ASME, AWWA to Develop All-Hazards Risk Management Standard for Water, Wastewater Utilities
January 27, 2009 // Published as a news service by IHS
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers - Innovative Technologies Institute (ASME-ITI) and the American Water Works Association (AWWA) announced a partnership to develop a national voluntary consensus standard encompassing an all-hazards risk management process for use by water and wastewater utilities.
The standard will be based on Risk Analysis and Management of Critical Asset Protection (RAMCAP).
With assistance from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Water Sector Coordinating Council, ASME-ITI tailored the general version of RAMCAP to apply to water and wastewater utilities and adapted two pre-existing tools to be RAMCAP-consistent.
The standard will build on that effort and include protection (avoiding hazardous events or their consequences) and resilience (rapid return to full function after events occur).
By using common definitions, threats, metrics and methods to directly compare risk, resilience and risk management benefits, experts said the RAMCAP standard will help guide the allocation of limited funds among diverse assets within a utility, across utilities in different communities and among assets in sectors of critical infrastructure.
This standard will be developed by a committee of volunteers representing water and wastewater utilities, practitioners, academics and the interested public.
ASME-ITI will serve as secretariat, and the effort will proceed according to ASME-ITI's procedures for standards development.
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) will review the standard. Approval by ANSI is required for a standard to be issued as an American National Standard.
"The standard will build upon previously developed RAMCAP water sector methodology to provide a basis for enabling utilities to make well-founded decisions when allocating necessarily limited resources toward risk-reduction options," said J. Reese Meisinger, president of ASME-ITI.
"The work our committee members do will ultimately enhance our sector's risk assessment capabilities through a practical, yet rigorous process," said Tom Curtis, AWWA's deputy executive director. "The approach will be kept relatively simple and intuitive while providing a sound basis for focusing on the most critical assets at any given facility."
ASME-ITI is a wholly owned, not-for-profit subsidiary of ASME.
Source: American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).