EPA Issues Water Utility Pandemic Checklist

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently published a water utility pandemic checklist entitled, Incident Action Checklist – Pandemic Incidents.  The 8-page document is essentially divided into three checklists, each of which provides examples of how water and wastewater utilities can prepare for, respond to, and recover from a pandemic such as the current COVID-19 outbreak.  The report also includes dozens of links to various industry resources, and a tool to organize emergency contact information.

Summary of the EPA’s Water Utility Pandemic Checklist

Although there is an extremely low probability that the coronavirus can transmit through drinking water or wastewater, the pandemic still has an impact on water and wastewater operations.  Pandemics can have three primary impacts on the water and wastewater sectors:

• Shortages or unreliability of personnel due to the heightened risk of illness
• Challenges obtaining critical supplies like chemicals and personal protective equipment (PPE)
• Interruptions to field operations like those involved with taking water samples, reading meters, making critical infrastructure repairs, flushing hydrants, exercising valves, etc.

The report is divided into three sections or checklists:

1. Actions to Prepare for a Pandemic – Checklist items encompass things like planning for staffing, IT loads, and inter-agency coordination; protecting employee health; maintaining essential operations, facilities, equipment and supplies; and communication protocols.
2. Actions to Respond to a Pandemic – Checklist items encompass emergency activation; ensuring ongoing employee safety; execution of the emergency plan; and documentation best practices.
3. Actions to Recover from a Pandemic – Checklist encompasses assigning a point person for ongoing customer communications and updates; transitioning vendors and internal departments to normal operations; and capturing lessons learned.

The good news is that many, if not most, water and wastewater utilities already have at least the basics of a pandemic plan in place (in response to the avian flu outbreak in 2003 and the swine flu in 2009).  That said, at best these plans are a decade old and need to be dusted off. 

The EPA recommends reviewing all current pandemic plans and protocols, and updating them with new information around the current outbreak as well as the information contained within the EPA’s water utility pandemic checklist.