RCD Grant Awards

GRANT RECIPIENT	CITY	STATE	FY23 AWARDS
Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc.	Phoenix	AZ	$1,381,975
Communities Unlimited, Inc.	Fayetteville	AR	$1,381,975
Rural Community Assistance Corporation	West Sacramento	CA	$1,381,975
RCAP Solutions, Inc.	Worcester	MA	$1,381,975
Midwest Assistance Program, Inc.	Maryville	MO	$1,381,975
Great Lakes Community Action Partnership	Fremont	OH	$1,381,975
United South and Eastern Tribes, Inc.	Nashville	TN	$1,381,975
Southeast Rural Community Assistance Project, Inc.	Roanoke	VA	$1,381,975

Need water or wastewater assistance for your community? Contact the grant organization for your state.

Communities Unlimited, Inc.

Project Overview

Communities Unlimited, Inc. (CU) will use RCD funds to continue its Rural Community Development Technical Assistance and Training (RCD-TAT) program to help meet drinking water and wastewater needs of rural low-income communities within a seven-state service area of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. CU will provide rural households that are not served by community drinking water and wastewater facilities with intensive RCD-TAT to help plan, finance, and develop adequate infrastructure. Communities that do have this infrastructure will receive assistance and training to increase their capacity to operate these systems to ensure the delivery of safe drinking water and the treatment and discharge of clean wastewater that meets the ever-increasing state and federal environmental regulations. These existing systems will also receive extensive RCD-TAT to facilitate the planning and development of critical infrastructure upgrades to address widespread systemic infrastructure aging and deterioration. CU will provided targeted RCD-TAT to at least 160 low-income communities with less than 2,500 population and where the poverty rate is at least 20%; provide training to 450 local officials, water operators, and other staff; leverage $40 million for water and wastewater construction projects; and, provide $3 million through our CDFI loan program for water and wastewater projects.

Great Lakes Community Action Partnership

Project Overview

Great Lakes Community Action Partnership (GLCAP) will use RCD funds for the continued operation and management of a technical assistance service. The project will serve communities in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Services will include the provision of onsite technical assistance to address technical, managerial, and financial capacity issues, as well as facilities development needs for small water and sewer systems. Virtual and in person training will also be provided to these systems. Training sessions will be provided throughout the year to local officials, including mayors, council members, administrators or city managers, water and wastewater system operators, and other interested parties in the community. Trainings will consist of a combination of classroom training, live webinars, and asynchronous online training that can be done at the learner’s convenience. In addition, RCAP Field Days will offer a combination of classroom training and outdoor, hands-on trainings and demonstrations. For communities that cannot make it to trainings (e.g. too small to have staff to spare or need specialized training), training will be delivered onsite in the community.

Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc.

Project Overview

The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. (ITCA) will use RCD funds to expand its program to provide technical assistance, training, and tribal operator certification services to small, rural, low-income tribal communities located in EPA Regions 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. The following five project activities will be implemented. ITCA will build tribal utility management through training and professional manager credentialing, Tribal Utility TuneUp Workshops, utility manager workgroup forums, and management assistance. ITCA will build water utility resilience through training, mutual aid arrangements, standard operating procedures, source water protection, and resiliency assistance. Tribal utility financial management capabilities will be improved through training, expert assistance, and utility-wide efficiencies modeling. Tribal regulatory knowledge and skills will be improved through training, jurisprudence regulations exams, and compliance assistance. Tribal water utilities technical operations and maintenance capacity will be improved through technical assistance, training, operator certification, and workforce resources and recognition.

Midwest Assistance Program, Inc.

Project Overview

For over forty (40) years, Midwest Assistance Program, Inc. (MAP) has been serving rural and tribal communities with water and wastewater infrastructure issues. MAP serves a nine-state region, including Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming. RCD funding is focused on communities that are below 60% of the State Median Family Income (MFI). MAP plans to assist over 1,200 communities with technical assistance as well as provide training to at least 2,500 individuals over the 5-year period. MAP also plans to provide resources, tools, and opportunities for tailored information through its website and an annual publication to communities to ensure that they have the latest knowledge to keep their drinking water and wastewater systems compliant and operating safely.

RCAP Solutions, Inc.

Project Overview

RCAP Solutions, Inc. (RSOL) will use RCD funds to undertake 300 projects and conduct 45 trainings and seminars to serve over 200,000 low income individuals and leverage $110 million for community projects to support safe water and wastewater systems. The project will serve rural areas in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Vermont. RSOL will help eligible communities build the capacity required to pursue funding sources for capital costs associated with infrastructure development and/or stabilization. RSOL will expand network development through outreach and education efforts, documenting and compiling stories of rural drinking water and wastewater infrastructure needs in low income communities. RSOL will also advise and collaborate with communities, policy makers, and stakeholders on technical assistance and training needs to improve environmental and public health and improve economic conditions in low income communities. RSOL will undertake and complete projects that effectively meet the needs identified by community leaders and RSOL partners.

Rural Community Assistance Corporation

Project Overview

Rural Community Assistance Corporation's (RCAC) technical staff, in conjunction with its regional loan officers, will use RCD funds to provide technical assistance (TA) and training for community water and wastewater systems that serve low-income rural residents. The project will serve rural areas of 11 western states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. Project activities will focus in three areas: water and wastewater technical assistance with an emphasis on regionalization projects; training workshops to ensure utilities are run by knowledgeable management and staff; and activities to support the goals of the RCD program. RCAC will provide technical assistance to at least 70 communities and deliver 10 workshops during each year of the five-year grant period. Activities will include trainings for water and wastewater system operators, such as those pertaining to required certifications, remedial and regulatory issues, compliance, and construction management among others; managerial and operational training for decision makers to develop their operational capacity; on-site TA to identify, address, and resolve system safety and security issues; capacity building for small, rural water and wastewater systems; and facilitation of regionalization agreements between entities to share assets, build capacity, develop economies of scale, and create sustainability.

Southeast Rural Community Assistance Project, Inc.

Project Overview

Southeast Rural Community Assistance Project, Inc. (SERCAP) will use RCD funds to provide technical assistance to rural, low-income communities for water, wastewater, environmental, housing, and economic issues in the seven state area of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. SERCAP will provide long- and short-term water and wastewater system technical assistance and training to rural, low-income communities with populations less than 2,500 and in which at least 20 percent of the total population lives below the poverty line, or the median family income does not exceed 80 percent of statewide median family income. SERCAP will serve these small rural communities with 100 projects per year. Specific objectives include but are not limited to: rural leadership development programs, continued development of public/private partnerships, training of SERCAP’s technical assistance providers and outreach workers, assisting communities with obtaining funding for water and wastewater facilities, project management, operations and maintenance troubleshooting, board member training, and continued financial assistance from the SERCAP loan fund program.

United South and Eastern Tribes, Inc.

Project Overview

The United South and Eastern Tribes, Inc. (USET) will use RCD funds to implement a technical assistance project to address several essential issues in water access and wastewater handling that deal with the procedures, infrastructure, and workforce training across these utilities. The project will serve USET’s member Tribal Nations from the Northeastern Woodlands to the Everglades and across the Gulf of Mexico. USET will implement a multi-faceted program that includes assistance in building Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plans and associated funding mechanisms including Engineering Reports to justify funding; updating or developing Tribal Nation Utilities Emergency Response Plans; coordinating the Tribal-WARN network for USET utilities; advancing and continuing the USET Certification Program for Operators and Lab Analysts; assistance to meet current and upcoming regulatory requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act; providing a diverse comprehensive training program consisting of operator certification training, math and employable skills, STEM skills for operators, higher level operator math competency, and management training school; Tribal Nation to Tribal Nation peer assistance, and building community support on the local level for the utilities. In addition, USET’s staff will use their expertise to assist Tribal Nation utilities in building technical, managerial, and financial capacities.