Risk Management Across Canadian Provinces: Perspectives from Operators
Emma Wells (University of Colorado Boulder)

Drinking water utilities work diligently to provide safe water to their communities. Increasingly, they are challenged by a changing regulatory and natural environment, as well as workforce and financial limitations. In response, utilities implement a range of risk management practices, from water safety plan implementation to fencing around wellheads to ensuring backup power is available in the case of an outage. The University of Colorado, in collaboration with Dalhousie University, is conducting research with utilities and operators across Canada to understand the different risk management approaches that utilities take to keep their water safe despite constantly changing challenges. In our presentation, we will discuss our research framework, the theoretical underpinnings of our approach, and provide a deep dive into the survey component of our work. We will present preliminary findings from our surveys with utility staff on how regulations, prior experience, and utility resources and culture influence their perceptions of risk and actions they regularly take to manage risk ex. checking in-line chlorine analyzer with a handheld analyzer. As part of this presentation, we will engage the audience in feedback and interpretation of how these findings can be further grounded in the experience of operators based in Atlantic Canada.