Partnership for Safe Water

The Partnership is a voluntary effort between six drinking water organizations, and more than 250 water utilities throughout the United States. The goal of the Partnership is to provide a new measure of safety to millions of Americans by implementing prevention programs where legislation or regulation does not exist. The preventative measures are based around optimizing treatment plant performance and distribution system operation.

The federal government has proposed stricter performance requirements for filter plants that treat surface water and drinking water distribution systems. Accordingly, the Partnership program provides operators, managers and administrators with the tools to assess treatment plants and distribution systems and improve performance beyond even proposed regulatory levels.

The Partnership's program includes:

• A commitment
• Annual Data Collection
• Self-Assessment
• Optimized Performance Review (Optimal) 

Self-assessment, including a detailed self analysis of data with subsequent self resolution of a series of open ended questions about the utility's engineering, operations, maintenance, and administration. These questions are designed to allow the utility to self identify performance limiting factors within their own organization. This self-analysis will be reviewed by a committee of knowledgeable peers. These reviewers suggestions will offer suggestions to the utility to promote additional improvement.

The Partnership now includes 3 programs, the Treatment Plant Optimization Program, the Distribution System Optimization Program, and the Clean Water Program.

For more information visit AWWA’s Partnership for Safe Water website.