Rural Community Development Technical Assistance and Training to Resolve Small Community Water and WastewaterIssues in the Southern United States - Communities Unlimited, Inc. (CU) will use RCD funds to continue its Rural Community Development Technical Assistance and Training (RCD-TAT) program to help rural, low-income communities meet drinking water and wastewater needs in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. CU will provide rural households that are not served by community drinking water and wastewater facilities with intensive RCD-TAT to help plan, finance, and develop adequate infrastructure. Communities that do have this infrastructure will receive assistance and training to increase their capacity to operate these systems to ensure the delivery of safe drinking water and the treatment and discharge of clean wastewater that meets state and federal environmental regulations. These existing systems will also receive RCD-TAT to facilitate the planning and development of critical infrastructure upgrades to address widespread systemic infrastructure aging and deterioration. CU will provided targeted RCD-TAT to at least 160 low-income communities with less than 2,500 population and where the poverty rate is at least 20%; provide training to 450 local officials, water operators, and other staff; leverage $40 million for water and wastewater construction projects; and provide $3 million through its CDFI loan program for water and wastewater projects.
