When an emergency strikes, the staff at drinking water and wastewater utilities will be the points of contact for EMAs. Staff can include part-time, full-time and contract employees. Depending on the size of the utility, staff may include chemists, engineers, environmental professionals, systems analysts, microbiologists, public relations people, security personnel and other specialists who are highly trained in their roles individually and as a team. To leverage existing regulatory considerations and prepare for the various community-wide impacts from an emergency, there are specific actions EMAs and drinking water and wastewater utilities can take to increase coordination, efficacy and efficiency.

These include:

EMA staff and drinking water and wastewater utility operators all work to support and secure the health and safety of the community.

• Drinking water and wastewater utilities strive to provide safe water and sanitation services through effective preparedness and security practices.
• EMAs ensure timely, coordinated emergency response by increasing the preparedness and resilience of personnel and operational capabilities to all-hazards.
  

In both mission areas, preparedness refers to actions taken to plan, organize, equip, train and exercise to build and sustain capabilities necessary to prevent, protect against, mitigate the effects of, respond to and recover from threats that pose the greatest risk.

Building relationships and bridging the gap between these two mission areas before an emergency occurs can minimize impacts to drinking water, wastewater and emergency services.

Invite drinking water and wastewater utilities to participate in joint trainings, exercises, emergency response group meetings as well as the LEPC or TEPC. This can be a good way to share day-to-day and emergency contact information and begin forging relationships. Coordination with LEPCs is also now a requirement in developing an ERP for certain community water systems under AWIA.

Membership in LEPCs or TEPCs should involve all community members such as elected local and state officials; police, fire, civil defense and public health professionals; environment, transportation and hospital officials; facility representatives—including EMAs and the water sector.

Drinking water and wastewater utilities can give EMA staff tours of their facilities to allow a better understanding about how drinking water and wastewater utilities operate and what their needs may be during an emergency.

In both drinking water and wastewater utilities, the resources will vary based on utility size. In a small, rural area, there may be one utility manager who oversees a variety of roles. In a large, urban area, there may be specialized staff equipped to handle facility operations and to coordinate with local response partners. Knowledge of utility size and structure is key to building staff relationships.

When an incident occurs and an EOC is activated, emergency professionals at the EOC will coordinate efforts to:

• Assess damage
• Secure utilities and lifelines
• Open roads
• Manage environmental and safety hazards
• Manage resources
• Secure facilities

EMAs can give water utilities access to the EOC, including access to online systems like WebEOC. Water utilities in some areas staff “water desks” in the EOC during emergencies. This creates the opportunity for better relationships during disasters.

Drinking water and wastewater utilities and EMAs can coordinate planning to save resources and identify gaps through:

• ERPs
• Emergency Operations Plans
• Hazard Mitigation Plans
• LEPCs
• Training and Exercises

Both sectors can share their ERPs and Emergency Operations Plans (EOPs). These emergency plans include the roles and responsibilities of the parties involved, as well as logistical challenges that may arise in the event of an emergency. For example, logistics for providing emergency drinking water and sanitation services are important to coordinate before disaster strikes.

The EOPs are intended to be a guide to manage risk and offer guidance based on the nature and extent of an event or incident. It is not a script to be followed exactly in every event, but rather the starting point for organized operational activity. The plan identifies the emergency response policies, describes the response organization and assigns roles and responsibilities for all emergency management activities related to an event. 

In both sectors, EOPs should coincide with community-wide EOPs and with other emergency plans in order to ensure compatibility across organizations. Other local emergency management plans can include: 

• Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP)
• Continuity of Government Plan (COG)
• Local or Regional Evacuation Plan
• Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan (NHMP)
• Flood Response Plan
• Temporary Disaster Housing Plan
• National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP)
• NFIP Community Rating System
• Functional Needs Populations Plan
  

Drinking water and wastewater utilities can also work with their local EMAs on developing hazard mitigation projects and applying for funding opportunities, specifically FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. 

Conducting joint exercises provides a great opportunity to both build relationships and coordinate planning.

Drinking water and wastewater utilities and EMAs should include roles for each other in their exercises to increase the exchange of information and help solve problems across sectors. Water utilities and EMAs can also consider conducting a tabletop exercise. Tabletop exercises are discussion-based sessions where participants meet in an informal, classroom setting to discuss their roles before, during and after an emergency.

Joint exercises provide the opportunity to get to know the staff responsible for responding to an incident—this is equally important in small, medium or large utilities. The resources and challenges experienced by an individual system are unique and will present the opportunity for different methods for how to conduct training and exercises.

EMAs and drinking water and wastewater utilities can share information on their emergency procedures and capabilities including:

• How to request resources during emergencies and the protocol for activating the EOC
• Back-up generator and fuel supply needs during crises
• Mutual aid agreements, including membership in respective state Water and Wastewater Agency Response Networks (WARNs)
  

Drinking water and wastewater utilities can also identify procedures for taking advantage of state-to-state assistance, including the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC).

Taking these steps to share emergency procedures and capabilities will increase drinking water and wastewater utility and EMA access to resources and improve overall response.

Drinking water and wastewater utilities can share emergency capabilities even further through local mutual aid agreements, such as WARNs. WARNs are intrastate networks of “utilities helping utilities” that can help respond to and recover from an incident affecting the water sector through the sharing of specialized resources and personnel. These networks are centered around a mutual aid and assistance agreement, which describes the administrative framework through which support is provided.

There are WARNs established in 49 states and the National Capital Region and their members consist of drinking water and wastewater utilities, public and private, large and small. In many cases, WARN associate members include primacy agencies, state EMAs and water association representatives.

The benefits of WARNs are numerous. WARNs work to:

• Reduce the burden on state and federal response.
• Fill the gap between disaster onset and the arrival of aid.
• Ensure the right resources with the right skills are available.
• Enhance planning and coordination.
• Provide utilities with up-to-date emergency contact lists.
• Reduce administrative conflict.

Interstate mutual aid and assistance offers the exchange of resources and capabilities from state-to-state. A type of interstate mutual aid and assistance is EMAC. EMAC is facilitated by the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA). EMAC facilitates the mobilization of response resources and support between states. EMAC acts as a complement to the federal disaster response system and can be used either in lieu of or in conjunction with federal assistance. EMAC allows states to maximize the use of available resources by sending personnel, equipment and commodities to other states to help disaster relief during governor-declared states of emergencies. EMAC, established in 1996, is the only congressionally ratified mutual aid and assistance compact between all 50 states, DC, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Guam. NEMA administers EMAC to support water utilities in the following ways:

The graphic below outlines the five steps of EMAC assistance.

For water utilities to use EMAC they must first:

• Learn more about EMAC. This includes understanding the resource request processes at the local, county and state level; prioritization and resource tracking activities; and how to work with their designated WARN representative for the state EMA.
  
  
• Meet with local, county and state EMAs. This step will foster relationships within the sector and allow for enhanced response between EMAC and the water sector. Speaking with local, county and state EMAs will help determine how best to implement EMAC.
  
  
• Determine how best to coordinate. Building a foundation between the water and emergency services sector is imperative to effective emergency response. Conducting joint trainings and exercises with EMA and water sector personnel is a great way to identify how to best coordinate between the water sector and emergency services sector and can help water utilities stay familiar with EMAC procedures and protocols. These may already be hosted by your local and state EMAs.

The benefits of having this messaging ready to deploy include:

• Consistent messaging for communities;
• Broader message distribution; and
• More accurate information.

The type of information shared can include:

• Updates to damage assessment;
• Strategies or plans for recovery;
• Specific resource needs; and 
• Changes to service levels.

Drinking water and wastewater utility operators and personnel are often overlooked as essential workers. This challenge can delay drinking water and wastewater employees accessing their facilities during an emergency. Water utility workers need to get to and repair their facilities quickly after a disaster. State and local EMAs could consider issuing responder ID cards to water utility staff. Issuing access credentials promotes quicker community recovery.

The Crisis Event Response and Recovery Access (CERRA) Framework guides the implementation of a common access and re-entry approach and is intended to be a voluntary guide for managing access into and transit through restricted areas or emergency zones by enhancing existing emergency preparedness plans. The CERRA Framework focuses on supporting state, local, and regional efforts to enable the successful transit and access of critical response and recovery resources before, during and after emergencies.

The Framework outlines three critical stakeholder groups that require access during an emergency:

All three stakeholder groups should enhance their existing emergency preparedness plans by coordinating with local authorities, emergency managers and law enforcement to define access rules and authorization procedures and determine enforcement restrictions during an emergency.

In March of 2020, states across the US enacted policies to curb the spread of the global coronavirus disease (COVID-19). In order to ensure critical services during this time, the Department of Homeland Security published an Advisory Memorandum On Identification Of Essential Critical Infrastructure Workers During COVID-19 Response guidance and accompanying list intended to support state, local, and industry partners in identifying the critical infrastructure sectors and their essential workers. This guidance recognized critical infrastructure, including drinking water and wastewater utility staff and their suppliers and manufacturers, as part of the critical infrastructure workforce. To support water sector response, EPA sent a letter to governors in all 50 states, territories, tribes and Washington, DC, requesting that water and wastewater workers, as well as the manufacturers and suppliers who provide vital services and materials to the water sector, be considered essential workers and businesses by state authorities. EPA provided a template that states, tribes, localities, water utilities and technical assistance providers can use to provide documentation to workers that are considered essential.

The emergency services sector is a network of services that provides many functions, including law enforcement. In certain situations, drinking water and wastewater utilities may need both law enforcement and EMA help. It is time to call local law enforcement when a utility operator or manager notices:

• Unusual or suspicious behavior;
• Unusual questions about water facilities;
• Tampering of fences, locks or gates;
• Abandoned items;
• Unknown vehicles;
• Facility surveillance; and/or
• Cyber attacks.

Law enforcement provides a critical role in threat identification and information sharing, as well as pre-incident prevention and post-incident investigation. Drinking water and wastewater utilities can coordinate with local law enforcement by:

• Working to identify critical assets.
• Sharing critical asset information including the location of pumping stations or water towers that might be in remote parts of the system. Officers on patrol can help watch for any suspicious activities at these sites.
• Discussing the response measures outlined in the water utility’s ERP and communicating how law enforcement can be used to protect a specific utility..

With this knowledge, EMAs can better understand when a disaster or malevolent act has threatened the safety of a system and the customers that rely on it.