A safe supply of drinking water is a cornerstone of public health and community well-being. Complacency among those responsible for the provision of safe drinking water (e.g., water suppliers, operators, and managers) has led to numerous and otherwise avoidable waterborne outbreaks. Water safety plans present a risk-based, proactive framework for water management, and when properly implemented, virtually eliminates the option for complacency. However, the uptake of water safety plans remain limited worldwide. This paper reports on the experiences of early water safety plan adopters and identifies a number of non-technical operational and human factors that have undermined previous efforts. Specifically, it identifies these factors as a gap in the water safety plan implementation literature and suggests incorporating the broader community in water safety planning through a community readiness approach. Assessing and building community readiness for water safety plans is suggested to be a critical pre-implementation step, and a potential tool for use by water suppliers and by policy makers.Résumé : L'approvisionnement sécuritaire en eau potable demeure une pierre d'assise pour la santé publique et le bien être des communautés. La complaisance parmi les responsables de l'approvisionnement sécuritaire en eau potable (fournisseurs d'eau, opérateurs et dirigeants) a conduit à de nombreuses épidémies, par ailleurs évitables, venant de l'eau. Les plans de sécurité présentent un cadre de travail proactif pour l'aménagement de l'eau basé sur le risque et lorsque bien appliqués éliminent virtuellement l'option de la complaisance. Cependant, les plans sécuritaires pour l'utilisation de l'eau demeurent limités mondialement. Les auteurs font état de l'expérience vécue au départ par ceux ayant adopté un plan sécuritaire pour l'eau et identifient un nombre de facteurs opérationnels non techniques et humains ayant affaibli les efforts antérieurs. Spécifiquement, ils identifient ces facteurs comme une faille dans la littérature sur la mise en place de plans d'approvisionnement sécuritaire en eau et suggèrent d'inclure l'ensemble de la communauté dans la planification pour l'eau sécuritaire par une approche de préparation de la communauté. On suggère que l'évaluation et la mise en place d'une préparation de la communauté pour des plans d'approvisionnement sécuritaires en eau passent par une étape critique préalable de mise en place et constituent un outil potentiel à l'usage des fournisseurs d'eau et preneurs de décision. [Traduit par le Rédaction] Mots-clés : plan pour la sécurité de l'eau, eau potable, santé publique, préparation de la communauté, facteurs humains.

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Water safety plans provide a relatively new management approach for identifying and addressing risks in a water supply. In 2011, the province of Alberta (Canada) became the first jurisdiction in North America to require that all water supplies develop drinking water safety plans (DWSPs). This research explored the implementation of DWSPs through the experiences of 'early adopter' operators who work in small communities. Specifically, inperson open-ended qualitative interviews with operators from 15 small communities from across Alberta were conducted to explore implementation challenges and opportunities. The findings highlight a number of barriers associated with the relationships between decision-making bodies, regulatory authorities and water operators, all of which have the potential to support or hinder the uptake of a DWSP. Findings also indicate that a DWSP can act as a bridge, providing a much-needed tool to facilitate communication about water supplies and help to support and manage relationships between stakeholders. This study revealed a number of important and useful insights to the small community early DWSP adopter experience in Canada that could be applied in other jurisdictions looking to adopt similar practices.

Fundamental to community health and well-being is the capacity to access a sustainable supply of safe drinking water. Small community drinking water systems are the most vulnerable to contamination, and struggle to secure the funds necessary to improve water treatment and delivery systems, and meet increasingly stringent drinking water quality regulations. Little is known of the contextual and cultural differences between communities and the impact this has on regulatory compliance. This study explored the experiences and impact of individual actors within seven small community drinking water systems in locations across Canada. Qualitative, in-person interviews were conducted with water operators, consumers, and decision-makers in each community, and these findings were analysed thematically. Findings from the study show that communities approach and align with compliance challenges in three distinct ways: by adopting regulator-provided or regulator-driven solutions, by adopting an existing improvement framework (i.e. regionalization), or through reinvention to address a new issue or concern. Policy-makers looking to align small communities with appropriate water quality goals may benefit from a consideration of these contextual and cultural differences.

Assess a community's readiness for change and develop water safety plans to help achieve drinking water objectives.