Search for: All records

Examination of boil water advisories in the Jackson, Mississippi case points to the breadth and diversity of impact from water contamination. This commentary describes these impacts and the larger context and limitations of boil water advisories as ways of both informing the public and mitigating risk. 

The concept of resilience is surging in popularity, but relevant discussions are often disconnected from one field to another. To prompt integration of disparate conversations on resilience, we examine the concept’s origins etymologically, genealogically, and by analyzing the interdependencies of drinking water and public health systems in six academic disciplines and practice-oriented fields. These disciplines are engineering, social work, urban studies, political science, communication, and public health. While the disciplinary resilience literatures are relatively stove-piped from one another’s contexts, they all theorize resilience at multiple levels of analysis. They also engage a range of understandings of how to build resilience in complex systems. This paper brings several conversations together, addressing gaps and resonances in disciplinary conceptualizations of resilience with nine propositions to cultivate interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary discussions and debates. We ground this creative inquiry in real-world examples of water system crises to highlight subthemes among the propositions and stimulate more diverse discussions moving forward. We examine dynamics of interfaces and interactions within and between systems through the Elk River Water chemical contamination in Charleston, West Virginia in 2014. We investigate tensions that arise in knowledge and practice through lead poisoning of public water systems in Washington, D.C. and Flint, MI. Finally, we consider how change and persistence shape learning through water infrastructure in Southern California. All together, these propositions offer a starting point and a provocation to strengthen theorizing around resilience for critical infrastructure systems. 

Organizations and communities learn by collecting information both from their direct, experiences and by observing others. Information is translated into knowledge, which is disseminated and used to inform subsequent planning, decisions and actions. Among the experiences and observations of organizations and communities that can be translated into knowledge are crises and disasters, including infections disease outbreaks, water contamination events and natural disasters. Organizational and community learning occurs when knowledge generated in response to crises is applied and when previous events serve as the basis for informing responses to an anticipated risk or emerging crisis. Trial-and-error learning is an ongoing process of experimentation, assessment and evaluation. Through trial and error, it is possible to determine that an activity does not produce desired outcomes, allowing for strategies to be adjusted and refined. Communities and organizations also benefit from observing others facing similar threats and learn from their failures and successes. Vicarious learning is bolstered through publicly available information, such as media reports and web presence, and access to networks of similar organizations. Crises can provide opportunities to re-evaluate fundamental assumptions, norms, processes, structures, plans, technologies, and overall performance. This session provides an overview of learning from crises and presents cases from the COVID-19 pandemic response, water contamination events, and natural disasters. The COVID-19 response in the City of Detroit offers important lessons about public health disparities, community engagement, and sustained responses. Cases studies of learning from the Flint Water Crisis and the Toledo Water Crisis illustrate how organizations and communities can translate experience into knowledge. Natural disasters can reveal systemic vulnerabilities and deficiencies in knowledge. Winter Storm Uri impacted Texas in mid-February 2021, bringing cold temperatures, record-levels of snow, and damaging ice and devastating the electrical grid, prompting widespread boil water notices. This case provides lessons about informing the public about emerging risks and about how they respond. These cases show how organizational learning may help organizations and communities prevent the repetition of a similar crisis, plan and respond more effectively. 

This research investigates medium‐scale disruptive events to understand how these events influence communication and coordination between two interdependent systems (i.e., the water system and the public health system). Medium‐scale events are events that are often overlooked as routine as they occur with more frequency than large‐scale events, yet they have the potential to provide important information about the state and vulnerability of systems, and, if not managed appropriately, can cascade into larger‐scale crises. A survey of US public drinking water systems (N = 471) shows that medium‐scale events promote coordination, especially when those events have a public dimension. Findings also reveal that several features of water systems including surface water sources, system size, and ownership types are associated with higher levels of interaction with the public health systems. Additionally, a network analysis identifies three distinct subnetworks that engage in emergency response activities. The strength of the working relationship was strongly associated with coordinated emergency responses, coordinated public responses, planning, and technical assistance. Findings have implications for both theory and crisis management.

 

The Safe Drinking Water Act Public Notification Rule requires that customers of public water systems (PWS) be informed of problems that may pose a risk to public health. Boil water advisories (BWA) are a form of communication intended to mitigate potential health risks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed guidance for BWAs. We examined how local US news media incorporate the CDC’s guidelines when reporting on BWAs. A content analysis of 1040 local news media articles shows these reports did not consistently incorporate CDC guidelines. Overall, 89% of the articles communicated enough information for readers to determine if they were included in the impacted area. Articles that included at least some of the CDC’s instructions for boiling water were likely (p < .001) to include other risk information, such as the functions for which water should be boiled (e.g., drinking, brushing teeth) and that bottled water could be used as an alternative source. However, this information was included in only 47% of the articles evaluated. Results suggest public notifications often do not serve the public need for clear risk communication.