120Water’s Post

🚰💧 NEW BLOG: "Building Trust Within Your Community" The clock is ticking with just over a year left until the first LCRR deadline. The key to navigating these complex regulations? Building trust within your community through proactive and effective communication. 📌 What You'll Learn: - The importance of going beyond mere compliance to foster community confidence - How to craft messages that engage customers meaningfully - Expert insights from Melissa Meeker, CEO of The Water Tower, on strategic LCRR communication No dedicated communication staff? No worries! Our latest blog also offers practical tips on building trust with limited resources. 👉 Read more here: https://bit.ly/3sGRqxa Don't miss out on crucial insights to help your water system navigate LCRR requirements and build lasting community trust. Subscribe to our newsletter for ongoing updates! #digitalwater #waterquality #LCRR #waterpolicy #drinkingwater #GetTheLeadOut

📣 In Case You Missed It! Last week, we published an important blog about "Building Trust Within Your Community" in the context of LCRR (Lead and Copper Rule Revisions) communication requirements. If you haven't read it yet, it's a must-read! 🔑 Key Takeaways: 👉 Addressing lead concerns requires careful planning to prevent sparking panic and PR crises. 👉 Effective communication on lead removal and remediation is crucial for gaining community trust. 👉 The foundation of building trust starts with you. Craft your messages and implement your strategies mindfully. 👉 Even if you don't have a dedicated communication team, there are various ways to build trust within your community. 🗣️ Melissa Meeker, CEO of The Water Tower, emphasizes strategic communication. Failure to clearly explain the situation can lead to emotional public responses. ⏳ With just over a year until the first LCRR deadline, it's time to focus on building trust now. Don't miss out on more valuable insights! Subscribe to our newsletter to continue learning ways to engage and build trust with your community. Read the full blog here: https://bit.ly/3sGRqxa #digitalwater #waterquality #LCRR #waterpolicy #drinkingwater #GetTheLeadOut #120Water

The EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule Revisions and Improvement mandate communication components, including notifications, an online map, education materials, and engagement with your customers through inventory building and sampling. Water utilities can establish trust with their communities by promoting a culture of awareness, transparency, and education. ☎️✉️📬 This look book dives into communication best practices and how 120Water can help with communication needs. It also explores the pivotal role of transparent, timely, and engaging communication in fostering a resilient partnership. Download the Public Engagement and Communications Look Book today! https://bit.ly/3InZg3f #digitalwater #waterquality #LCRI #waterpolicy #drinkingwater #GetTheLeadOut #LCRR

📢 Check out this EFCN quick-read blog: "What’s the Problem? Building Awareness to Change Behavior" by Sarah Diefendorf, Director of Capacity Collaborative (formerly EFCWest). Sarah sheds light on the challenges wastewater utilities face in communicating septic management and care in vulnerable communities across the United States. It's a recurring pattern: outreach efforts often start at the end of the story, rather than the beginning. However, establishing awareness and fostering a personal connection to the issue at hand is essential for lasting behavior change. Learn about real-life examples where providing information alone falls short and why starting at the root of the problem is crucial for long-term solutions. See just how a communications campaign in Hawaii tackled faulty cesspool impacts on water quality and empowered homeowners and renters to take action. 💧Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/edFV-7dg #Wastewater #SepticManagement #BehaviorChange #AwarenessBuilding #Communication #PublicCommunication #WaterUtilities #EffectiveCampaigning

The EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule Revisions and Improvement mandate communication components, including notifications, an online map, education materials, and engagement with your customers through inventory building and sampling. Water utilities can establish trust with their communities by promoting a culture of awareness, transparency, and education. ☎️✉️📬 This look book dives into communication best practices and how 120Water can help with communication needs. It also explores the pivotal role of transparent, timely, and engaging communication in fostering a resilient partnership. Download the Public Engagement and Communications Look Book today! https://bit.ly/3InZg3f #digitalwater #waterquality #LCRI #waterpolicy #drinkingwater #GetTheLeadOut #LCRI

Public communication is the key to fostering trust with our valued customers. Especially when it comes to discussing important topics like lead in drinking water. In the ever-evolving landscape, the significance of public communication cannot be overlooked. The EPA recognizes its pivotal role in our new revisions. Remember, our residents' concerns are real, and addressing them proactively is the way to go. Historically, the water industry might not have put proactivity first, but times have changed! It's been proven that communicating with our customers early and often is the key to cultivating trust. Our strategy now? A dynamic two-way conversation between us and our community. It's not just about being reactive but engaging in proactive dialogues that reassure our residents and establish our credibility. Remember this golden rule from Mike McGill, President of WaterPIO: "If they hear it from you first, they trust you first. If they hear it from you last, they trust you last." Let's be the ones our community turns to for accurate information, reliability, and above all, trust. 🌟 #BuildingTrust #CustomerFirst #digitalwater #waterquality #LCRR

Thanks, as always, for the plug! We’re in the middle of several stages of public #communication for the LCR: inventory #COMMS, replacement outreach, and school/childcare testing efforts, just to name a few. This saying, learned during my last stint planning local news coverage in DC, applies to everything we do, but especially Lead & Copper Rule compliance communications. (And #PFAS too…)

Yesterday, I focused on the impacts of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s Lead & Copper Rule Improvements on #water providers, tying in the hellscape that lies ahead when the #PFAS MCLs are finalized. I've handled public #communications for LCR-related findings, exceedances, inventories, and replacement efforts for 16 years now. What's interesting with the LCRI changes regarding public education & outreach is how they simply codified what I've been saying all along. Trump's LCR created several "de facto" requirements for #water providers to ramp up their public #communications. While they weren't written into the LCR, if a provider didn't proactively communicate about their inventory work, school & childcare testing, new testing process, etc. under the LCR, they were putting themselves at risk for #Flint-like public panics. And if they didn't have a #crisis COMMS plan as well, they were putting their operation's entire reputation on the line, not just during this early inventory stage, but for their entire compliance effort. We've handled every possible #water crisis during our career, including systemwide exceedances; we've kept the public calm during difficult times. It was estimated there'd be 40% more exceedances under Trump's Rule. Seeing the Biden improvements, that estimate is almost certainly higher. The changes to the Action Level & the testing process, both of which we're fans of, will undoubtedly lead to more systemwide public notifications. Along with a proactive #COMMS plan, providers must have a #crisis #COMMS plan that uses REAL WORLD lessons learned, is tested repeatedly in exercises, & regularly updated. You must be able to get everyone - including elected officials & community leaders - on the same page FAST. In closing, the LCRI's public education, outreach, & crisis COMMS changes aren't anything new. They're what I've been saying to #water providers for years. If they hear from you first, they'll trust you first. If they hear from you last, they'll trust you last. Get going. NOW. Because the days of rolling the dice with public information ARE OVER. All of this is in our wheelhouse at WaterPIO and LeadCopperRule.com. We're currently working with providers, engineering firms, and #water orgs in more than a dozen states. Message me here, email me at mike@waterpio.com, or visit www.leadcopperrule.com to sign up for a FREE initial consultation.

Interesting op-ed from a #water utility leader. There is public perception that the utility doesn't have enough water supply, but the issue is actually inadequate water #infrastructure--treatment capacity and pipelines. Great to see a utility educating customers https://lnkd.in/eXtgYbjZ

******************************** #managers-coaches-corner Our Collaboration Channels have become part of our culture and continue to strengthen our communication, efficiencies,team work, knowledge transfer, documentation, coaching,, trust & respect The numbers show Our teams shared a total of 8.405 deposits of trust with our clients last week (that's 331 more than the week before). Of those, 1% were in public channels, 92% were in private channels, and 5% were direct messages. Your members also uploaded 9,104 files (that's 226 more than the week before). Radical transparency is a Super Power! #criticalinfrastructure #wastewater #wastewatersolutions #waterindustry #water #waterresourcemangement #operationsandmaintenance #sustainability #watertreatment #radicallytransparent