This powerpoint presentation outlines information on small potable water systems. Small potable and wastewater systems in the U.S. are a consistent source of
problems for regulators and, of all public infrastructures, pose the most
common and important health threat. While considerable effort and
funding have been directed to building the "capacity" of these systems, little
attention has been paid to actually transferring competence to their users,
operators and managers.
Most funding support for these systems is tied to bringing them into
compliance with applicable regulations and has resulted in numerous
projects - usually capital and usually performed by a consultant. On rare
occasions, that consultant may try to transfer competencies to the users, but
this is mostly the exception. Statistics of three small water systems in the U.S. are provided, located in Northumberland, New Hampshire, and in Merrimac and Freetown, Massachusetts. Information on a fourth small system located in Patillas, Puerto Rico, is presented and includes: Problems -
"Those people" can't operate a reliable system;
(universal)
- unknown occurrence and frequency of frank
pathogens in distributed potable water;
- no firm evidence of attack rates for diarrheal disease
in small potable water systems (actually, in any size);
- no demonstrable effects on pathogen occurrence or
diarrheal disease of intervention in these systems;
response -
educate operators and administrators,
require time in systems,
measure pathogen occurrence, and
health effects. Relationship of intervention with illness -
users served by systems where RCAP and CECIA had intervened were less
than half as likely to suffer from diarrheal disease, even after almost 2 years. Northumberland -
time invested was 6 months;
Merrimac -
time invested was 6 months;
Freetown -
time invested was more than 1,000 hours over 7 years. Over 1,575 hours of formal training for operators and over
1,170 hours for administrators was conducted, plus hundreds of additional hours of
collaboration and training in several workshops and meetings. Several
community and cooperative-wide activities were conducted where all members
and users were oriented in the importance and vulnerability of their systems. Lessons in androgogy: the group chose to be there, make them
think they made the right choice;
draw them into the activity, ask them to
share their experiences and discuss their
opinions; and,
be sure everyone understands what they
gain from the activity. The presentation states that capacity-building is the belief that the members of the communities will understand and fix their own problems. However, a subsequent question is can we afford to wait
for them to engage? The term "returnivism", (recidivism without the connotation), means we go there a lot, and over and
over, we build trust over time. Includes table, figures.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 7.5 MB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 36 |
| Published : | 06/01/2007 |
