The rural community assistance partnership incorporated (rcap), in collaboration with its partners, will provide technical, managerial, and financial (TMF) capacity-building training and technical…

The Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Water awarded a $10.9 million Project Grant to the Rural Community Assistance Partnership Incorporated (RCAP) under the Surveys, Studies, Investigations, Demonstrations, and Training Grants program (CFDA 66.424) for the period of October 1, 2025, through September 30, 2027. RCAP, in collaboration with regional partners including Great Lakes Community Action Partnership, Midwest Assistance Program Inc., Southeast Rural Community Assistance Project Inc., RCAP Solutions Inc., Communities Unlimited Inc., Rural Community Assistance Corporation, Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona Inc., and the American Water Works Association, will deliver comprehensive technical, managerial, and financial (TMF) capacity-building training and technical assistance to operators, board members, and staff of small community water systems and non-community water systems nationwide. The initiative is designed to protect public health and the environment while improving system compliance, sustainability, and resilience.

Deliverables under this grant include interactive training delivered through multiple modalities—including in-person workshops, webinars, e-learning modules, certificate programs, and hands-on learning labs—with a minimum of 25 training sessions per region and up to 72 TMF capacity assessments per sub-awardee to identify priority needs. Technical assistance providers will conduct multi-contact intensive support both on-site and remotely, addressing priority activities such as process optimization, lead service line replacement strategies, funding application assistance, risk and resiliency assessments, emergency response planning, rate studies, asset management, and fiscal controls. AWWA will develop cybersecurity training content optimized for multiple delivery modalities and provide Train-the-Trainer services, while ITCA will deliver specialized operator certification training courses in a blended format for tribal water utilities personnel across multiple regions.

The rural community assistance partnership incorporated (rcap), in collaboration with its partners, will provide technical, managerial, and financial (TMF) capacity-building training and technical assistance (TA) for operators, board members, and managers/other staff of tribal/non-tribal small community water systems (cwss) and transient and non-transient non-community water systems (ncwss), with the objectives of protecting human health and the environment, revitalizing communities, and improving system compliance, sustainability, and resiliency including through increased access to infrastructure funding.activities:rcap and its partners will provide high quality, interactive in-person and online training by employing a wide range of innovative training approaches and technologies including blended learning, hands-on learning labs, self-paced elearning, webinars, certificate programs, podcasts, microlearning, and videos. University of illinois will provide one-on-one assistance to operators via phone/email inquiries, referring utility staff to local rcap technical assistance providers when on-site assistance is needed. Multi-contact, intensive technical assistance will be provided on-site and remotely. Technical assistance (TA) will be tailored to meet community needs and be locally relevant. Technical assistance providers will use rcap's updated comprehensive technical/managerial/financial (TMF) capacity assessment tool for most projects to perform an initial needs analysis. Priority assistance activities and the subsequent community/TA workplan will then be based on the results of the TMF and may include process optimization, standard operating procedures, lead service line inventories and replacement strategies, assisting with funding applications, providing input on preliminary engineering reports, developing/updating risk and resiliency assessments and emergency response plans, rate studies, asset management, budgeting and/or fiscal controls, water loss/leak detection, mapping, regionalization facilitation, affordability/customer assistance programs, staffing plans, and other similar assistance. Closing TMF assessments will be conducted once TA projects conclude. Rcap will conduct multi-contact, comprehensive TA projects in all 50 states; at least some of which will be tribal. Subrecipient:they will provide technical, managerial, and financial (TMF) capacity-building training and technical assistance (TA) for operators, board members, and managers/other staff of tribal/non-tribal small community water systems (cwss) and transient and non-transient non-community water systems (ncwss), with the objectives of protecting human health and the environment, revitalizing communities, and improving system compliance, sustainability, and resiliency including through increased access to infrastructure funding.outcomes:outcomes include: 1) an increase in the knowledge and competency of small public water system operators, staff, and leadership in areas of regulatory requirements and operations, planning and responding to threats both natural and man-made, and the benefits of collaboration with other systems; 2) improvement in the performance of water systems that are implementing asset management and utilizing improved rate structures; and 3) more small systems applying for and receiving infrastructure funding. Intended beneficiaries include: operators, board members, and managers/other staff of tribal/non-tribal small community water systems and transient and non-transient non-community water systems. Anticipated deliverables include at least 400 technical assistance projects, 150 training events, and webinars and newsletters.