New NETSCS guide helps small wastewater systems increase security

Protecting Your Community’s Assets: A Guide for Small Wastewater Systems, a new resource that will help small communities improve the security of their wastewater treatment facilities, is now available from the National Environmental Training Center for Small Communities (NETCSC). Smaller communities can use the guide as a self-assessment and security planning tool. Environmental trainers will find the guide to be a useful resource for security training.

NETCSC developed the guide in cooperation with small community and security professionals to provide smaller wastewater systems with a process for protecting their community’s wastewater-related assets, according to John Hoornbeek, NETCSC director. The guide focuses specifically on the security needs of smaller communities.

“We wanted to remedy this gap in our nation’s effort to improve the security of its water and wastewater infrastructure,” says Hoornbeek. “The process we’ve used is relatively simple. Users identify the system’s assets, look at possible threats to those assets, identify system vulnerabilities, and then develop and rank potential corrective actions.”

The guide is arranged as a set of checklists and planning tools that address a variety of wastewater security threats, including natural disasters, vandalism, and acts of terrorism. The vulnerability assessment checklist has a simple design based on providing “yes” or “no” answers to a series of questions, and each question has helpful information and advice for users to consider. Space is provided to list potential corrective actions.

“We have worked to make this tool applicable to smaller wastewater systems across the country, and to do that we received input from all corners of the U.S.,” says NETCSC Associate Christopher King, C.E.T., who was a primary author of the guide. “The important thing for operators and local officials to do when they use this instrument is to customize it for their own system.”

Riverton, Wyoming, a city of 9,310, assisted in the development of the guide by going through the assessment process and providing feedback to the authors. William Urbigkit, director of public works for Riverton, admits that going through the assessment was a real eye-opener for his community.

“The broad range of vulnerabilities assessed by this instrument—whether it be man-made or Mother Nature in origin—is startling,” says Urbigkit. “Taking the time to evaluate vulnerability and then develop an emergency response plan has been something that we as a municipality had been rather complacent about. We found it very enlightening and will re-evaluate our vulnerability in the near future.”

Even though the guide was released in December 2002, it is already being used, according to Hoornbeek. It has been accessed hundreds of times on NETCSC’s Web site. It has also been made available in hard copy to many users, including the National Rural Community Assistance Program (RCAP) network, attendees at wastewater security training sessions offered by the Water Environment Federation, and other individuals who work in and with small communities.

Richard Weigand, director of the West Virginia State Environmental Training Center in Ripley, is planning to use the guide for both classroom training and onsite technical assistance in West Virginia. Weigand hopes to begin offering one-half day workshops in the spring that describe vulnerability assessment tools for wastewater systems. The workshops will feature the NETCSC guide and other tools available to help systems assess their security risks.

Weigand is also providing the guide to the 104(g) technical assistance providers that work directly with small systems throughout the state. “We will be marketing this guide for use in small communities,” says Weigand. “We will be telling small systems: ‘we have these tools and we have people who can help you with a vulnerability assessment.’”

Weigand notes that because the NETCSC guide is paper-based rather than computer-based, it is easy to use and will be particularly beneficial for very small systems. “Anyone at any level at a small system can use it,” he says. Weigand suggests that by spending one-half day going through the assessment, small systems will gain some very useful information that will help them improve the security of their facilities.

NETCSC developed the guide with assistance from a number of organizations including the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission, RCAP, the National Small Flows Clearinghouse, and the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies. The guide was created based on a template the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators and the National Rural Water Association developed. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency provided funding to develop the guide.

Protecting Your Community’s Assets: A Guide for Small Wastewater Systems may be downloaded from NETCSC’s Web site located at www.netc.wvu.edu. Free hard copies of the guide are available by calling NETCSC at (800) 624-8301 or (304) 293-4191 and requesting Item #TRBKMG03. Shipping and handling fees may apply.