Rural Water - Quarter 2, 2008 - (Page 40) Much work has been done by small and rural utilities to embrace a more secure environment since Sept. 11, 2001, but a tremendous amount of activity is going on within the federal government that remains unknown to most small and rural utilities. some sort of regulatory program is in the works for water-sector security. Measuring whether security is good or bad or getting better or worse – The federal government has been directed to spend funds on critical assets in order to improve the security of the nation’s critical infrastructure and key assets. In order to do this, several paradigms have been created to help the government evaluate the water sector. • EPA Security Metrics – This effort is a culmination of years of work and three separate and distinct workgroups (The NDWAC Water Security Workgroup, the EPA Metrics Workgroup and the CIPAC Metrics Workgroup). This is a voluntary reporting program that is reported to the EPA in a national summary regarding the implementation of 19 metrics. • DHS Tier 1 and 2 Critical Assets – DHS has the responsibility of creating a national database for the most critical assets in the country. Only those utilities serving more than a specified number of people are included in the Tier 1 category and are the top priority for the federal government. Utilities in Tier 2 will be considered for federal assistance. The classification system is considered sensitive information by the federal government and could not be published in this article. • Water Sector Tiers – The Water Sector Coordination Council (water utility owners and operators) is in the process of evaluating and recommending a separate tier system for the federal government that may replace the current DHS and EPA tiers. Some utilities will not be included in any of the tiers based on population, criticality of the population served, economic loss and the likelihood of fatalities. RAMCAP – The Risk Analysis and Management for Critical Asset Protection (RAMCAP) was established by the DHS in the National Infrastructure Protection Plan as a means to measure security risks and progress across all 18 critical infrastructures. Currently, this is a voluntary program being initiated by the DHS and adopted by the EPA. The RAMCAP methodology is a riskbased approach that requires a utility to go through a seven-step process. The model that most small and rural utilities used to complete their vulnerability assessments (VA) and emergency response plans (ERP) – the SEMS software – is not RAMCAP compliant. However, we are working hard to ensure that the federal 40 • Second Quarter 2008 http://www.sepro.com
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