In collaboration with its partners, rural community assistance partnership incorporated will provide technical, managerial, and financial capacity-building training and technical assistance for…

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office for Water awarded a $15,400,000 Project Grant under the Surveys, Studies, Investigations, Demonstrations, and Training Grants - Section 1442 of the Safe Drinking Water Act (CFDA 66.424) program to Rural Community Assistance Partnership Incorporated. Through this funding, the organization will provide technical, managerial, and financial capacity-building training and technical assistance to operators, board members, and managers of tribal and non-tribal small community water systems, non-transient non-community water systems, and transient non-community water systems. The goal is to protect human health through improved regulatory compliance and long-term system sustainability. The project will deliver training through in-person, online, webinar, microlearning, and eLearning methods to increase the number of water systems in compliance, improve operator and board member knowledge and competencies, and support the adoption of sustainable finance and management practices. The award period is from October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2025.

In collaboration with its partners, rural community assistance partnership incorporated will provide technical, managerial, and financial capacity-building training and technical assistance for operators, board members, and managers of tribal and non-tribal small community water systems, non-transient non-community water systems, and transient non-community water systems. The objective is protecting human health through improved compliance and long-term system sustainability. The end results will include an increased number of small public water systems in regulatory compliance or making substantial progress toward compliance; increased knowledge and competency of operators, managers, and board members; increased number of operators acquiring, maintaining, and advancing their certification; and an increase in the number of systems that have adopted sustainable finance and management practices.activities:through its network of more than 350 field-based staff and project partners, the rural community assistance partnership incorporated team will provide training in all 50 states, the five US territories, and in tribal communities, using both in-person and remote/online methods. Rural community assistance partnership incorporated will deploy training methods that include: 1) traditional in-person, instructor-led training; 2) live, instructor-led online training; 3) webinar presentations offered live and recorded for later on-demand viewing; 4) microlearning (short pieces of on-demand content that can be quickly and conveniently consumed); and 5) elearning, which includes online/on-demand self-paced modules. Rural community assistance partnership incorporated will also develop blended learning trainings that combine self-paced, on-demand materials with live, instructor-led training.subrecipient:the subaward activities include providing technical, managerial, and financial (TMF) capacity-building training and technical assistance.outcomes:the intended beneficiaries include: operators, board members, and managers of tribal and non-tribal small community water systems, non-transient non-community water systems, and transient non-community water systems. This project will produce the following outcomes: - increased number of small public water systems (non-tribal, tribal, community water system/non-community water systems) in compliance with the safe drinking water act or making substantial progress toward compliance as indicated by measured performance, reduced enforcement priority status, or other indicators in its data collection system (and final technical, managerial, financial assessments; - increased number of systems that have adopted sustainable or resilient management practices as a part of their operations and management practices; - increased technical, managerial, financial capacity of small system operators and managers to diagnose and correct the causes for compliance failures and to increase sustainability and resiliency; - increased knowledge and competency of board members to maintain compliance and to sustain systems over time; - increased number of systems with updated certified risk and resilience assessments and emergency response plans as required by america's water infrastructure act section 2013 for systems serving over 3,300 population; and - increased number of small systems working together in all possible forms of utility partnership to improve efficiencies that ultimately assist with regulatory compliance, sustainability, and improved public health.