Rural Communities Dealing With a Lack of Basic Needs
Exploring Sewer and Water Infrastructure Problems in Appalachian Ohio…
Several problems confront Ohio's rural Appalachian communities, including geographical remoteness from easy access to equipment, lack of staff capacity to deal with regulatory compliance issues, and lack of financial resources to install and operate systems. Based on this knowledge, The Institute for Local Government Administration and Rural Development (ILGARD) at Ohio University's Voinovich Center for Leadership and Public Affairs set out to identify wastewater and water infrastructure policy issues and their implications for rural community and economic development. With the help of a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, ILGARD interviewed local government officials and external resource professionals with varying levels of interest and experience with wastewater and water infrastructure projects in Ohio.
Sharing Information through an Online Forum:
Based on these valuable interview results and the need to better understand other stakeholder views and experiences, ILGARD created an online forum. This forum would strive to stimulate debate surrounding the importance of policy initiatives to deal with sewer and water infrastructure in rural Appalachia.
Four Important elements emerged…Several areas of concern continually emerged during the interview process. As a result, ILGARD chose to present these as categories for the forum as a means to prompt discussion.
- Funding (Economic Soln')
- Infrastructure Planning
- Community Capacity
- Sustainable/Appropriate Design
Bringing people together…
This forum brought together leading experts to discuss sewer and water infrastructure in small communities as well as local government officials working in the cities and villages in Appalachian Ohio. The goal for this forum was to encourage dialogue that will continue to develop a strong voice for rural communities.
The forum, which took place from January 12-16 of this year, produced a great deal of useful information. Thus, in an effort to continue its work through the Networks for Rural Policy Development project, ILGARD has published the forum results.
Significance of the Forum…
During the weeklong forum, cannetwork.org recorded 296 unique user sessions that had been referred to the site through some means of advertisement.
Participants from 14 different states logged onto the forum. The largest percentages of participants came from Missouri – 25%, Ohio – 21%, and Virginia – 20%. Others responded from as far away as New Jersey, Colorado, Texas, and Washington.
To learn more, please contact:
Rachael Hoy
LGARD - Ohio University
Building 21- The Ridges
Athens, OH 45701 or (740) 597-2507
rhoy@ilgard.ohiou.edu
