Businesses consider many factors when deciding to locate to a rural area, including drinking water and wastewater infrastructure capacity. Whether businesses have preexisting ties to the region or make location decisions based on logistical advantages, they want reliable water and wastewater services to meet their immediate and future business needs.

To understand how water and wastewater infrastructure affects business owners’ decisions to locate or expand in a rural community, we conducted a series of interviews with state and local officials, rural economic development professionals, system managers, technical-assistance providers, and business owners in three states in the southern US: Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas. We model the decisionmaking process of rural business owners and highlight potential outcomes of different decisions based on their water and wastewater infrastructure needs and opportunities.

Without investment and collaboration to build and maintain quality drinking water and wastewater infrastructure and improve systems’ readiness for new business needs, rural areas will miss out on economic development opportunities. We highlight key stakeholder roles and recommend actions that can be prioritized to support rural water and wastewater systems and to expand economic opportunities in rural communities.

• Engage stakeholders in decisionmaking, including regional economic-development professionals, local elected officials, business leaders, education and regional innovation hubs, and community members.
• Improve community readiness for new business needs. This may include improving data on water and wastewater systems, communicating with key stakeholders, increasing technical assistance for infrastructure funding, attracting businesses that do not rely heavily on public water and wastewater systems, and adopting sustainable water and wastewater solutions.