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Earn 15 Water Operator Contact Hours
PRWA has developed a Small Ground Water System Wellhead Protection Correspondence Course. When completed, you can earn 15 Contact Hours (water). It is a correspondence course so you can work on it at your own pace. Contact Hours are earned when the final product, a Wellhead Protection Plan for your system, is completed and submitted to PRWA.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
Who is the target audience? Owners and operators of small groundwater systems. Generally, these are systems serving less than 500 population. Water system can be publicly or privately owned.

Can the operator of a non-transient non-community water system take this Course? Yes.

Can any other water operators take the course for 15 Contact Hours? Yes, you can take this course even if you operate a larger system or surface water system. The only criteria for operators of larger and surface systems is that you develop the Plan for a small groundwater system. For example, there may be a small manufactured housing community near your town. We require this so an operator doesn’t have to spend significantly more than 15 actual hours completing the course.

Can PRWA help me find a small system to work with? Yes, we can even help you find the small system.

How many actual hours will the Course take to complete? This will vary based on skill level, especially with respect to computer skills. The Course was designed to take an average of 15 actual work hours.

I have no, or poor computer skills. Can I still take the Course? Yes. The Course is designed to allow hand-written Plans, if desired. Also, for the computer and internet sections, you are allowed to have an assistant work with you to help you complete these sections.

I operate a large system with multiple well fields. Can I just develop a Plan for 1 or 2 of those wells? Possibly. PRWA would have to evaluate the proposal and determine how much work the student would have to do to complete the course.

We have 2 (or more) operators. Can we all use the same system to complete the Course? No. We can only give the 15 Contact Hours one time per system. In other words, once an operator develops a Plan for a system, no other operator can develop a Plan for Contact Hours for that same system.

We already have a WHP Plan that we developed or are developing with PRWA, under a SWP or other grant, or on our own. Can we take the course for Contact Hours for that system? In most cases, No. The student must be able to demonstrate that they worked on each Element of WHP planning. Exceptions may be made for very old Plans where there has been significant changes in the wellhead protection area. In this case, the older Plan is no longer valid and a student would expect to have to start from the beginning. PRWA will evaluate these requests on a case by case basis. The operator can still develop a Plan for a different small groundwater system to receive the credits.

I don’t know anything about wellhead protection. Can I successfully take this Course or will it be too much work? Or, are there other classroom courses where I can learn more about wellhead protection? The correspondence course is designed to walk you step by step through the planning process. As you work through the binder, you will actually be developing a Plan. If you would like to attend a classroom course on wellhead or source water protection, there are some options. Over the next 12 months, PRWA will be offering a how-to classroom course on wellhead protection (course #1660). It was developed in conjunction with the correspondence course and reviews many of the same principles. Additionally, the PA League of Women Voters offers a comprehensive course on source water protection (Course#1472). Both of these courses are offered at least once in each DEP Region of the state over a 12 month period. Watch your training calendars, flyers or check the PRWA website at www.prwa.com (click on Training>Schedule). PA LWV’s SWP Workshop information can be found on www.drinkingwaterwise.org.

What is the cost? The class is currently available free via download or CD.  The course development was funded through a grant from PA DEP.

Still have questions? Call Joel Jordan at 800-653-PRWA (7792) or e-mail me at jjordan@prwa.com.

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