The Water Research Foundation has announced the availability of Water Utility Partnerships: Resource Guide and Toolbox, which provides direction on developing utility partnerships to address challenges such as water supply reliability, water quality, and water costs.
The resource guide “encourages utilities to form partnerships to achieve greater technical, managerial and financial capacity while working to maintain regulatory compliance and provide communities with water services.” Included is a framework to help utilities develop partnership teams with shared visions; identify and evaluate partnership structures and legal agreements that maximize opportunities; and create partnerships that bring value to all parties. It also provides workbooks to assist utilities in addressing topics such as who should be involved in the analysis of partnerships, how to make a business case for partnerships, and what differences may exist in partnerships between drinking water and clean water agencies.
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The guide can be access at www.waterrf.org/research/projects/water-utility-partnerships-resource-guide-and-toolbox.