succession planning needs to be a part of the picture - with the village president and operator on the verge of retiring in 5 years or less. They have the CUPSS software from USEPA and were a little intimidated with trying to work with it, so Nate's main job for them is going to be to get CUPSS set up for them. We are also using the new "AM Kan Work" manual from NMEFC, and plan to have Nate develop both sets of tools for each of the communities that ask for our help.
Community #2
This community was suggested to us by Illinois RCAP, and we are grateful for their help and support. Community #2 is a community that is starting from scratch. We haven't talked to them yet, our first meeting is tomorrow, but the information we do have suggests that it is a community that has had significant problems in the past, and are now stepping up with new managment and village officers to try and get a handle on their water and wastewater systems. They first need an evaluation of where their systems stand, so Nate will be conducting a Vulnerability Assessment for them. Based on those results we will move forward. Illinois RCAP is also assisting this community, and will be advising Nate as we work with the community.
Working Out Better Than We Had Hoped
The goal of the program is to expose Nate to a variety of community situations that will better prepare him for managing his own system, while providing a measureable benefit to each of the communities that participates. We are already seeing that Nate's exposure to even these two communities, is going to go along way in preparing him for his first head operator position. And for the communities, we are developing plans with Nate that will really help them move forward and meet their needs.
Note #1: We are still looking for 1-2 communities of under 1000 people within an hour of St Louis, that would be interested in participating in this program.
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