NC Drinking Water Incident Response Toolkit
NC Drinking Water Incident Response Toolkit
Drinking water incidents such as floods, infrastructure failures, or contaminations may create real or perceived threats to the safety of drinking water across North Carolina. The ncIMPACT Initiative convened and staffed the Drinking Water Working Group with support from a grant from the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory. The Drinking Water Working Group included subject matter experts, local government officials, and public health professionals from all around the state. Participants include staff members of the NC Department of Environmental Quality, the NC Division of Public Health, the UNC Institute for the Environment, and local government officials from numerous towns and counties in North Carolina.
The Drinking Water Working Group guided development of the NC Drinking Water Incident Response Toolkit and resources to assist local governments when they must respond to drinking water incidents. One highlight from the toolkit is the section on pre-incident planning. Any local community can be vulnerable to experiencing a drinking water incident. As such, this guide was developed to help local governments be as prepared as possible to respond if and when incidents occur. The guide is based on the principles that preparation is crucial, that it should be inclusive and collaborative, and that local issues and needs vary. We are grateful to the membership of the working group for their time and expertise and hope the toolkit will be helpful to many communities.