Nevada joins growing WARN club.October 26, 2007 -
According to Kevin Fisher, NvWARN chairman and director of Operations for Las Vegas Valley Water District, members of various water and wastewater agencies in Southern Nevada have been meeting for nearly 1 year to get organization running. USEPA grant to AWWA is largely responsible for rapid spread of Water/Wastewater Agency Response Network concept, which increases emergency planning and coordination, enhances access to specialized resources, and expedites arrival of aid.
Nevada Newest Member of Growing WARN Club |
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American Water Works Association
6666 W. Quincy Ave
Denver, CO, 80235
USA
Press release date: October 8, 2007
With the announcement Oct. 4 of the formation of the Nevada Water/Wastewater Agency Response Network (NvWARN), water utility mutual aid networks continued springing into existence across the country - 13 to date and possibly 20 by the end of the year.
Kevin Fisher, NvWARN chairman and director of Operations for the Las Vegas Valley Water District, said members of the various water and wastewater agencies in Southern Nevada have been meeting for nearly a year to get the organization up and running. Nearly 200 water and wastewater agencies statewide received notification of the organization and encouragement to join.
Rhode Island signed multiple utilities onto its agreement last week as well, according to Kevin Morley, AWWA government affairs staffer, who adds, "Indiana had a great kickoff Aug. 29." In June 2007, WARNs were established in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Alabama.
Oregon's OrWARN expected about 100 representatives from 22 Oregon water and wastewater utilities at its first annual conference Sept. 21. That emergency preparedness organization was launched in April, shortly after the inception of South Carolina's ScWARN in March.
Mark Grace, AWWA staffer who, with Chris McGinness, has been supporting the team instrumental in establishing WARNs, says Kentucky and Tennessee are on the verge of being considered "launched" in that they have agreements in place and Web sites up and are gathering utility signatures.
The water sector is ahead of other sectors in responding to the federal government's National Infrastructure Protection Plan, Morley told an audience at AWWA's Annual Conference in Toronto in June. He urged attendees to achieve compliance with the National Incident Management System standards, noting that while NIMS compliance is voluntary, it's prerequisite to getting federal grants.
A USEPA grant to AWWA is largely responsible for the rapid spread of the WARN concept. John Whitler, project officer from USEPA, has been traveling with Morley and a cycling cadre of presenters in making the workshops explaining the WARN concept available to representatives all 50 states by the end of 2007.
Two more workshops - in Hawaii and Alaska - are scheduled for spring 2008 to allow more representatives from those states to attend.
The presenters are "WARN stalwarts" from the states that were early to adopt the concept: Ray Riordan, emergency planner from California, established CalWARN after working through the devastation caused by an earthquake.
At an ACE07 presentation on water system emergency preparedness, he explained the need for a mutual aid network by noting that water and wastewater utility operations are specialized and must be self-sufficient. "Utilities also must fill the gap between the onset of a disaster and the arrival of government aid," Riordan says. "FEMA is muscular, but not very agile and quick on its feet."
Hurricane devastation led Florida utilities to establish FlaWARN - following CalWARN's model in May 2005 - just in time for the disastrous 2005 hurricane season. FlaWARN's Scott Kelly and Brad Jewell are WARN workshop presenters as well.
It was Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 that jump-started the water industry utility mutual aid networks. Now, Don Broussard of Louisiana's LaWARN and Mike Howe of Texas's TxWARN are among the "WARN stalwarts," along with OrWARN's Mike Stuhr, chief engineer for the Portland Water Bureau, which sent a contingent of 34 employees to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
The objective of these WARN stalwarts as described at ACE07 by Riordan and Morley is to ensure consistency of agreements in each state to make it easier to do interstate agreements. The Gulf States are a primary possibility for the first interstate WARN agreement.
International WARN agreements are being investigated, as well, according to Morley and Riordan. If a disaster were to strike Vancouver, B.C., for instance, Seattle, Wash., is a much closer neighboring utility than any other comparable Canadian utility.
The concept may spread internationally, too. Besides Canada, Mexico has expressed interest in the WARN concept.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, a utilities-helping-utilities or peer-to-peer approach to incident response and recovery is the most effective and efficient way to help a utility bring its system back to normal operations within the shortest time frame possible. The WARN concept increases emergency planning and coordination, enhances access to specialized resources, expedites arrival of aid and reduces administrative conflicts.
NvWARN chairman Fisher said, "If a member faces an emergency and needs assistance, the agency can request assistance such as equipment and human resources from other members by utilizing the NvWARN Web site."
Resources, contacts and a status list of the states are available on AWWA's WARN Web site.
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