Building TAP50 with States

By Surabhi Shah and Denise Schmidt

One of us led North Carolina’s source water program in the aftermath of September 11, when protecting drinking water took on new urgency. The other worked on utility conservation programs at Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission during the 2012 drought, helping address difficult questions about water use. Both experiences taught us how much states depend on reliable information - and people who understand how it ties together - to respond when water supplies are at risk.

We also shared a constraint familiar to people in state government. The demands of running programs left little time to learn from other states or explore approaches beyond our immediate responsibilities. We could see the value of that exchange. Finding the time and support to put it to work was harder.

That experience shapes how we’re approaching TAP50, an initiative EPIC and New America are designing for and with states. It starts with a practical question: What decisions does a state need to make, and what water information and capacity would help?

Starting with the decisions

States and communities make decisions every day about drinking water and wastewater services, irrigation, and preparing for floods and drought. They also decide how to protect rivers, wetlands, and other ecosystems that sustain wildlife and provide people with clean water, flood protection, and places to fish, swim, and gather. These decisions shape where communities grow, which businesses they can support, and what infrastructure they need. But information on water quality, water availability, and the infrastructure needed to make those decisions is often scattered across agencies and programs.

Consider the questions around a proposed major water user. Understanding the implications of this type of development requires information about available supplies, existing demands, utility capacity, and potential impacts on water quality and ecosystems.  Previous decisions may be a factor. Agencies need a way to bring that information together, understand its limits, and use it in supporting planning and investment decisions.

The same challenge arises when a state tries to identify utilities that could use help before problems become crises. Compliance records provide part of the picture. Financial condition, staffing, infrastructure needs, and source water risks may reveal more. Connecting those signals could help states direct funding and technical assistance earlier, more easily,  and more effectively.

Better data can help states make better decisions. But staff need the expertise and tools to interpret it, clear responsibilities for acting on it, and ways to work across programs to use it best.

Giving states support they can use

TAP50 will combine tailored assistance at no cost to states with a community of practice where participants can learn from peers and adapt successful approaches. States’ priorities will guide the work - whether they’re updating a water plan, targeting infrastructure investment, or assessing water availability to inform economic development.

That support will also extend beyond connecting existing datasets. States may need help identifying missing information, improving reporting, coordinating funding and regulatory programs, or securing resources to implement recommendations. They may also need support evaluating technologies and sustaining their use through appropriate staffing, procurement, and training.

EPIC’s work spans water policy, infrastructure finance, data analysis, data tools, and hands-on assistance to communities. We’ll bring that experience to our work with New America and other partners, helping states tackle the water challenges they identify. We want agency staff to leave with skills, tools, and colleagues they can turn to and keep using those resources long after a workshop or project ends.

The community of practice will also help states find partners who can support implementation, including researchers, nonprofits, and funders. When several states face similar obstacles—such as procurement rules or limited analytical capacity—they can compare approaches and identify opportunities for shared support. States can also learn how their peers have demonstrated the value of better water data to lawmakers and other stakeholders. Evidence of staff time saved, risks identified earlier, or investments better targeted can help agencies make the case for sustained resources. These relationships can help states maintain momentum as personnel, budgets, and priorities change.

Building on what states have learned

TAP50 builds on progress by individual states and pioneering work by the Internet of Water Coalition and other partners—illustrating how shared understanding can lead to better, practical outcomes on the ground. Take New Mexico. One data-focused workshop brought together five state agencies to examine their water data and organizational barriers. Stacy Timmons of the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources described the shift this way: “After our workshop, each of us could finally see how our data fit into the bigger water data picture. That gave us a real vision to make the changes we needed to make.”

That shared understanding helped participants coordinate around common needs and develop projects that secured more than $1.5 million in WaterSMART Applied Science grants from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. One project replaced an irrigation district’s paper field sheets and ad hoc phone calls with real-time telemetry that alerts state staff when a well needs attention. The value came from connecting each step: understanding the information, agreeing on priorities, securing investment, and putting better tools into everyday use. TAP50 will help states build the capacity to carry that work forward—and share and scale what they learn.

Using state progress to advance broader change

What states learn can also help improve federal water policy and programs. States can show federal agencies and lawmakers which data requirements help them make decisions, which create work without providing useful information, where funding gets held up, and which approaches work well. That experience can guide changes to federal policies and programs and show where states need more support.

We will judge TAP50’s success by whether states routinely use better information to make decisions and sustain the capacity to act. That could mean less duplicative reporting, earlier help for struggling utilities, or better-informed investments in infrastructure and natural systems.

Our years in state government taught us how much people can accomplish when they have the information, relationships, and resources to do their jobs well. TAP50 will help more states build those conditions. We welcome states and partners who want to help shape what comes next. Stay tuned for updates as we build TAP50 with states. Contact EPIC to share your ideas and explore how we can work together: surahbi@policyinnovation.org; denise@policyinnovation.org; chris@policyinnovation.org.