Assisting rural and economically impacted communities, wastewater technicians help to improve and maintain financial sustainability through education and tech assistance.

We are able to provide access to the Wastewater Technician to serve the needs of our members with cooperation with another State Association at this time. This program is fully funded by the USDA and is available at no cost to members of the Association.

• Providing assistance to rural, unincorporated small municipal systems, tribal systems and incorporated municipal systems under 10,000 population
• Travels throughout the state to offer on‑site technical assistance
• Provides assistance in all areas of operations, maintenance, management, security, finances, loan application, health, and environmental issues
• Provides the type of assistance that offers “training” rather than “fixing”
• Prioritizes requests to ensure coverage of wastewater systems with serious health or economic problems first
• Reviews new technical standards set and proposed by public and private organizations
• Responds to inquiries from facilities, consumers, governmental agencies, and others regarding technical matters

Rhode Island Rural Water Association’s USDA-funded Source Water Protection Program serves small drinking water systems and their communities with the development and implementation of local source water protection plans. A source water protection plan is a local initiative designed to identify threats to drinking water quality and quantity and to establish an actionable plan to prevent the deterioration of water resources.

Tenants of plan development:

• Identify source water and watershed planning boundaries
• Establish planning team and collaborators
• Community engagement and stakeholder participation
• Evaluate and document current and future threats to quality and quantity
• Develop measures to mitigate and prevent threats
• Produce written plan available to the public

Other program services and topics:

• Community education
• Emergency response
• Climate change adaptation
• Contaminants of emerging concern

RIRWA’s Source Water Protection Program collaborates closely with local and state governments. Our plans often require close collaboration with RIDEM and RIDOH. Sourcewater protection and watershed based plan development is often a pre-requisite for state and federal funding for water quality improvement.

• Coordinates and Provides State approved training for water systems and their employees on a large variety of topics.
• Is available to assist with system specific technical assistance issues not associated with formalized training opportunities.
• This program is funded by a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and trainings run through the program as well the technical assistance is available at no cost you as a member of the association.

Training and Technical Assistance for Private Drinking Water Well Owners to Help Improve Water Quality. Rural Water’s vast experience in implementing grassroots and education programs. RIRWA will implement an innovative training and technical assistance program for private well owners (e.g., homeowners and groups of homeowners with well(s) that serve fewer than 25 people and contain less than 15 service connections). This program will be used to educate private well owners about water quality, water quantity, options for testing, and the option to connect to public water systems.

Program Services

• Conduct community water events
• Training workshops
• Onsite technical assistance visits

• Provides rural and small municipal water systems on-site technical training and assistance to ensure cost-effective operations and sustainable utility management.
• Types of services available include: Leak Detection, Emergency response, Treatment process assistance, Operational troubleshooting and assistance, Rate Setting Studies, among many more.
• This service is funded by a long-term contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rural Utilities Service and is available at no cost you as a member of the association.

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