84096401

**Description:** The Rural Community Assistance Partnership (RCAP), in collaboration with its partners, will provide technical, managerial, and financial capacity-building training and technical assistance for operators, board members, and managers/other staff of tribal/non-tribal small community water systems and transient and non-transient non-community water systems with the objectives of protecting human health, advancing equity and environmental justice, revitalizing communities, and improving compliance, sustainability, and resiliency including through enhanced access to infrastructure funding.

**Activities:** Through a network of more than 350 field staff and project partners, RCAP will provide training in all 50 states, the U.S. territories, and in tribal communities using in-person and online methods with an emphasis on and preference for in-person services since they are often more hands-on and allow for more networking/relationship building.

RCAP will deploy training methods that include: 1) Interactive in-person, instructor-led training including learning laboratories; 2) Live, instructor-led online training; and 3) Webinar offered live and recorded for on-demand viewing.

RCAP uses training methods that include blended learning combining self-paced, on-demand materials with live, instructor-led training, hybrid in-person/online training, microlearning (short, on-demand content conveniently consumed); and self-paced eLearning.

Additionally, RCAP's in-depth approach to technical assistance (TA) will focus on addressing the immediate causes of current/potential compliance violations and improve long-term sustainability and resiliency, including access to infrastructure dollars.

RCAP will provide multi-contact, intensive TA that will be provided on-site and remotely. For example, the following are some of the activities that will take place during the grant period: lead service line inventories, lead service line replacement strategies, assisting with funding applications, providing input on preliminary engineering reports, developing/updating risk and resiliency assessments and emergency response plans, rate studies, asset management, budgeting and/or fiscal controls, water loss/leak detection, mapping, regionalization facilitation, and affordability/customer assistance programs.

**Subrecipient:** The subaward activities include providing technical, managerial, and financial (TMF) capacity-building training and technical assistance.

**Outcomes:** Beneficiaries include small public water system managers/staff, operators, and decision makers.

Outcomes will include an increase in the knowledge and competency of small system operators, staff, and leadership in the areas of regulatory requirements/operations; planning and responding to threats (natural and man-made); the benefits of collaboration with other systems; improvement in performance for those implementing asset management and utilizing improved rate structures; and more small systems applying for infrastructure funding.

This will be measured through the following means:
- Increased number of small PWSS in compliance/making substantial progress toward compliance indicated by reduced enforcement status or in the DCS with compliance assistance types/outcomes and final TMFs;
- Increased public health protection due to an increased number of communities with lead service line inventories and/or conducting service line replacement;
- Increased capacity of operators, managers, and boards to diagnose/correct causes for compliance failure and to increase financial sustainability/resiliency shown by average improvement of pre/post test scores;
- Increased number of small systems working together in all possible forms of utility partnership to improve efficiencies that ultimately assist with regulatory compliance, sustainability, and improved public health; and
- Number of infrastructure funding applications submitted; infrastructure funding dollar.

Rural Community Assistance Partnership

66.424 - Surveys, Studies, Investigations, Demonstrations, and Training Grants - Section 1442 of the Safe Drinking Water Act

Office of Grants and Debarment (OGD) [EPA - HQ]

Office of Water (OW) [EPA - HQ]

Washington, District Of Columbia 20006-2437 United States

Single Zip Code

Training and Technical Assistance to Improve Water Quality and Enable Small Public Water Systems to Provide Safe Drinking Water (EPA-OW-OGWDW-24-01)