The Water Data Community Assembles for Another Successful Data Management Users Conference

Last week, ASDWA and EPA hosted the annual Data Management Users Conference (DMUC) in Old Town Alexandria, bringing primacy agencies and Federal partners together to chart the path for the new data system, the Drinking Water State Federal and Tribal Information Exchange System (DW-SFTIES), which will soon replace the decades-old Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS). In addition to a stream of project reports and demonstrations of the new DW-SFTIES functionality, attendees participated in a half-day workshop on application programming interfaces (APIs), mini-sessions on setting up compliance schedules, and discussions about improving data quality to prepare for an eventual migration to DW-SFTIES.

Following DMUC, DW-SFTIES User Acceptance Testing (UAT) workgroup members met with EPA and their contractor, Systalex, at the Reservoir Center for Water Solutions for a day-and-a-half technical session to review development progress on DW-SFTIES.

Needless to say, it was a long week of data. Still, there were a lot of excellent opportunities for knowledge transfer and making connections with others in the community. DW-SFTIES will usher in a new era of data management for the drinking water sector. While there are a great many hurdles yet to overcome, it’s encouraging to see the software development progressing well.

All Conference sessions were recorded and accessible through the SDWIS User Community on ASDWA.org, along with conference presentations and handouts. Members of the data community who require access should email Anthony DeRosa of ASDWA (aderosa at asdwa.org).