Administration
What this domain tests
The Administration domain tests the management side of a water utility: records, reporting, certification coverage, asset management, budgets, emergency planning, and cross-connection program oversight. Maryland systems are small enough that one missing record or one uncovered shift can become a compliance violation.
Core rules and concepts
- Records: keep monitoring results, maintenance logs, chemical inventories, backflow test reports, and complaint investigations in a retrievable system. If MDE cannot verify it, it did not happen.
- Certification coverage: the system must have a certified operator of the correct class available for the required hours. A vacation or resignation is a staffing problem until coverage is documented.
- Asset management: inventory mains, valves, hydrants, tanks, pumps, and meters; track condition and replacement cost; set rates that fund renewal, not just operations.
- Emergency planning: systems serving 3,300 or more people must complete AWIA risk and resilience assessments and emergency response plans; smaller systems still need practical contingency plans for power loss, main breaks, and contamination.
- Cross-connection program: maintain records of assemblies, test dates, and enforcement actions; a survey without follow-up is not a program.
Worked example
A utility has 10 miles of 6-inch main at an installed replacement cost of $1.2 million per mile, or $12 million total. With a 50-year life, the average annual renewal cost is $12,000,000 ÷ 50 = $240,000 per year. If the utility budgets only $80,000 annually for main renewal, it is deferring $160,000 per year and accumulating a renewal backlog. The exam may ask you to identify that gap, not calculate a precise depreciation schedule.
Traps that cost marks
Treating records as paperwork rather than compliance evidence; leaving a shift uncovered without a certified operator; budgeting only for emergency repairs; and writing an emergency plan that no one exercises.