Cross-Sector Awareness Training: Water/Wastewater Sector

Sustained cross-sector partnerships that are aligned with critical infrastructure protection capabilities and are coordinated with federal, state, and local emergency response protocols, can advance the prevention of, protection from, and especially the response to and recovery from a natural or manmade incident.  Currently, these partnerships are not widespread, particularly regarding the engagement of the water sector.  Under the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP), the water sector is one of 16 federally identified critical infrastructures and provides services essential to public health protection. 

The primary objective of these workshops is to increase understanding of Water and Wastewater Systems Sector interdependencies, as well as wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) efforts and introduce the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) and Utility Community of Practice to relevant stakeholder groups throughout the US. 

A secondary objective is to increase the awareness among representatives from the Healthcare and Public Health Sector, as well as the Emergency Services Sector about their water interdependencies.  As a result, these sectors should be better equipped in building sustained, resilient local and regional partnerships across these critical infrastructures. 

QUESTIONS regarding the trainings can be directed to nwbe@wef.org.