Scott Mueller, Chief Rural Affairs Officer & Director of Community Resources

Over this past year, the focus on drinking water and health has been more important than ever before.  Close attention needs to be made on quantity, quality, and maintenance of water and the system is critical to a communities overall health and ability to serve its residents and businesses.   The lead issue in Flint Michigan has also brought national awareness to this issue with many states now testing their school systems for lead.  As well regulatory agencies are now more critically looking at compliance and trying to work more closely with communities to insure such.

One key activity to look at is knowing where your system components are such as valves, pumps, distribution and collection lines, laterals and the list goes on.  By knowing where they are assessments can be made on their condition, lifespan, and the ability to plan for replacement or upgrade and prior to it being needed to be made so it is a proactive activity rather than a reactive one focusing on having the financial means available to make the replacement.  Geographical Information Systems [GIS] combined with Asset Management planning is now becoming a very good way to guide this process.  Here institutional knowledge of the system characteristics and physical components can be maintained providing information to operators and decision makers insuring proper operation of the system in a holistic manner.

RCAP Solutions now has programming in this area and can provide technical assistance to rural communities across our region which covers 9 north eastern states and 2 territories [ME, NH, VT, MA, CT, RI, NY, PA, NJ Puerto Rico and USVI].  Whether it be working with a specific community issue or developing a new infrastructure system they have the experience to assist you with your effort.  Most always these are challenging efforts which cost significant dollars and there is an ever growing maze of regulation and process that needs to be navigated.  By knowing your system and components, you will be better able to manage its operations.

This year we are pleased to say that again we have funding available to assist in this area along with many others if eligible.  We can assist your community effort through our trainings, and onsite technical assistance or through our remote resource team.  Whether it be direct technical assistance or training provided to or your project team we would enjoy hearing from you and seeing how we may assist.  In those cases where communities are not eligible for assistance under our federal and state funding guidelines we also offer an affordable bee based approach to gaining this assistance and are more than happy to discuss your needs.

We wish every community the best in the upcoming year and to find out more about our services please contact Scott Mueller, Director of Community Services and Chief Rural affairs officer at 315-482-2756 or email smueller@rcapsolutions.org.