Regionalization

RCAC’s programs and services deliver solutions to complex community needs. Our local presence allows us to develop partnerships with communities to identify needs, set goals, and select the best options to meet those goals. RCAC and our partners provide the tools to create change and growth, but the communities chart their own course. Collaboration, plus community effort will equal community change. How can we help you?

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Sub-standard housing and poverty are commonplace in low-income rural communities. Many of these communities also face daunting challenges to access safe, clean drinking water and to develop other vital infrastructure. These issues are often overlooked in policy because rural communities lack the resources, training or social networks that are found in urban areas. Learn how you can advocate for the under-served population in the West.

Founded in 1978, RCAC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that partners with rural and Indigenous communities to achieve their vision and well being through technical assistance, training, financial resources and advocacy. For more than 45 years, our dedicated staff and active board, coupled with our key values: leadership, collaboration, commitment, quality and integrity, have helped effect positive change in rural communities across the West. Learn more about who we are and how we operate.

Regionalization

Regional collaboration among rural communities is an innovative way to help small water and/or wastewater systems maintain compliance, improve aging infrastructure and become financially sustainable over time. We call this Regionalization, and it comes in many forms including traditional consolidation of multiple systems into one; the creation of umbrella management organizations, Joint Powers Authorities and memorandums of understanding.

Sometimes regionalization includes actual infrastructure consolidation but can also mean shared managerial, operator and/or treatment costs. All of these aim to eliminate redundancy and create economies of scale to allow small systems to afford day-to-day operations and necessary upgrades. It also often attracts more state and federal infrastructure funding, which is especially important at a time when regulations are becoming ever more stringent. Regional collaboration is not a one-size-fits-all approach—each community is unique and the best option for that particular community/region needs to be explored and requires community buy-in to be viable.

RCAC has facilitated dozens of regionalization projects throughout New Mexico and has recently begun the same in California. In the next five years, we hope to have at least one regionalization project in progress in all of the states that we serve. Also, we would like to expand the regionalization concept to include housing and community projects.

Regional collaboration is a long and arduous process that requires expert facilitation and mediation. Successful collaboration includes an engineering feasibility study, as well as governance and financial planning. RCAC is working to develop a flexible proven framework for communities to follow to ensure that the process is done correctly with facilitation and technical expertise, as needed. This and community support is necessary to ensure that a regional project is financially, technically and managerially sustainable.

For more information, please contact:

RCAC’s main office at (916) 447-2854 and request Ramon Lucero or Blanca Surgeon
Or complete our Request for Assistance