Live Date: 7/22/24 Mission Monday - Why won’t they let me in? The Role of Outreach & Predictive Modeling in LSLR IEPA#20573

Welcome to Mission Monday! Mission Monday is the Illinois Section’s new webinar series designed with our mission in mind:  providing resources for the advocacy of safe and sustainable water through enriching membership, mentoring, and increasing public awareness. The education that you receive from this series is focused on the topics that you need to continue to supply safe and sustainable water to all of Illinois.  Once a month we’re bringing education to you on the topics you need the most. This series is free for our members and $25 for non-members. Not a member? Join today at AWWA –  www.awwa.org/join.

SUMMARY: For water utilities complying with the LCRR/LCRI, two areas will make or break an LSLR program:  outreach and inventory data accuracy.  It significantly helps participation if your LSLR program is free to residents, and even more so if there are mandatory ordinances.  Even then, however, there will still be some residents that are just not ready to open their door to a construction crew.  Nor will they be ready to open their door for a private-side service line material inventory or be thrilled about huge amounts of public-side pot-holing on their block.  Having a strategic, multi-layered and community-specific outreach plan is key.  When partnered with predictive modeling, an effective tool that can save time and money while streamlining inventory identification, not only will you have greater participation in your LSLR program, but you will have happier residents that won’t have to have their lawn dug multiple times. This presentation will highlight (1) how to put together an effective outreach plan based on lessons learned in Illinois and Midwest cities and (2) how predictive models can be used to reduce unknowns in the service line inventory, maximize the value of field investigations, and guide lead service line replacement programs. The authors will also share practical recommendations for how to get started with outreach and predictive modeling, as well as how to effectively evaluate and improve model performance prior to leveraging the model to inform decision making. 

PRESENTER: Andrea Cheng, Ph.D., P.E., Katie Deheer, Joanna Cummings, P.E., and Amrou Atassi, CDM Smith

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