Making Small Water Systems Strong

JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY WATER RESEARCH & EDUCATION There are approximately 52,000 “community” water systems (Rourke and Selby 2002) and 16,000 “publicly owned treatment works” or wastewater systems (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2002b) in the United States. While the vast majority of water and sewer customers are served by large metropolitan systems, most systems are small and located in rural areas. Due to their small size, these rural systems are generally more expensive to build and operate on a per-user basis, and they tend to have more problems complying with environmental and public health requirements. Many of these systems need special help to serve their customers reliably over the long term. Within the last few years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) commissioned two studies of community water systems. One was the Community Water System Survey 2000 (Rourke and Selby 2002); the other was the Clean Water and Drinking Water Infrastructure Gap Analysis (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2002a), commonly referred to as the Gap Analysis. These studies revealed that between the years 2000 and 2020 water and sewer systems in the U.S. will experience a cumulative funding shortfall for operating and capital improvement costs of between 500 and 750 billion dollars. We are now several years into that time frame, and there is little evidence of progress toward erasing the looming shortfall. Without measures to increase revenues and reduce costs, in the next several decades, our water and sewer systems will experience serious financial upsets that may shut some systems down and seriously imperil the operations of many others. The effects will hit small rural systems disproportionately hard. Large systems enjoy economies of scale that allow them to hire financial and other management and planning expertise. They tend to be well funded and managed on a current operations basis. However, they will experience a staggering capital improvements funding shortfall over the next few decades as they replace aging distribution and treatment systems. Small systems, lacking economies of scale, are frequently poorly funded. They will experience the same kinds of funding shortfalls as the large systems. They also commonly operate at a loss on an operating cost basis. Small system managers attempt to manage well, but they are at a distinct disadvantage without proper training, experience, tools, and funding. This paper examines successes in helping small systems, and it highlights opportunities to strengthen the capacity of these systems.