Action Please By:
June 30, 2008

The University of Cincinnati, with funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Research and Development, is conducting a national survey to identify and analyze the most important factors that may affect the performance of public and private water and wastewater systems in the U.S. over the next 50 years.  These factors include, among other things, climate change, population growth, economic pressures, funding shortfalls, institutional changes and regulatory requirements.  NACWA agreed to share this survey with its members for them to complete and will receive a summary of the findings later this year.

This is not a NACWA survey, but NACWA has reviewed the questions and believes that the responses may help to inform the dialogue on the nation’s water and wastewater infrastructure.  NACWA understands that the survey should take about 35-45 minutes to complete and responses will be kept anonymous.  Attached to this Member Update is a hardcopy version of the entire survey should you wish to review the questions before completing the survey.  The survey, however, must be completed online at the link provided below.  Responses can be saved so you can return to the survey at a later time and the survey will remain open until June 30, 2008.

Survey to Rank Importance of External Forces on Wastewater Infrastructure
The University of Cincinnati is conducting this survey to help EPA better understand what issues the water sector believes are most important as it continues rehabilitating, restoring, replacing and expanding the nation’s infrastructure in the years ahead and to help the agency prioritize directions for innovative research on sustainable urban water infrastructure.

"Exact" answers are not required for all of the survey questions and in many cases an order-of-magnitude approximation is acceptable.  Most questions can be left blank, should you choose not to or be unable to answer a particular question.  Responses can be saved so you can return to the survey at a later time and the survey will remain open until June 30, 2008.

NACWA has been assured that responses cannot be traced back to any participating utility.  A portion of the survey does ask respondents to voluntarily provide contact information, but a response is not required.  Pooled results from this anonymous survey will be shared with NACWA by October 1, 2008.

CLICK HERE TO COMPLETE THE ONLINE SURVEY (or cut and paste this link into your web browser: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=XqlB9r5VE0ROGhlpBv41lA_3d_3d)

Attachment:

• Water Infrastructure National Survey (PDF)