NYTimes Article Highlights Need for TA Providers
This is a story many of us - across the industry - are all too familiar with. Small systems need help, but it's difficult for them to get it because of the same reasons they need it: lack of technical, managerial, and financial capacity. In "Why Federal Efforts to Ensure Clean Tap Water Fail to Reach Faucets Nationwide", the NYTimes uses California as an example of SRF funding being much-needed and available, but often in a holding pattern for distribution. The article sheds light on a real problem, but perhaps missed a critical piece of the puzzle.
The article mentions how government bureaucracy (at all levels) can get in the way, but more significantly how "small water systems often lack the technical expertise and funding to prepare applications, hire consultants to get their projects ‘shovel-ready’ and to make them happen." The state agencies, with their own budget challenges, do not have sufficient time, money or manpower to provide the needed one-on-one assistance to help small systems.
That is the core of the challenge and one that TA providers in California like RCAC and California Rural Water exist to support. Through partnership with the primacy agency programs, these organizations (along with online programming from their national counterparts) are designed to fill that gap. However, with inconsistent funding year to year for TA providers, it's not surprising that these critical federal funds are not reaching their intended destinations fast enough.
