• How two systems – one with excess capacity and one without enough capacity – partnered to combine drinking water treatment efforts after a voter mandate.
• How a tribe and regional council of governments brought resources to bear for two communities to form a regional entity with the help of external facilitation.
• How leaders went out of their way to ensure all communities were involved in governing the new entity because they believed it was important for success and fairness.
• How communities built trust that is crucial to effective regional collaboration projects and more.

RCAP unveiled this research with more than 70 community and partner participants on March 11 in State College, Penn., at its second Regional Collaboration Summit, hosted in conjunction with RCAP Solutions, the Northeast RCAP. Partnerships highlighted in this research fall along a wide spectrum of regionalization options – ranging from informal collaboration to restructured utility ownership and governance. Click on the pictures below for the full report, the executive summary, and a one-page summary of the research.

With the growing national concern about Coronavirus (COVID-19), we wanted to confirm rural communities’ health and safety are of utmost importance. Each of our organizations are taking the steps necessary to ensure that our employees and those we assist can continue to do their jobs and stay healthy. We are offering these lessons learned on collaboration for future opportunities, and recommend all communities follow CDC guidelines during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Full Report

Executive Summary

One Pager

The post New Research Prioritizes 10 Lessons Learned from Rural Water and Wastewater Partnerships appeared first on RCAP.

The report highlights 22 recommendations from RCAP that should be integrated into policy decision-making. This research highlights:

• Top-line recommendations that can improve regionalization support at all levels of government;
• Two key takeaways: the need for flexibility and the need for more funding for regionalization effort;
• Provides examples and perspectives from work happening on the ground
• Findings from a compilation of state policies that impact regionalization for drinking water and wastewater systems; information is available in Appendix A

RCAP virtually unveiled this research to over 160 attendees on May 13, 2021. This event highlighted RCAP’s second research report in our series about regionalization, which aims to understand what types of policies at all levels of government have helped or hindered regional solutions for water and wastewater collaboration across the U.S. This event concentrated on our recommendations for state-level decision-makers.

We heard from the experiences of five different states: California, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas, who spoke about what they have put in place to help support the various forms of regionalization, from the informal, like FlaWARN’s effective disaster response and resource sharing to the more formal, like CA’s ability to require physical system consolidation when public health is at risk. The event also included a facilitated panel where attendees learned more about why states have chosen to prioritize regional solutions, the mechanics of how and lessons learned along the way. You can view the event here.

Below are three versions of the report, the full report, the executive summary, and the one-pager. The executive summary provides a condensed overview of the full report and recommendations, and the one-pager provides a high-level overview of the recommendations.

• Full Report
• Executive Summary
• One Pager

The post Regionalization: RCAP’s Recommendations for Water and Wastewater Policy appeared first on RCAP.