Small System Partnerships
Across the US there are > 45,000 small community water systems. These small water systems face immense challenges and struggle to maintain the quality of service required of them. Small water systems struggle not only with meeting regulatory requirements, but also with finances, with finding and retaining certified operators, and with management and administration. Partnerships can serve to increase capacity through the sharing of knowledge and expertise; facilitate leveraging of resources; enable capture of benefits from economies of scale; and help mitigate or avoid externalities. Partnerships also have the potential to provide access to alternative water sources or technologies and improve preparedness and the ability to respond to emergency events.
SMALL COMMUNITY WATER SYSTEM
A community water system is a public water system that serves at least 15 connections used by year- round residents or that regularly serves at least 25 residents year-round. Cities, towns, and small communities as well as mobile home parks and homeowner associations and private businesses may all own and operate a community water system. Small systems are defined as those serving populations of 10,000 or less.
Even while partnerships have the potential to provide many benefits, in many instances, they may be slow to emerge. Partnership formation requires effort and there may be concerns about the risks or implications of working together. To encourage formation of partnerships among organizations, governments may implement policies that seek to increase awareness of the potential benefits of partnerships; that facilitate partnership formation; that remove barriers to partnership formation; and/or that incentivize partnerships.
Objective: This research project examines the response of small community water systems in the USA to policies seeking to steer development of water system partnerships. Most states in the USA have adopted one or more policies to encourage partnership formation by water systems. The research analyzes the effects of these state policies, as well as how those effects and the critical barriers to partnership formation vary with the institutional structures of small community water systems (e.g., municipal, special district, community-owned, private) and with the forms of partnership that may be developed (e.g., informal, contracting, joint powers, consolidation).
Research Methods & Timeline: Research will occur over a 3-4 year period starting in June 2022. Activities include interviews and surveys of state Safe Drinking Water Act primacy agencies, water suppliers, water supply associations, and water supply capacity building agencies.
Outputs and Outreach: Results from the research will provide insights regarding the points of intervention that serve to catalyze differing forms of partnerships and the impacts of linking multiple concurrent policies. Results will also illuminate how the effects of policies vary across a diversity of organizational structures.
Questions, Suggestions and Participation: For questions about this research or to volunteer to participate, please contact amilman ‘at’ eco.umass.edu.
This research is based upon work supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2150578 Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.