CROSS CONNECTION MONITORING - IT'S THE LAW
Water Purveyors FAQ
As water suppliers and purveyors, how do we effectively respond to the pressure of the Illinois EPA and Michigan DEQ to implement an effective Cross Connection Control Program?
At CCRA we have been concerned for years about how difficult it is to implement an effective program and we have seen the results of this dilemma in all the communities that have been surveying/testing. The direct result of what we have seen over the years has triggered this new technology in Cross Connection Control Protection and Tracking.
It is important to understand all the components of an effective Program that need to be considered. The lack of any program element as described by the laws of the your state will render your program ineffective and legally risky.
Ineffective, generic tracking programs expose the community to liability and will affect the purveyors ability to protect their community from potential deadly cross contamination.
With so many options available through the internet, how do we know that these are the solutions to our compliance issues and will reduce liability or exposure to the potential cross connection contamination that our community could be exposed to?
Most will not, many tracking programs and internet services fall short of a complete program. CCRA understands that the goal is to have their customers reduce their liability, exposure, and to have the capabilities to track the remediation(s) needed to make sure they are eliminating potential threats. Our STEM/SMART Technology enhances the capabilities of being a full service provider. We are more than willing to work with providers who only want parts of our program, we would like them to have the opportunity to be able to use the full service if they choose to without any additional program costs.
What are the procedures in selecting a program provider that is best for your community?
The answer to this question is based on the water department decision makers. We often find they only want the state regulatory agency to think that the have some process in place and are not interested in results. CCRA hopes that eventually this dangerous thought process will change without any damage and personal harm. This industry has a great deal of providers that only gather information and report compliance. Our programs does everything every software and outsourcing program provider does, but more. CCRA has leapt ahead in technology with real time processing capabilities of our STEM/SMART Technologies. CCRA experts want to help you understand the important difference with a demonstration of an actual working demo town that your department can interact with. By letting you be the judge and seeing these differences to help make sound decisions that are best for your community. Only through understanding and mutual respect, do you gain the confidence that CCRA will drastically improve your community's drinking water protection and provide the services you are looking to acquire.
How do we finance and fit into our Water Department operational budget the costs of a complete effective program?
It does not have to be expensive to be effective. CCRA programs are fiscally responsible. CCRA's programs do not monetarily impose costs to taxes payers or water department of the community. The costs are passed along to the high risk water customers, which are the contamination problem in most distribution systems. These cost are small and can be absorbed by the testing inspector if he is willing to become tech savvyy. For Example, the use an IPad during the testing procedure to enter the data, this will save the inspector more than the cost of CCRA tests storage fees. The small data storage cost are not designed to be passed along to the water user although it happens. Most inspectors do not like being regulated and feel that if they charge the water user the fee, the water user will put pressure on the water custodian to will go back to a less rigid program. In addition the cost of it is so small it allows the water department the opportunity to charge a recroup charge on our charges to fund their their Cross Connection Control Protection.
Why should we use CCRA programs rather than just gearing up and running a similar program in our own department?
Water departments have be picking up the cost of these partial programs for years and with tightened budgets, they're realizing that it is cost effective to outsource these programs. This has been tried and found to be ineffective due to the costs and lack of personnel and budget restraints. With CCRA programs you save man hours that allows your department to spend valuable time in infrastructure modification rather then review, diagnosis and organization.
How do we deal with taxpayers and water customer's resistance when we make a decision to use CCRA's program?
CCRA understands that compliancy is extremely important to a successful Cross Connection Control Program and safe drinking water. If the public is not comfortable, compliance will experience a drop off and render a program ineffective. CCRA understands this situation and is very sensitive to both of the water user and the water purveyor's position. Understanding that this is a transitional process and welcomes the opportunity to inform and educate the water consumer of the facts and misconceptions of protecting drinking water. CCRA has geared their website to be extremely informative and user friendly, including an education program that uses many types of media to meet this goal. We have paper surveys available for consumers that do not have the capabilities to do electronic filing, this a small percentage of the population.
All of CCRA's procedures were developed by CCRA. All programs were written by our staff and owners, managed, licensed, copyrighted protected and owned by CCRA.
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