Drinking water and wastewater utilities now have a comprehensive training program to incorporate enhanced security measures into facility design, operation and management. This modular-format program is based on three recently released interim voluntary security guidance documents. Both the training program and guidance documents were funded by a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The training program provides managers, operations personnel, design professionals and regulatory officials involved in drinking water, wastewater and stormwater utilities with detailed practical assistance for implementing improved security measures in new and existing facilities of all sizes.

The three training programs and guidance documents were developed by the American Water Works Association (AWWA), the Water Environment Federation (WEF) and American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). “Interim Voluntary Security Guidance for Water Utilities Training Module”(developed by AWWA), “Interim Voluntary Security Guidance for Wastewater/Stormwater Utilities Training Module”(developed by WEF) and “Interim Voluntary Guidelines for Designing an Online Contaminant Monitoring System Training Module” (developed by ASCE) are provided in MS Word, MS Power-Point and PDF formats on a CD-ROM.

The training program's modular design allows in-structors to tailor the material to suit utilities' individual needs and target audiences, including management, operations personnel, facility designers and regulatory and elected officials. The program includes full sets of MS PowerPoint presentations, instructor guidelines, quizzes and exams. The guidance documents and related training materials, along with feedback from industry professionals and additional research, will be the basis for the development of voluntary consensus standards, to be published in late 2006.