EUM Lessons Reported By Water Utilities
A paper produced by EPA’s Region 1, Lessons Learned: Effective Utility Management, reports on a project designed to assist drinking water and wastewater utilities and evaluate the Effective Utility Management (EUM) process. Although the project was primarily aimed at small and medium-size utilities, the findings are useful to managers of water utilities of all sizes.
The paper is available on AMWA’s website at http://www.amwa.net/cs/ceo_resources/eum.
Survey Explores Opinions On Energy-Water Nexus
Environmental advocacy groups Civil Society Institute and Environmental Working Group have released Drought, Water and Energy: A National Survey of Attitudes, the results of an opinion survey that explored perceptions of connections between energy and water supplies.
A thousand people in 10 states were asked in July about the possibility of harmful impacts “as a result of drought and shortages brought on by the diversion of water for energy production and other purposes,” and 64 percent said they were very concerned. The survey found that most people favored more focus on alternative energy sources that use less water.
Results are online at http://bit.ly/P13XgD.
New Urban Waters Outreach Toolkit Released
EPA, through the Anacostia Watershed Outreach and Education Project, has released a comprehensive toolkit to encourage homeowners to install rain barrels to prevent contamination in their local rivers. The toolkit includes details on the development of social marketing outreach to local residents, lessons learned and a summary of project accomplishments. Appendices include communication scripts for weathercasters, a detailed list of project partners, partnerships and photos and screenshots of the messages used.
Information can be found at http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguidance/standards/training.cfm.