NSF Convergence Accelerator, Future Water Systems VersaWater: Community Water that Weathers the Storm.

About This Grant

The 140,000 small public water systems across the U.S. face major challenges in maintaining or gaining access to safe drinking water. These include escalating construction costs, limited access to federal funding, diseconomies of scale, and turbid source waters due to more frequent storms. Exacerbating these hurdles is the lack of affordable drinking water treatment options. Small public water systems need access to technology that makes it easier and less expensive to treat water, financing that eases the burden of capital costs, and capacity-building to ensure reliable delivery of safe drinking water. VersaWater - a collaboration of researchers and practioners - offers a community-centered approach for water treatment that will increase the number of Americans with access to safe clean drinking water. Specifically, VersaWater offers a community-centered approach for the implementation of reliable and safe water treatment. These systems are electricity-free prefabricated water treatment plants (WTPs), designed to reliably treat turbid waters at a lower cost using gravity power alone. These systems have elegantly simple flow control, chemical dosing, self-cleaning features and easy to replace parts. VersaWater's implementation process includes support for the community in accessing federal funds, regulatory compliance, and hands-on learning for system's operators and managers. VersaWater does the behind-the-scenes work of converging the right partners to accompany small communities on the path to achieving safe water access, providing what they need through one organization (a "utility-in-a-box"). As a result, Versawater is addressing a public health gap and critical water security issues in the United States. The project advances scientific knowledge in water treatment while supporting sustainable and resilient water infrastructure. By combining cutting-edge research with a comprehensive, participatory implementation process, VersaWater sets a standard for addressing global water access challenges effectively and equitably. The VersaWater team has developed an implementation framework for VersaWater's prefabrication technology, which will be refined through a piloting process in Phase 2. VersaWater's next phase of work is organized into four core components structured as a series of pilots. Each component is designed to progressively increase community involvement and external investment. Workforce development will occur concurrently through several training opportunities. A Demonstration Plant serving 250 people (PF250) will be installed at an educational institution for learning and training. The PF250 produces 18,000 gallons of drinking water per day complete with an automated coagulant doser to enable operators to spend less time on-site and decrease operation costs. A Cohort 0 will be comprised of two small water systems in Puerto Rico (PR). PR small water systems experience disproportionately high poverty rates and challenging treatment conditions caused by climate-related storms. These installs will be accompanied by simulated applications for funding to develop capacity. Cohort 1 will be comprised of PR and rural Northeastern U.S. small water systems. Communities will be guided through submissions of applications for shovel-ready implementation projects to federal funders. After this Cohort, VersaWater plans to be in operation mode and expanding its "utility in a box" implementations year after year. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.