{"id":13298,"date":"2020-03-31T11:32:28","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T15:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.paawwa.org\/?p=13298"},"modified":"2020-03-31T11:32:28","modified_gmt":"2020-03-31T15:32:28","slug":"us-epa-covid-19-resources-for-the-water-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.linnflux.tech\/paawwa\/us-epa-covid-19-resources-for-the-water-sector\/","title":{"rendered":"US EPA: COVID-19 Resources for the Water Sector"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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COVID-19 Resources for the Water Sector<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging, rapidly evolving incident. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed a website that provides key EPA resources and general information on COVID-19, including a March 27, 2020, letter from EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to Governors in all 50 states, territories, 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, are considered essential workers and businesses by state authorities when enacting restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Access information on COVID-19 and drinking water and wastewater\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Find Additional EPA COVID-19 Resources Here<\/strong><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Increase Pandemic Preparedness<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
Access EPA’s recently released Incident Action Checklist for Pandemic Incidents to enhance your utility’s ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from a pandemic.<\/p>\n

This Incident Action Checklist addresses potential impacts of COVID-19 to drinking water and wastewater utilities, including:<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Staff shortages due to absenteeism;<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Supply chain disruptions (chemicals, materials, personal protective equipment);<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Field operations interruptions (repairs, meter reading, sampling); and<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Inability to maintain all operations.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Access the Checklist Here<\/strong><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Essential Water and Wastewater Workforce During the COVID-19 Response<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on March 28, 2020 released an updated memorandum identifying workers in several critical infrastructure sectors as essential for ensuring security and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic response.<\/p>\n

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This document, available at\u00a0www.cisa.gov\/publication\/guidance-essential-critical-infrastructure-workforce<\/strong><\/a>, gives guidance to state, local, tribal and territorial jurisdictions and the private sector on defining essential critical infrastructure workers and promoting the ability of such workers to continue to work during periods of community restriction, access management, social distancing, or closure orders and directives.<\/p>\n

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The memorandum specifies the following Water and Wastewater sector employees as \u201cEssential Critical Infrastructure Workers”:<\/p>\n

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\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Operational staff at water authorities<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Operational staff at community water systems<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Operational staff at wastewater treatment facilities<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Workers repairing water and wastewater conveyances and performing required sampling or monitoring, including field staff<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Operational staff for water distribution and testing<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Operational staff at wastewater collection facilities<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Operational staff and technical support for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) Control systems<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chemical and equipment suppliers to water and wastewater systems and personnel protection<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Workers who maintain digital systems infrastructure supporting water and wastewater operations<\/p>\n

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Water utilities are encouraged to use this memorandum to engage their local emergency management agency and access planners to ensure that their water responders have access to their water system assets and sampling points during emergencies.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

COVID-19 Resources for the Water Sector The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging, rapidly evolving incident. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed a website that provides key EPA resources and general information on COVID-19, including a March 27, 2020, letter from EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to Governors in all 50 states, territories, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6,14,7,5,11,10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.linnflux.tech\/paawwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13298"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.linnflux.tech\/paawwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.linnflux.tech\/paawwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.linnflux.tech\/paawwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.linnflux.tech\/paawwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dev.linnflux.tech\/paawwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13299,"href":"https:\/\/dev.linnflux.tech\/paawwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13298\/revisions\/13299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.linnflux.tech\/paawwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.linnflux.tech\/paawwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.linnflux.tech\/paawwa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}