Sustainable Utility Management

Jim Newton, P.E., DEE

Course Outline

This two hour course provides valuable information for those individuals who participate in the operations and management of rural and small water and wastewater utilities, both public and private.  Completion of this course will provide the student the necessary information and testing to meet the continuing education requirements in order to renew their licenses.  It was designed by an instructor who has developed and implemented numerous similar training courses. 

This course requires the completion of a multiple-choice quiz at its conclusion in order to obtain the necessary certification.

Learning Objective

At the conclusion of this course, the student will be able to:

• Understand the ten key management areas;
• Understand how the management areas interact with each other;
• Understand what each management area means;
• Understand how to conduct a self-assessment;
• Understand how to rate achievement areas;
• Understand how to rank priority areas;
• Understand how to plot the results of the self-assessment;
• Understand how to analyze the results of the plotting exercise;
• Understand key questions to ask for each management area;
• Understand key points for the employee and leadership development management area;
• Understand key points for the financial viability management area;
• Understand the challenges specific to the financial viability management area;
• Understand key points for the infrastructure stability management area;
• Understand key challenges of the infrastructure management area;
• Understand key challenges related to the operational resiliency management area;
• Understand the key points for the operational resiliency management area;
• Understand the challenges facing the stakeholder understanding and support management area;
• Understand key points for the stakeholder understanding and support management area; and
• Understand how to develop and implement a system management improvement plan.

Intended Audience

The intended audience for this course is any professional who is involved in the operation and management of rural or small water and wastewater utilities, both publicly owned and privately owned.

Benefit to Attendees

Attendees of this course will understand the basic concepts of the effective utility and how sustainability plays a role in day to day operations.

Course Introduction

Many rural and small water and wastewater systems throughout the country struggle with various issues, which may include aging or inadequate infrastructure, difficulties recruiting or retaining qualified staff, growing or establishing financial reserves and setting rates that are reflective of their operational costs.

The need to adopt the ten key management areas, how to conduct a self-assessment of the key management areas, how to prioritize the key management areas and how to develop an improvement plan to address priority key management areas all will help rural and small systems to effectively operate in the current atmosphere.

This course looks at these issues and provides some insight and guidance based on the effective utility management concept.

Course Content

This course is based upon the following book:

In this course, you are required to study the US EPA publication, “Rural and Small Systems Guidebook to Sustainable Utility Management” provided as a pdf document as a part of this course. 

Rural and Small Systems Guidebook to Sustainable Utility Management

Please click on the above underlined hypertext to view, download or print the document for your study. Because of the large file size, we recommend that you first save the file to your computer by right clicking the mouse and choosing "Save Target As ...", and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Course Summary

This course discusses how to build a sustainability roadmap using the ten attributes for an effective utility management program.

Related Links

For additional information related to this subject, please visit the following websites or web pages:

U.S Environmental Protection Agency

US EPA Effective Utility Management

Quiz

Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.

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DISCLAIMER: The materials contained in the online course are not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of PDH Center or any other person/organization named herein. The materials are for general information only. They are not a substitute for competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be reviewed by a registered architect and/or professional engineer/surveyor. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.

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