What do we mean by technical, managerial, and financial capacity?

The National Drinking Water Advisory Council, which assisted EPA in implementing the capacity development and other provisions, drafted drafted a recommendation as to how capacity should be defined in the context of the 1996 SDWA. It recommended that capacity be viewed as encompassing a water system's technical, managerial, and financial wherewithal to achieve, maintain, and plan for compliance with applicable standards, given the system's available water resources and the characteristics of its service population. Two aspects of this recommended definition are particularly noteworthy:

1. The group generally agreed that capacity needed to be viewed comprehensively, thus the statement "...encompassing a water system's technical, managerial, and financial wherewithal..." All elements of a water system's capability to effectively deliver safe water are involved.
2. The group generally agreed that capacity must be forward looking and not merely a snap shot in time, thus the statement "...achieve, maintain, and plan for compliance..."

"Capacity development" is a process through which a system plans for and implements action to ensure that the system can meet both its immediate and its long term challenges.

Each State will, of course, establish its own operational definitions, but the group drafted these suggested definitions:

• Technical capacity refers to the physical infrastructure of the water system, including but not limited to the adequacy of the source water, infrastructure (source, treatment, storage, and distribution), and the ability of system personnel to implement the requisite technical knowledge.
• Managerial capacity refers to the management structure of the water system, including but not limited to ownership accountability, staffing and organization, and effective linkages to customers and regulatory agencies.
• Financial capacity refers to the financial resources of the water system, including but not limited to revenue sufficiency, credit worthiness, and fiscal controls.

In the context of the 1996 Amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act, water system capacity can be thought as encompassing the technical, managerial, and financial capacity of the water system to plan for, achieve, and maintain compliance with applicable drinking water standards given available water resources and the characteristics of the service population.

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