Communities need better information about water service area boundaries.

An interview with partners in the Oregon Water Futures Project:  Cheyenne Holliday (Verde), Isabel Sanchez (Coalition of Communities of Color), Lynny Brown (Willamette Partnership), and Jana Gastellum (Oregon Environmental Council). 

In May, EPIC, SimpleLab and the Internet of Water Coalition released a provisional national map of drinking water service area boundaries to support the design and implementation of water and climate programs at the federal, state, and community levels. Since then, EPIC has published a series of blogs that explore why water service area boundaries are particularly important to individuals, communities, water system managers, state and federal agencies, and tribes. This blog post is the 5th of that series and focuses on why this data is important to local communities. 

EPIC: Oregon Water Futures is a collaboration between water and environmental justice interests, Indigenous peoples, communities of color, low-income communities, and academic institutions. You recently facilitated a series of conversations with Native, Indigenous Latin American, Latinx, Black, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, Arab, and Somali communities - what did you learn?

Oregon Water Futures Project: Community members care deeply about our shared water resources and have extensive knowledge and experience to contribute to achieving Oregon’s water justice goals. Yet, they face significant barriers to participating in policy and infrastructure discussions. There is a gap between the conversations state and local decisions-makers are having and the knowledge, priorities, and concerns of many Oregonians.

EPIC: How does information on water resources play a role in filling this gap?

Oregon Water Futures Project: We heard a lot of curiosity and interest in how water systems are set up in Oregon. They asked for water information that was accessible and provided in multimedia formats and various languages. Community members wanted to know where their water came from, how they were being charged, if wells were drying up, and if that water was clean for cleaning, cooking, drinking, and washing. We heard repeatedly that community members are motivated to learn more about water and water management. Community members also appreciated sharing their personal, lived experiences from within their communities and learning from their peers.

One of the biggest challenges is a lack of trust with water authorities, largely driven by significant information and communication gaps. For example, we heard from families in Eastern Oregon who had concerns about water quality because of its taste, smell, and color. The majority of participants were renters and did not receive any water quality information at all -- and for those that did, the data presented was inaccessible because of language, complexity of information, and design. Consequently, many families choose to buy bottled water to keep their families safe. This leads directly to water affordability concerns, showing how water quality, quantity, and affordability are intertwined with one another. 

EPIC: We are also concerned that renters don’t receive important information about their water quality. In 2021, EPIC launched an initiative to improve annual water reports by encouraging utilities to translate complex information, use simple graphics, elevate local concerns, and engage with customers (here is a newly released communications template that is freely available for utilities to use). But alongside improved communication, why do we need information about who water systems serve? 

Oregon Water Futures Project: Communities need access to basic information about who is responsible for providing safe, clean, and affordable water. And decision makers need this information to guide infrastructure funding, policy design, and other opportunities. 

EPIC: And yet despite the importance of water to health, safety, economic mobility, and overall well being, we do not have a comprehensive, accurate map of who those systems serve. There are nearly 825 community water systems in Oregon, and yet there is no easy way to find out who those systems serve.  

This is why we established a provisional nationwide map that helps every person easily discover who is responsible for the water they drink at home, at work, at school, or at play. An important disclaimer: the boundaries are more accurate in some places than others. But, if we can improve the data over time (we think we can!**), how would your organization use this map?

Oregon Water Futures Project: For starters, critical clean water and wastewater infrastructure is a pillar of the Justice40 initiative and this map could help target efforts and resources to communities lacking access to safe drinking water. On the flip side, where communities do have safe drinking water, we can bolster communication and outreach efforts to improve public trust in tap water. In Oregon, this often means putting a greater focus on small water systems, including communities that live in mobile park homes or farmworker housing. Many communities that we talked to are renters on well water who have almost no affordable or accessible options for testing and remediating wells, especially in rural and remote communities in Oregon. 

Pairing this data easily with other environmental indicators, we can double up efforts to address issues exacerbated by climate change, where some of the same communities are also experiencing megafires (e.g. Talent), harmful algae blooms that contaminate water (e.g. Salem), and depleting water tables (e.g. Malhuer County). 

EPIC: Any advice for federal, state, or local governments that might want to improve this data?

Oregon Water Futures Project: In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly explicitly recognized the human right to water and sanitation. However, we know that many of our communities right now do not have access to water and sanitation, and that these disparities fall along racial and economic lines. Without a comprehensive audit of our entire state, however, we don’t have the data to invest in water infrastructure for communities who need it most. Data also helps us connect water injustices with social determinants of health, illuminating the patterns of which communities are experiencing inequities as a result of unfair policies, laws, and investments of the past that continue to plague people today. Most importantly, accessible data paired with lived experience gives communities the agency to push for creative and meaningful policy change with meaningful impact for generations to come. 

EPIC: Thank you so much. Readers, to learn more about the Water Futures Collaborative, check out https://www.oregonwaterfutures.org/. They’ve posted multiple reports including Oregon Water Futures Project (2021) and State of Water Justice in Oregon (2022), and they will release an Oregon Water Justice Policy Framework in November, 2022.

**In the next two months, the Internet of Water will release a simple, low-cost, easy-to-use tool for communities who want to create and share this data layer. By lowering the cost of developing and sharing data, we think we can continue to improve the accuracy of the national map. 

Support for this work was received from the Bezos Earth Fund.