THE TECHNICAL

ASSISTANCE TIMES

Minnesota Rural Water AssociationJuly 2020

Inside this issue:You Can Still Request Cloth Masks 2

MRWA Is An EPA WaterSense Partner! 2

Get STarted on your Water UtilityConstruction Project 3

Choose Interim Financing Through MRWA 4

MRWA Classroom and Online Training During this uncertain time of ever-evolving edicts and information shares, remember that Minnesota Rural Water Association is here for you: the water and wastewater utility industry! Many of you have put in extra hours and modified work schedules to keep your communities running smoothly and we thank you for that!

MRWA will always be at the forefront of classroom and on-site training in Minnesota. MRWA is working to bring you classroom training again and we do have a few limited classroom sessions that will be offered in July. These classroom sessions will be limited to the amount of participants we can have attend and will follow all social distancing guidelines as recommended by our state and federal governments. As the ability to add more attendees and participants emerges within the scope of the Governor’s Executive Orders, MRWA will expand those options. Any impact to our training sessions and conferences is available at: www.mrwa.com/trainingcalendar.html. Rest assured we are doing our best to reschedule essential training sessions to a later date when possible to minimize training interruptions.

Additionally, over the past month, MRWA has been working on options to bring online, distance learning as an opportunity for obtaining training to you. We understand that the ability to show live demonstrations and hands-on opportunities are very valuable in the learning process but as the world becomes more web-based and getting together remains difficult, we need to have other options. We need to provide learning experiences that fit the needs of all operations specialists. Please watch our web site and your email for online training opportunities that will be offered by MRWA. As the world of training evolves, so will MRWA’s options for attendees!

We need your help to better communicate these training opportunities to you! Please send us an email atmrwa@mrwa.com with your name and email address so we can add you to our online communications database to make sure you are receiving the most up-to-date training notices and communications from MRWA! You can also log onto our web site and fill out our form to receive communications.

Please contact Minnesota Rural Water Association if you have any questions or need assistance. Contact our office at: 800-367-6792 or mrwa@mrwa.com or contact our technical advisors directly. We are here for you! We hope to see you in class or online soon!

Check outMRWA’s COVID-19

Resources at: http://www.mrwa.com/covid19resources.html

Page 2 THE TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TIMES

YOU CAN STILL REQUEST CLOTH MASKSLast month, FEMA shipped 80,000 washable, reusable cloth face masks to Minnesota for distribution to all Minnesota water and wastewater utilities that request them. Many masks are still available. To request FEMA masks through this program, contact the Point of Distribution (POD) nearest you. Minnesota Rural Water Association’s office is a Point of Distribution also. Please visit mask information from MnWARN at www.MnWARN.org to find the contact information for your closest POD and for additional details or call MRWA for more information.

All water/wastewater utilities are eligible; you do not have to be a Minnesota Water/Wastewater Agency Response Network (MnWARN) member to receive masks. Initially, five masks for each full time employee will be allocated to requesting utilities. Requests are being filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

MRWA is an EPA WaterSense Partner!Eleven Little Ways You Can Protect the Most Important Resource:As the weather gets warmer, your customers may notice an increase in their water bill. We tend to use more water during the summer, but with smart landscaping practices, wallets do not have to suffer. Let your customer know they can start by reassessing their yard’s watering needs. In many cases, yards need much less water than we may think. Only water yards in the mornings or evenings to avoid evaporation, and further reduce evaporation by adding mulch around the base of plants. By decreasing evaporation, you can go longer between watering times. If they use a sprinkler system, make sure sprinklers are only pointed towards grass and plants and not pavement or gutters where water can become run-off. Source: https://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/easy-ways-to-conserve-water/

You can also use the WaterSense Calculator at https://www.epa.gov/watersense/watersense-calculator to determine how much water you could save with installed WaterSense labeled fixtures in the home.

NOW IS THE TIME TO ACTGet Started on Your Water Utility Construction ProjectDo you have a Water Utility Construction Project? Now is the time to act! Rates are at an all time low, and with the current pricing being opportunistic and taking action can result in benefits not only for your-self but for the customer as well. Consider the below items that detail positive reasons to act now that you can present to your governing body.

• Interest rates are at an all-time low.• More project contractors are available,

increasing the number of bids,potentially lowering project costs.

• Fuel costs are low, lowering piperelated costs.

• Most material costs for projects aredown.

• Shipping costs for many havedecreased.

• Road and water projects are easier toschedule due to decreased volume intraffic.

• Low construction costs and availablecontractors are not guaranteed to last.

USDA Rural Development is committed to helping improve the economy and quality of life in rural America. Offering loans, grants and loan guarantees are some of the ways Rural Development is supporting rural America.

THE TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TIMES Page 3

Minnesota Rural Water Association217 12th Avenue SEElbow Lake, MN 56531

NON-PROFITORGANIZATION

U.S. POSTAGEPAIDPOS

You Could Pay More, But Why?Choose Financing With Us! Use MRWA’s Interim Financing for Your next USDA RD Project

MRWA’s Interim Financing Program is an interim construction loan program to provide funding for communities which have received a permanent loan commitment from the United States Department of Agriculture, Rural Development (RD).

Interim Financing - In an effort to assist borrowers across the State of Minnesota with the overwhelming burden of financing capital construction projects, the MRWFA in conjunction with Raymond James have created an interim construction loan program to provide funding for communities which have received a permanent loan commitment from the United States Department of Agriculture, Rural Development (RD). The program is structured to provide a mechanism for obtaining competitive fixed rate loans for construction projects at a very low cost of borrowing. More information on Interim Loan Financing Program at: http://www.mrwa.com/interimloan.html

Contact Lori Blair, Executive Director, Minnesota Rural Water Association at 800-367-6792 or lori.blair@mrwa.com for more information.