Partnerships and Small Community Water Systems

The research examines the response of small community water systems (CWS) in the USA to policies seeking to steer development of water system partnerships. All states in the USA have adopted one or more policies to encourage partnership formation by small CWS. Those policies adopt varied approaches to steering: enabling, authority-based, information-based, incentive-based and mandates. The research analyzes the effects of state steering policies, as well as how those effects and the critical barriers to partnership formation vary with the institutional structures of small CWS (e.g., municipal, special district, community-owned, private) and with the forms of partnership that may be developed (e.g., informal, contracting, joint powers, consolidation). A mixed-methods approach is utilized: data collection entails interviews with state-primacy agencies and a survey of small CWS across the USA. Results from the research will provide insights regarding the points of intervention that serve to catalyze differing forms of partnerships and the impacts of linking multiple concurrent policies.