Call & Response

EPA offers useful reminder on emergency response planning for utilities

The EPA wants to remind water utilities that they have backup. EPA's Office of Water Emergency Response and Cybersecurity sent a bulletin July 13 with specifics offered by its latest support initiative.

"Strengthen your utility’s resilience with free support from EPA’s Strengthening Water Infrastructure for Tomorrow (SWIFT) Initiative," the bulletin leads off, adding that SWIFT offers natural hazard risk assessment technical assistance and webinars to support drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater utilities.

SWIFT technical assistance can reportedly support the development of or updates to Emergency Response Plans (ERPs) required under section 1433 of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) for community water systems (CWSs) serving over 3,300 people. Based on the findings of risk and resilience assessments, SWIFT aims to help to incorporate the following into an ERP: 

• Strategies and resources to improve the resilience of the system, including the physical security and cybersecurity of the system; 

• Procedures that can be implemented in the event of a malevolent act or natural hazard; 

• Actions, procedures and equipment which can lessen the impact of a malevolent act or natural hazard on the supply of drinking water; and 

• Strategies that can be used to aid in the detection of malevolent acts or natural hazards. 

"If your utility is interested in learning more about free, direct, technical assistance to complete an ERP, connect with SWIFT," the bulletin says.