Conference Papers

The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water) is repairing 6,200 linear feet of clay sewers constructed more than a century ago. The project is in Soapstone Valley, part of Rock Creek Park. The sewer system will be rehabilitated using hot water curing and a styrene-free resin. In July of 2021, DC Water proactively issued a Supplementary Standard Specification for CIPP adding requirements for air emissions. In June of 2022, during the construction phase, local elected officials passed a resolution urging the Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) to require DC Water to obtain an Air Quality Permit for the CIPP work. DOEE required DC Water to submit an Air Quality Monitoring and Testing Plan (AQMP). A third-party contractor via the Water Research Foundation (WRF) will implement the Air Quality Monitoring Plan during CIPP installation. This study addresses worker safety, community safety, and the potential for air emissions during CIPP. According to the Safety Data Sheets (SDS), the resin material contains no Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). However, based on the review of the activator SDS, cumene and acetophenone are anticipated. Baseline samples will be collected. The research team will document the field conditions during air monitoring daily activities, site maps, corrective actions taken, and unusual field situations which may impact samples or sampling. An Action Level Response Plan was prepared, including clear protocols in the event concentrations in the ambient air or lateral sewers exceed acceptable levels. Daily results will be reported to DOEE and shared with the community. The final report of air quality monitoring will be used to inform future construction approaches and data gathering efforts. Eventually, the project will generate data for DOEE to evaluate the effectiveness of monitoring and mitigation measures in the District. With the implementation of the AQMP, DC Water hopes to ensure the Project is carried out in accordance with best practices aimed at mitigating environmental risks. Ultimately, the results of the study will provide broad value to utilities across the USA. This paper and presentation will focus on the regulatory framework that led to the AQMP and the air quality results.

The City of Austin has regularly tracked odor complaints within its major interceptor systems and has sought ways to reduce complaints. In order to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of head space air extraction for odor control within four of its large diameter interceptors, the City initiated a comprehensive fan test in early 2021. Large-scale tests of the impact of air extraction were performed in areas served by the City's Walnut Creek Interceptor (WCI), Little Walnut Creek Interceptor (LWCI), and Williamson Creek Interceptors (WICI) and the Crosstown Tunnel / (CTI), and Onion Creek Interceptor (OCI) systems. All are large diameter pipeline systems (diameters up to 96-inch) with headspace restrictions at downstream ends. Fan testing and monitoring was performed on five different combinations of extraction points and associated monitoring locations. For each extraction point, The City of Austin and its consultants selected a combination of upstream and downstream monitoring manholes to provide an indication of the zone of influence of the air extraction. The testing area included 34 separate monitoring locations along approximately 50 miles of interceptor. The purpose of the fan test monitoring was to provide data on headspace pressurization and hydrogen sulfide concentrations, and the variability of each over time, both under existing conditions and with air extracted from the sewer headspace. Perkins Engineering Consultants, Inc. (now Mead & Hunt) served as the prime contractor for the testing events, placing and maintaining equipment within the manholes for monitoring hydrogen sulfide and differential pressure, monitoring results during testing, and transmitting results to the project team on a daily basis. V&A Consulting Engineers, Inc. providing equipment, ducting, and personnel for fan operation during the tests. Differential pressure and hydrogen sulfide loggers were installed two days prior to starting the fan test at each location to establish baseline sewer pressure and hydrogen sulfide conditions. The loggers continued to monitor differential pressure and hydrogen sulfide during the two-day fan test, with most loggers transmitting data continuously during the test. Loggers were left in place at least six hours after each test was completed to ensure the system had reverted to normal conditions. During the two-day fan test, the fans were run over a range of airflows to provide a more accurate picture of the zone of influence potentially available within each interceptor. Two fan test locations were tested on the WCI: one at Balcones Park, and the other at Loyola Lane, located upstream of Balcones Park. The Loyola Lane test showed a zone of influence of at least 0.05 in-w.c. 16,000 ft upstream and 8,500 ft downstream of the extraction point. The Balcones Park test had a zone of influence 24,000 ft upstream. The LWCI test showed a zone of influence of 15,000 ft upstream. Testing on the CTI siphon Produced a zone of influence 75,000 ft upstream in certain areas. Testing on the WICI showed a zone of influence of 20,000 ft downstream on the OCI and only 10,000 ft upstream. This paper presentation the test methodology and results, and presents lessons learned and considerations that should be incorporated when choosing fan test extraction and monitoring points for testing. Extreme weather conditions were presented during part of the testing by Winter Storm Uri. The experience of running the test and having instruments in place through the extreme weather event will also be discussed.

Question: In your opinion, what does OWASA do exceptionally well? Answer: 'Allows users to track water usage and see what they're being charged for; service is top-notch. You can always reach someone at the office if you need to. Even emergencies seem to be handled well (ie water main break a couple years back).' Answer: 'Community service. I love how easy it is to include a monthly contribution with my water bill and help out others.' Answer: 'I appreciate OWASA's communication. They communicate very clearly when bills are due (and exactly when they'll be paid if using autodraft). Recently they were testing systems in my neighborhood with smoke and gave lots of notice, including diagrams about what they were doing.' In 2021, having accomplished much of what was included in its most recent strategic plan, the Orange Water and Sewer Authority (OWASA) began a comprehensive process to update its plan for the next five to six years. OWASA has a 35 square-mile service area in Carrboro and Chapel Hill in North Carolina and provides water and sewer service for 22,000 accounts. Guiding principles for the strategic plan update included actively seeking to engage the Board, staff, the community, and other stakeholders, including proactive outreach to gather feedback to include and consider diverse perspectives. This engagement included an intensive environmental and organizational scan, with activities such as stakeholder work sessions, departmental strategic priority setting, peer reviews, industry publication reviews, and four separate surveys, which collectively garnered thousands of responses. While the overarching process of updating the strategic plan is still underway, considerable data analysis of the community survey has been completed and will be the subject of this presentation. Stakeholder input is invaluable in gauging the community's perception of the utility, as well as the community's priorities and preferences. To gather community feedback, and to be sensitive to COVID restrictions, OWASA created a tailored, 16-question online survey, available in both English and Spanish. The survey was hosted on the Zoho platform and was extensively promoted using a series of outreach strategies, including a direct email to all OWASA customers (for whom OWASA had email addresses), bus advertisements, tabling at the library, neighborhood kiosk flyers, and repeated social media posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Nextdoor. Respondents were asked what words come to mind when they think of OWASA ('water,' 'sewer,' 'clean,' 'reliable,' and 'expensive' were top choices) and to rate their satisfaction with OWASA's performance in a number of different areas. The highest levels of satisfaction were in drinking water quality, service reliability, and communications, while satisfaction levels were lower in cost of service. A significant percentage of respondents (more than 35% in each category) indicated that they didn't know how satisfied they were with regard to OWASA's environmental protection efforts, commitment to sustainability, and water/wastewater infrastructure construction, which suggests that there are areas where additional communication may be helpful. One of the other survey questions that will be invaluable for the organization as it works to clarify its priorities for the next five to six years was around responsibilities. OWASA asked, in addition to remaining committed to providing safe drinking water, protecting the environment through wastewater treatment, and meeting state and federal regulatory requirements, what responsibilities customers believed were most important for the utility to focus on. The most common responses included adapting to the effects of climate change, enhancing efforts to protect regional water quality, and preparing for emergencies and cyber threats. Most notably, when asked if respondents would be willing to pay more to address those responsibilities, more than two thirds of respondents indicated that they definitely or probably would be willing to pay more. This information, along with other community, stakeholder, and employee input will provide essential context for OWASA's Board and staff as they continue to work to update the strategic plan. As of the writing of this abstract, OWASA is still in the first phase of our strategic planning effort: the organizational and environmental scan. In addition to sharing the findings of the survey, our presentation will include what staff and Board did with that information in the development of the strategic plan.

Our presentation will summarize the development and implementation of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) tools Citizens Energy Group has developed to provide predictive operational decision support for combined sewer overflow (CSO) facilities. Citizens developed these tools by efficiently leveraging its prior investments in collection system modeling and metering. Our AI/ML tools consist of artificial neural networks fit to long-term datasets to predict inflows to CSO facilities using the 72-hour NOAA radar rainfall forecast. Both the rainfall and CSO facility inflow are embedded in a Power BI dashboard for efficient communication to Citizens staff. We developed this dashboard without incurring any additional software cost and believe any wastewater utility operating wet weather facilities can implement a similar AI/ML tool to ours. Citizens Energy Group is the combined water, wastewater, natural gas, steam, and chilled water utility in Indianapolis. Citizens is presently implementing a 20-year CSO consent decree with required completion in 2025. Consent decree compliance is primarily achieved through the DigIndy Tunnel system, a 28-mile long, 18-foot diameter tunnel network. Citizens is also implementing a pair of storage facilities in the Upper White River and Upper Pogues Run watersheds. Citizens, like all utilities implementing a consent decree, has made significant investments in modeling and metering its collection system, and has multiple years of meter data and model results on the shelf from recent regulatory and design support activity. While Citizens has confidence in its InfoWorks ICM model of the collection system, computational limitations prevent the model from being applied in real time or for immediate prediction of future rainfall events. In order to transform the collection system model from a design tool into a predictive operational tool, Citizens developed neural networks for the DigIndy Tunnel system and the Upper Pogues Run storage tank. These neural networks effectively serve as an extension of Citizens' collection system model to simulate inflow to the tunnel or tank in a matter of seconds. Since both facilities will begin operation at the beginning of 2022, Citizens utilized several years of collection system model input and output data to develop the neural networks. Figure 1 presents the architecture diagram for the AI/ML tools. Within Power BI, embedded Python scripts using the MetPy library (Unidata, 2021) connect to the NOAA server and obtain the 72-hour National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) radar forecast for rainfall and temperature. The forecasted rainfall data is compiled for the CSO facility service area and temperature is utilized to estimate evapotranspiration (Hargreaves and Samani, 1982) for use in the neural networks. Citizens developed standard feed forward neural networks to predict inflow volume to the tunnel and storage tank similar to the collection system model. Figure 2 presents a scatterplot comparing each modeled inflow event to the tunnel system for precipitation years 2016 through 2019 to the neural network prediction. The inputs to the neural network are rainfall, peak intensity, antecedent dry days, the previous day's rainfall, and evapotranspiration. The total inflow volume from the neural network was within one percent of the InfoWorks collection system model simulation, with a R2 of 93%. Citizens evaluated input parameter sensitivity of the neural network and determined that for the storage tunnel, rainfall is the nearly an order of magnitude more important than any of the other input parameters. However, for the Upper Pogues Run storage tank that serves a much smaller watershed area, peak intensity is nearly as important as rainfall. Citizens initiated a desktop test deployment in early 2021 and progressed to an automated test deployment that has been completed at the time of the abstract. In the automated deployment, the rainfall forecast and subsequent inflow volume forecast is generated hourly, with results posted on Citizens' internal SharePoint. The rainfall forecast and forecasted inflow volume are presented though an online Power BI dashboard. We will present our method of deployment of this tool as well as other options for automated deployment that wastewater utilities may consider. Table 1 presents an example forecast from the neural network for July 15 – July 17, 2021. The forecasted inflow volume is based on the NDFD on July 14, 2021. In other words, should the tunnel system have been operational on July 16th, operational staff would have had an estimate of the magnitude of inflow more than a day before the event occurred. Over the course of the deployment, the BI dashboards were expanded to also collect NWS river stage forecasts and actual rainfall data through the application programming interface (API) provided by ADS as part of the PRISM interface to Citizens' rain gauge and flow meter network. Using the API key, Citizens developed a process to compare the forecasted rainfall from NOAA to the actual rainfall from the gauge network. From March 2021 through July 2021, the total forecasted rainfall was 23.5 inches, compared to 22.3 inches of actual gauge rainfall. An encouraging finding is that seventy-six percent (76%) of the rain events were forecasted within two-tenths of an inch of the actual gauge rainfall. We believe our presentation will benefit any wastewater utility that is operating or soon to be operating a wet-weather storage, treatment, or pumping facility to address combined sewer or sanitary sewer peak flows. We will provide a roadmap for any utility to implement a similar AI/ML solution for predictive operational decision support that can be implemented without any commercial software cost.

In 2020, Public Health Departments struggled to control SARS-CoV-2 spread in communities. As infected individuals did not see any symptom for few days, they unknowingly continued spreading the virus within their community. Lots of lives were lost, and the entire healthcare system was stressed. Initially, clinical testing was the only means to detect the virus presence. However, this testing is after-the-fact and, hence, too late. As a result, control measures such as social distancing and mask mandates were implemented. Besides having a negative impact on the economy, such measures were not 100% enforceable. Tracking and preventing the outbreak was challenging. Contact tracing is one way to see where the virus was and is going, but once again it's still after-the-fact of spreading the virus. In this chaotic environment, wastewater surveillance provided a new way to track and predict the virus's spread. When an individual is infected with SARS-CoV-2, he/she sheds the virus through their stool which ends up in wastewater. When such wastewater is analyzed, it provides information on the presence of the virus, as early as seven days prior to detection through clinical testing. Similar studies were done in the past for viral outbreaks such as Polio. It is now established that Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is a valuable population level approach for monitoring viral presence. Analysis on samples collected at a Wastewater treatment plant influent provides catchment-wide virus presence to establish trends. Whereas analysis on samples collected in wastewater collection system, close to source, finds virus prevalence in local area such as neighborhood, dorms, hospitals, and nursing home. Finding city-wide trends can help implement programs such as mask mandates and social distancing before it is too late. By finding virus presence in a local area, quick small-scale clinical testing can be performed to narrow down infection to individual or building levels before it is widespread. For an accurate analysis, it is critical that collected wastewater samples are source representative. Otherwise, garbage in, garbage out. This presentation will explain type samplers and sampling methods to be used based on purpose and location. The presentation will cover the following topics: - Purpose of wastewater analysis – - Detecting prevalence, Tracking, and/or Trend analysis - Target area – City, zip code, neighborhood, building (e.g. Dorm, Nursing home, Hospital) - How to select sampling location based on the above purpose – Treatment plant, collection system network, building outlet? - Types of sampling methods - Grab sampling vs composite sampling. Pros and cons - What types of samplers should be used based on location and purpose – - Permanent or portable - With or without refrigeration - What are the best sampling methods based on location, purpose, and type of sampler? - What bottle configuration should be used based on purpose – Single bottle or multi-bottles - How to transport and preserve samples. How to store samples – short term vs long term.

Like many agencies, DC Water is committed to further operationalizing and elevating equity in its capital investments. Some stakeholders have asked for a 'spending per neighborhood' analysis to verify that equity is being considered. While this is an important checkpoint to show the benefits of utility investments throughout the service area, it's also an opportunity to dive deeper. Complex interconnected infrastructure of varying ages and risks requires a more nuanced analysis to provide affordable rates and inter-generational equity in customer experiences, supporting the needs of customers not only in the 20-year planning horizon but over the next 100 years. To support inter-generational equity, DC Water is using an analytical approach in an 'Equity in CIP Planning' tool that goes far beyond a simplistic evaluation of spending per neighborhood to dive into the details of customer experiences, connect those experiences with needed capital investments and operational improvements, and tie the work together with asset management to reduce risks and manage costs equitably and efficiently. DC Water's Equity in CIP Planning tool also creates a two-way communication link between operations customer requests and further engagement opportunities for customers to understand and give input in utility priorities. This paper details the analysis tools and methods DC Water has developed to provide a more in-depth analytical approach for equitable outcomes as well as the outreach and engagement tools for building community trust in the approach. As part of recent Linear Sewer Facilities Plans for Water Distribution and Sewer Collection Systems, DC Water sought to develop a tool to analyze and connect how customer needs relate to investments in the interconnected sewer and water systems. Equitable investments for sewer and water are not as simple as directing resources to a particular vulnerable neighborhood. Sewers serve watersheds and sewersheds, and water infrastructure is connected in pressure zones. Large diameter sewers and water mains as well as treatment facilities, pump stations and green infrastructure serve large areas of customers. Additionally, customers are not static. They may live in one area of the District of Columbia (District) and work or attend school in another area, meaning the customer experience of sewer and water services goes beyond a single service connection. Many investments in the sewer and water systems also benefit customers throughout multiple neighborhoods and wards of the District. How to reflect this complexity in our analysis and engage stakeholders in evaluating the results in a meaningful way is a question worth considering. In support of serving this complex interconnected system, asset management principles integrated into the Equity in CIP Planning tool allow the District to prioritize equitable outcomes while simultaneously supporting efficient investments to reduce risk where the infrastructure needs are highest. A key element is to ensure that customer experiences are sought out and included in Operations data in a way that can be analyzed and systematically included in CIP planning along with data on system condition and risk. This requires quality checking and geo-locating past customer concerns previously recorded in text fields and updating Operations approaches to data gathering for the future to use data more analytically. DC Water identified and is now working to implement a 'sweet spot' of infrastructure rehabilitation level to best support inter-generational equity. This will result in a six-fold increase in capital investments in the linear sewer facilities in the next 10 years, ramping up from approximately $160 Million invested in the last 10 years to over $1 Billion invested in the next 10 years. This increased investment is a catalytical opportunity to engage with stakeholders in relationship and trust-building that DC Water is spending ratepayer dollars in an equitable way to improve their quality of life. In order to further embed equitable infrastructure decision-making into its capital programs and operations, DC Water is focusing on analyzing and identifying potential inequities in customer experiences and evaluating those within the context of social and environmental vulnerabilities. The focus of this work is to protect the needs of the most vulnerable communities from impacts such as flooding and sewage overflows, transportation and daily life disruptions from emergency repairs, and water pressure and water quality that doesn't meet established levels of service. This work supports DC Water's BluePrint 2.0 Strategic Plan imperatives of Equity, Resiliency, and Reliability. DC Water also developed a pilot to provide a scoring 'boost' for local sewer and water rehabilitation and other projects addressing vulnerable customer needs using the Centers for Disease Control and US EPA Environmental Justice Index. As part of a commitment to ongoing learning and adaptive management, DC Water then performed an analysis of the need and benefit of the pilot boost approach for project prioritization on improving customer outcomes and experiences in higher vulnerability communities. By plotting and analyzing key performance metrics such as sewer line breaks and water line breaks per mile in each neighborhood ward and each vulnerability index area, DC Water mathematically evaluated if there are inequities in customer experiences that require using a boost to the prioritization score in certain areas. During the ongoing implementation of the Linear Sewer Facilities Plans for Water Distribution and Sewer Collection Systems, DC Water is using an expanded customer engagement process that utilizes the Equity in CIP tool to tell visual stories that connect between customer experiences and utility investments. The tool brings together Key Performance Indicators and planned capital projects as well as information for customers about how to have problems addressed. The goal is to build trust and two-way communication between customers and the utility so that the intergenerational equity investments meet customer needs and provide community uplift.

Everyone has to do it. Few talk about it. It's one of those things you do the same way you did it last year, the year before, and the year before. Open last year's CCR, update the figures, send to your subject matter experts for a quality check and it's off to the printer and mail house. Your job is done, and you've complied with EPA Regulations. A couple weeks later, a customer opens their mailbox to find an oftentimes visually bland and unappealing letter from their water provider. If U.S. Postal Service statistics are correct, it's competing with nearly 500 other marketing pieces and catalogs that customer will get that year. If they even open it — and that's a big if — they'll notice from the first sentence that the language is overly technical, uses confusing industry jargon, and reads like a legal document. If you're lucky, they might scan the dense tables of figures, still without absorbing a single concept, and then give up. The next stop is the recycling bin. Utilities can do better. Many years ago, Charlotte Water's Public Affairs Division recognized that their CCR provided a rare opportunity to communicate with customers, enhance their brand, build relationships, and make human connections. Their annual Water Quality Report (WQR) was born. In 2021, Charlotte Water partnered with Raftelis to create a WQR that stands out among its competitors in the mailbox. Their piece focuses on two key factors that influence whether the report gets read or quickly recycled: design and accessibility. It's these same two factors that Raftelis focused on to create the winning entry to the Environmental Policy Innovation Center's Water Data Prize Competition last year. Both Charlotte Water and the Raftelis team saw the CCR not for what it is, but for the opportunity it delivers — a rare and critical moment to connect customers to the one thing they can't go without. This session will provide participants with ideas, insights, and guidance that can be scaled for use by the smallest utility with minimal resources to the largest utilities with maximum resources. Attendees will come away with a fresh eye on the old CCR, and the inspiration to turn this mandated report into a masterpiece.

As Buffalo Sewer prepares for its second decade of implementation of the approved Combined Sewer Overflow Long Term Control Plan (LTCP), results of a recalibrated hydraulic model, updated Financial Capability Assessment, a cost-benefit analysis of early projects, a deeper understanding of the existing system's design, and increasing recognition of issues of environmental justice and implications of systemic racism and climate change have all driven a re-evaluation of how to achieve the goals of the LTCP while also building a more equitable, inclusive, and resilient city. Buffalo Sewer's approved 2014 LTCP made use of innovative strategies with a focus on Green Infrastructure and Real Time Controlled Smart Sewers. As we move forward into the next phase of the LTCP, we are learning how to implement Green Infrastructure in a more sustainable and maintainable way that also addresses long-standing disinvestment in the existing increasingly aged collection system. We are also finding new and innovative ways to implement Real Time Controlled Smart Sewer technology to take advantage of opportunities created by the historical design of our collection system and the disinvestment in redlined neighborhoods while also creating visible community benefits and simplifying maintenance. This presentation will review the development of the approved LTCP and its components. It will also review the projects completed under that plan and implementation issues experienced to date. It will also discuss how the recalibrated model has impacted the viability of the 2014 LTCP and its components. Additionally, the historical, economic, and climatic conditions of Buffalo and the resultant opportunities, risks, and restrictions that they create will be discussed. Finally, the updated LTCP will be presented. Currently, the updated Financial Capability Analysis is under review with the United States Environmental Protection Agency and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation with final approval expected in late 2021. The Model Recalibration is also under ongoing review by the regulators with approval expected in mid-Fall 2021. Six traditional Smart Sewer Projects have been completed, three additional traditional projects are in bidding or construction phases, and a final project which implements Smart Sewer technology at an existing pumping station is poised to go into operation by October 2021. Three additional traditional Smart Sewer projects have been identified for design during the 2022 Calendar Year, in addition, two next generation Smart Sewer projects have been identified for design during this same period, and several of the projects currently in design and implementation represent a global implementation strategy rather than a more traditional CSO or even waterbody specific strategy. Similarly, on the Green Infrastructure front, RainCheck 1.0 has been completed and it has become increasingly clear that while the demolition of vacant and abandoned homes has created vast swaths of new green space throughout large tracts of Buffalo at limited cost to Buffalo Sewer, the opportunity for further demolitions is limited and at the same time, bioretention cells within the public right of way are costly to construct and maintain and other green infrastructure techniques are more sustainable and create opportunities for other co-benefits without negatively impacting long-term residents in disinvested neighborhoods.

Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority (SAWPA) implemented a watershed-wide Disadvantaged Community Involvement (DCI) Program between 2007 and 2021 to determine the strengths and needs of disadvantaged, economically distressed areas, and underrepresented communities in the watershed (https://sawpa.org/owow/dci-program/). This program, conducted under SAWPA's One Water One Watershed Program (https://sawpa.org/owow/), included a wide array of engagement and education activities intended to uncover and share the needs and capacities within the water agencies and communities. It was built upon the strong foundation of knowledge and outreach developed throughout earlier integrated regional water management planning efforts and encompassed three key program elements. Program Element 1 of the DCI program entailed surveying the strengths and needs of disadvantaged, economically distressed areas, and underserved communities in the watershed. This included a series of workshops conducted by SAWPA to engage with representatives from these communities to expand the reach of OWOW. Through these workshops representatives of these communities were provided the opportunity to contribute, through conversation and deliberation, to the planning, and research. A key component of this DCI program element entailed the development of a novel ethnographic approach to investigate and document the strengths and needs of disadvantaged, economically distressed areas, and underserved communities in the Santa Ana River Watershed. This ethnographic approach, unlike a traditional strength and needs assessment approach, was based upon consultation with the greater community throughout the process and recognized community members as local environmental experts. Through this approach SAWPA's program partners used network sampling methods to engage five social groups: elected officials, water agencies, mutual water companies, Native American communities, and other diverse local communities. These efforts combined in a total of 53 listening sessions, totaling 82 hours of conversation with members of the community speaking about their watershed experiences. The data collected during these listening sessions were then analyzed to identify key discussion themes and documented in the 'Santa Ana River Watershed Community Water Experiences and Ethnographic Strengths and Needs Assessment Report' (https://sawpa.org/owow/dci-program/strengths-and-needs/). Program Element 2 encompassed a broad number of engagement and education activities to share the information gathered through the strengths and needs assessment with local the water agencies and communities highlighted by the following: -Homelessness and water convening events to reveal synergies and develop new partnerships between those seeking to manage homelessness in the watershed and those engaged with water management. -Tribal consultation with California Native American Tribes within the Santa Ana River Watershed, as well as those with historical and/or cultural ties to the Watershed. -Trust the Tap campaign to assist in the development and implement a multilingual community outreach campaign to share the value and safety of tap water with communities in the watershed. -Translation services for in‐person meetings and written material translation services on activities related to community engagement for water management. -Engagement best practices publication looking at engagement of DACs about water management, with case studies from around the state. - Community water education to provide community members opportunities to learn about the water management process and engage with local water managers in the watershed. - Water agency training for water agencies staff in the watershed and statewide summit to share the information. - Local elected leader training to share the findings of the DCI program, basic information on water management topics, and best practices for helping the communities to interact with water planning activities. Program Element 3 focused on project development building upon what was learned through the strengths and needs assessment to identify projects and programs that address the needs of disadvantaged, economically distressed areas, and underserved communities in the watershed. SAWPA, working in coordination with a Technical Assistance Committee composed of the DCI non-profit partners, were tasked to develop evaluation criteria for projects and programs to receive technical assistance funding, conduct a rating, ranking and scoring of the potential projects, plans and programs and allocate $2.9 M in available technical assistance funding to develop these projects and programs. The highest priority of this program element was to formulate solutions that addressed the critical needs of these communities that do not have safe, reliable, and affordable drinking water. Overall, the findings and conclusions of the SAWPA DCI program were based upon information gathered from the three program elements. Report findings were presented to individual social groups including elected officials, local communities, Native communities, water-agencies, and mutual water companies. Findings revealed the social, cultural, and water-related strengths and needs of these communities in the watershed. From these findings, the program partners were also able to identify several strong thematic connections and disconnections among and between the various social groups. These focused on four key themes: water management, water rates and cost, communication, and water quality and demonstrated how water systems are collectively understood-and misunderstood-by various social groups in the watershed and helped to explain why one participant group's strength may be another's need. Several core conclusions and recommendations reflect the key barriers and challenges to strengthening agency engagement with overburdened and underrepresented groups. Language Barriers One of the consistent needs that surfaced throughout the program implementation process was the need for water agencies to commit to bridging language barriers between their staff and the communities they serve. With such a diverse watershed population, it is necessary that water-related decision-makers work with local constituents to identify translation projects and offer translators for relevant public meetings. As part of the program, SAWPA offered on-call translation services to public agencies and nonprofits. This included providing translation consultants for live translation of public meetings and for translation of water-related documents. Communication One of the factors that limits agency, decision-maker, and community member connections is simply a lack of funding or staff time devoted to communications. This is a broad acknowledgement that resource providers can do a better job of ensuring that critical water information is accessible to various publics, especially those most vulnerable to water-related challenges. Community members say that they often do not know how to find answers to their water-related questions or that they are not sure how to interpret the information they do find. It is recommended that water decision-makers devote staff time to maintaining long-term relationships with community-based organizations that have relationships with underrepresented and overburdened communities to better understand localized communication preferences. Tap Water Quality The most critical disconnection surfaced in this report are the prevalent community concerns about tap water quality. Water agencies need to address these concerns differently than they have historically. Community concerns are not just linked to reasons previously assumed by water providers, such as immigrant-status or lack of education. The report indicated that more work is necessary to overcome the physical and social disconnections that may impair water quality between the facility and the faucet, especially in economically distressed areas. It is recommended that water agencies work directly with community-based organizations to hear and respond to the localized concerns that people have about tap water. Connecting Strengths and Needs to Technical Assistance Projects The ethnographic model of collecting strengths and needs is unfamiliar to most public planning agencies, both as an approach and as a dataset. The insights that can be gleaned from this approach are highly valuable but are also complex and difficult to interpret and implement. It is the responsibility of agencies to gather civic input (community experiences) and translate those themes into strategies to meet the needs that emerge. It is recommended that DCI program groups design strong and inclusive working group structures that can connect the strengths and needs surfaced by communities to actionable projects and programs.

Access to a safe and reliable water supply is an essential part of ensuring public health and building community resiliency. With continued stress on traditional water sources, and rising exploration of alternative water supplies, water reuse is becoming a larger area of focus in communities. Water reuse, or water recycling, is a proven, science-based process that intentionally captures wastewater, stormwater, saltwater, or graywater and treats it for a designated beneficial freshwater purpose such as drinking, industrial processes, surface or ground water replenishment, and watershed restoration. As the water industry explores recycling water for the purpose of drinking (i.e., potable reuse), communication and public education has been identified as a critical factor in enabling project success. Concerted efforts are being made by utilities and organizations to reach the general public and consumers to communicate the safety of water reuse. Building relationships and a shared knowledge of water reuse processes, risks, and safety between the public health and medical communities and the water sector is key. This session will feature Bart Weiss, a leader in potable reuse in Florida and the nation, to discuss communication and public education around water reuse, particularly as it relates to engaging with medical and public health professionals. The Water Research Foundation Project 13-02 clearly identified the importance of communication plan that includes medical and public health professionals. It is known that community members seek advice on the health of water reuse from their medical professionals and that the public is interested in communication around the safety, quality, and treatment process for direct potable reuse. Building off this knowledge, this presentation will draw from numerous case studies and research around public education, highlighting the importance of engaging public health, health care, and water sector professionals throughout the public outreach process. More broadly, this work will summarize various activities through the WateReuse Association's Public Health and Medical Community Initiative. The University of Texas, Houston School of Public Health and El Paso Water represent one such partnership between public health and water sector professionals. This partnership enabled a greater understanding of how community members respond to various forms of public education. Such findings include the increase in support as residents learn more about potable water reuse (figure 1). Additional partnerships include the College of Public Health at the University of South Florida's collaboration on Florida's Potable Reuse plan and education efforts throughout the state. This partnership builds off the knowledge that the public wants to hear from medical professionals, and in turn enables those medical professionals with key water safety information. Dr. Donna Petersen, Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of South Florida is working with WateReuse members to incorporate presentations on water reuse systems into her curriculum to properly educate Florida residents in anticipation of potable reuse in the state. Expanding these efforts nationwide will be another key to the success of the Public Health and Medical Community Initiative. Partnerships with health professionals are not the only means for the water sector to effectively engage in public education, media outreach such as that with Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN visiting El Paso Water to discuss water reuse (figure 2) and recycled water brewing such the New Water Brew Competition can also support a robust communication strategy (figure 3). Allowing the public to hear from established, trusted media sources better enables understanding of the health risks associated with potable reuse without being lost in technical jargon. In a different way, hearing from brewers on the quality recycled water focuses the conversation on the treatment processes and water quality rather than water history. Such projects, coupled with partnerships with health professionals, enable a successful public outreach strategy. This session is aimed at broadcasting key communication techniques and partnerships to better inform participants in their own outreach. Largely, the goal is to open broader conversations of the nexus between public health and water treatment.

Stormwater design criteria have not been substantially updated since they were first established back in the 1950s. Most stormwater design manuals still reference those same criteria and event rainfall data from the 1961 Technical Paper No. 40, Rainfall Frequency Atlas of the United States. In urban areas we continue to apply these standards without thinking what it means or how it impacts our aging systems. We add on stormwater control measures as required as part of the post construction best management practices of the MS4 permit but those criteria are not integrated into the overall stormwater criteria. The results is an antiquated and outdated set of design standards that do not provide the functional value that the public is paying for. It is even more critical in this time when many cities want to improve the resiliency of urban areas in the face of climate change. However, do we have the criteria and tools to meet this need. Do we have the right design requirements that will result in the stormwater management outcomes that we desire. In Lawrence, Kansas these questions are being asked and evaluated using a city-wide watershed approach. 2D watershed models of all 59 watersheds are being developed to first fully understand the existing conditions and then to apply a range of potential rainfall events to determine what is the most cost-effective solutions. This is not a one size fits all approach but a watershed system approach that looks at what is the most optimal functional value in an area to reduce flooding, improve water quality, and protect public safety and property. This city-wide system multiple benefit approach is then being used to develop design criteria and stormwater management policy that will provide the highest value at the lowest cost. This approach is significantly different than blindly applying an assumed level of service design standard that would result in only larger and larger pipes or large underground storage. Using this approach, the City of Lawrence will develop a set of affordable solutions that will provide the greatest benefit across the watershed to maximize their available budget. This is in contrast to the past approach of designing a project to meet an outdated standard that was costly requiring it to be delayed for several years before it could be built leading to a back log of projects that would never be built. In Westport, Missouri, the oldest part of the City of Kansas City, Missouri, stormwater solutions have been designed to maximize the functional value within an available budget. This design was even more challenging because it was within a combined sewer system. A new design approach was therefore needed to address sever and frequent flooding, meet a federal combined sewer consent decree, and improve the business district. Several past studies had attempted to solve the problem using the old, antiquated design standards that resulted in over designed and unaffordable solutions that could not be built. Meanwhile the area still flooded almost every year impacting business, flooding cars, and causing public health issues given that the flood waters were combined sewer. Something had to change and that required a change in the design standards. Instead of meeting a 10-year level of service requirement the design focused on two recent real rainfall events along with a range of design events from the 2- to 10-year return frequency to establish the highest value solution for the budget. The resulting solution did not eliminate flooding but rather limited the flooding withing the public right of way at a depth and duration that was acceptable. This presentation will provide an overview of the current issues with design standards developed in the 1950s, ideas to improve them, and two case studies that will provide real examples of how and why we need to change. As cities strive to meet sustainability goals stormwater management must also be sustainable in the form of providing for adaptive designs that optimize the functional value at the most affordable price. Furthermore, if we start to consider stormwater as a resource rather than a waste our design objectives change from a drainage design standard to a water resource design standard. How will climate change impact us we really don't know but if we only require more and more conservative design that result in larger and larger pipes, we won't be creating more resilient cities we will only be creating larger uncontrolled conveyance system that impact our downstream neighbors. Resiliency means our design need to meet a range of potential future conditions not just one. Rainfall may get more intense and be of higher volume, but it also may be more time between events. We should be striving to create design standards that consider both outcomes so we can create more sustainable and resilient cities.

Facility Overview: South Platte Renew holds the distinction of being the third-largest Water Resource Recovery Facility (WRRF) in the state of Colorado. Serving as a vital lifeline, it caters to the needs of over 300,000 residents and consistently processes an average of 20 million gallons per day (MGD) of wastewater. SPR's asset registry is a testament to its complexity and scale, comprising nearly 6,000 assets across multiple disciplines, encompassing mechanical, electrical, instrumentation and controls, structural, and fleet components. The diversity within this asset portfolio is further underscored by the wide-ranging age of these components, stemming from the original plant construction in the 1970s, complemented by significant upgrades undertaken during the 1990s and the early 2000s. This intricate blend of assets has introduced a formidable challenge for SPR, as it endeavors to strike a balance between the renewal needs of variable aging infrastructure with other process and regulatory capital improvement needs. Asset Management Background: While SPR has been performing certain asset management activities since its original construction, SPR's formal programmatic asset management journey started in 2008 with the acquisition of an Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) system. Since then, SPR has advanced its asset management program by launching a series of initiatives designed to enhance overall asset lifecycle health. These initiatives encompass recurring asset-focused programs, such as equipment rebuilds, tank cleaning, HVAC maintenance, valve exercises, and concrete repair and rehabilitation projects. In addition, SPR has integrated asset management principles into its capital projects through standard development and data utilization. This ongoing commitment to enhancing asset management practices reflects SPR's dedication to continually evolve and improve its approach to ensure the sustained health and efficiency of its vital infrastructure. The Challenge: SPR has diligently worked across various departments to develop data management and maintenance strategies to support the ongoing advancement of its asset management program. However, one thing that became evident to SPR was the lack of a cohesive and organization-wide strategy amid the ongoing tactical endeavors. The lack of understanding and inconsistencies in asset management practices among SPR staff posed a notable challenge. It was not well understood among SPR staff what asset management meant and what the overall goals and objectives of the program were. It was also evident that there were inconsistencies in how asset management practices were being performed. The Solution: To address the challenges faced, SPR embarked on the development of a Strategic Asset Management Plan (SAMP) which had a dual purpose. Firstly, it formalized asset management strategies and policies. Secondly, it actively engaged key stakeholders and nurtured an asset management culture within the organization. The SAMP encompassed critical components such as: Identifying and recruiting key asset management stakeholders across operations, maintenance, engineering, data analysis, and senior leadership staff Developing a clear vision, goals, objectives, and policies around SPR's asset management program Establishing programmatic governance, roles, and responsibilities Defining levels of service and key performance indicators Implementing risk-based renewal planning methodologies in consideration of an asset's condition, criticality, and redundancy Optimizing maintenance strategies Benefits Realized: SPR has already realized several benefits from the development and implementation of the SAMP. There is overall a greater sense of understanding of asset management among staff, there is excitement and the realization of value from asset management activities, and there is consistency and clarification on many procedures and activities. Through the implementation of a SAMP, SPR will also gain an increased resiliency in financial planning through transparent and accurate reporting, as well as operations and maintenance practices, allowing SPR to better maintain high water quality and maximize value to customers. Lessons Learned: SPR's asset management journey offered valuable lessons, including the importance of starting with simplicity and gradually building complexity, eliminating silos, and the foundational importance of thoughtful and strategic data management. The SAMP emerged as a concise, repeatable document that can guide any utility in creating an asset management framework. Key Value Points for UMC Attendees: This presentation by SPR staff and its external consultant will provide attendees with insights into SPR's asset management journey, including: Step-by-step guidance for creating a SAMP and its associated benefits Strategies to avoid single points of failure by sharing institutional knowledge The significance of fostering an asset management culture across an organization Transitioning from fragmented and inconsistent initiatives to a formalized organizational strategy The advantages of self-performing SAMP development in collaboration with external consultants The importance of building upon past successes and discarding outdated approaches to meet current and future programmatic needs. SPR's asset management story serves as a valuable case study, offering practical guidance and inspiration for utilities seeking to enhance their asset management practices.