EPA Research at NACCHO Preparedness Summit | 2025
EPA is participating in the 2025 National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) Preparedness Summit from April 29 - May 2 in San Antonio, Texas. EPA's research on mobile emergency water treatment following disasters will be featured at a town hall.
Presentations
Ditch the bottled water: Overcoming obstacles to on-site treatment of water after a disaster
Live Town Hall Event, Room 217A, April 30 at 1:30 - 3:00 PM
Presenters:
- James Goodrich and Jeff Szabo, EPA Office of Research and Development
- David Rinaldi, EPA Region 7
- Dave Carney, Kentucky Department for Public Health
Bottled water is the go-to water source for potable and sanitary uses after a disaster that knocks a drinking water system offline. Bottled water is heavy and expensive to transport, has a shelf life in storage, and generates tremendous amounts of solid waste. On-site treatment of water can eliminate these drawbacks and be cost effective. However, when mobile water treatments systems are deployed after a disaster, questions quickly arise: Who are you? How does this water treatment system work? Does it produce water that adheres to all regulations? How do I know the water is safe? What can I use the water for? These questions arise after all disasters, but answers and approvals will vary depending on the state, county, or city where the treatment unit is deployed.
Resources:
- EPA's Water-on-Wheels Mobile Water Treatment System (WOW Cart)
- Video: What is the WOW Cart?
- Factsheet: Water on Wheels (WOW) Mobile Emergency Water Treatment System Cart
- Read: EPA Researchers Partner with WaterStep to Deliver Clean Water During Emergencies
- EPA's Water Security Test Bed
- Video: EPA and Idaho National Laboratory creates first-of-its-scale Water Security Test Bed
Clean Water Access During Emergencies
Live Learning Session, Room 210A, April 30 at 8:00 - 9:30 AM
Presenters: Dave Carney, Kentucky Department for Public Health
This session will present proposed capability expansion of a fully deployable water treatment system called a Water-On-Wheels, known as a WOW Cart, to address the removal of heavy metals and brackish water, and pre-treat extremely poor raw water sources. It will discuss future deployments to integrate the WOW Cart into a packaged greywater reuse system and for use at fire fighting camps. Dave Carney, with Kentucky's Healthcare Coalitions, will discuss the integration of the WOW Cart into their Emergency Response Plan and the use of the 'Lily Pad Concept' to pre-deploy multiple WOW Carts across the state.
Resources:
Presenter Bios
James Goodrich is a Senior Science Advisor in the Center for Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development. Dr. Goodrich has managed large multidisciplinary programs relative to water infrastructure protection, small community drinking water and wastewater needs, watershed protection and restoration, source water spill modeling, and international drinking water treatment technology demonstrations. He is currently responsible for full-scale evaluations of water infrastructure decontamination, innovative emergency water treatment technology, and emergency stormwater response mitigation tools.
Jeff Szabo has worked for the EPA's Homeland Security Research Program since 2005. He conducts and manages water security research projects at EPA's Test and Evaluation facility. These projects include online water quality monitoring research as well as examining chemical, biological, and radiological contaminant persistence on drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, and evaluation of decontamination methods. He has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering, all from the University of Cincinnati. Jeff is a registered Professional Engineer in Ohio.
David Rinaldi is a Cybersecurity and Emergency Response Expert in the Water Division of EPA's Region 7. His responsibilities include working with state, Tribal, and federal partners in cybersecurity and emergency response issues related to the water sector, providing technical assistance to Tribal drinking water systems and supporting ESF-3 water emergency response operations as the water emergency response team lead for EPA Region 7. David has an M.S. in Urban and Environmental Geosciences and has been a certified drinking water operator for over 25 years.
Dave Carney serves as a Readiness Response Coordinator for the Bluegrass Healthcare Coalition. His areas of responsibility include planning, providing technical assistance, training, response support and helping to ensure essential medical services are maintained with many different provider types associated within the regional healthcare sector. Dave leads the Bluegrass Healthcare Coalition which includes partnerships with hospitals, EMS, local health departments, emergency management and various healthcare services which covers 18 counties in Central Kentucky. He enjoys the challenges of assisting Central Kentucky's healthcare partners with maintaining the integrity of the healthcare system which 840,000 Kentuckians depends on every day. His current response work requires either ESF-8 support in the State's Emergency Operations Center or providing asset and technical support in various areas of the Commonwealth where disasters have occurred.