Water – Page 3 – Manny Teodoro

Water Cops 💻

Many California communities restricted outdoor irrigation during the recent drought. Did enforcement matter?Bad water boys, watchya gonna do when they come for you?Faced with water scarcity, communities sometimes restrict residential outdoor water use, such as

Why now | Why us | Why it matters 💻

Remarks from the opening plenary session of the AWWA/WEF Transformative Issues SymposiumEarlier this week the American Water Works Association and Water Environment Federation hosted their first-ever Transformative Issues Symposium, a two-day meeting focused on a

Answering the Bell 💻

Social science and defying the choice between clean and affordable waterThomas Hearns, the Motor City Cobra. One of my all-time favorites. Warning: sports cliché coming.Boxing is more popular as a literary metaphor than as a

Aftermath 💻

A California Surprise, Part 3California’s private utilities continued to out-conserve public utilities even after the state lifted its mandate.In 2015 the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) ordered drinking water utilities to reduce

Political Decoupling 💻

A California Surprise, Part 2More drought porn (this is used to be Folsom Lake)How private implementation separates public policies from their political costs.Warning: this post contains hardcore wonkery.In 2015 the California State Water Resources

Golden State Waterers 💻

A California surprise, Part IDrought pornSomething unexpected happened when California ordered its utilities to save water: the state’s investor-owned private utilities out-conserved local governments.California’s long-term drought began as early as 2007, but intensified to

Zombie Metrics 💻

This guy measures water affordability as (Avg bill ÷ MHI)<2.0%Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad measurement, part 4My criticism of average bill ÷ Median Household Income (MHI) as a measure of household-level water affordability

Water Affordability’s Golden Numbers 💻

Not actually in the book of NumbersTerrible, horrible, no good, very bad measurement, part 3As my last couple of posts explain, the conventional method of measuring household-level water affordability is to divide a utility’s

Looking at the Wrong Things 💻

Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad measurement, part 2As my last post explained, the conventional method of measuring household-level water affordability is to divide a utility’s average residential bill by its community’s Median Household

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Measurement 💻

This officer is not trying to measure statewide alcohol salesA feral howl on the conventional method of assessing household water affordability, part 1Recently a colleague asked me how I first got interested in water

Cheeseburgers & water bills 💻

Why water utility service can be simultaneously underpriced and unaffordableAnalysis of water and sewer affordability implies a concern that the prices of these critical services might be too high. At the same time, decades

Hyperopia at the tap 💻

hyperopia (hīˌpə-rōˈpē-ə). n. A condition in which visual images come to a focus behind the retina of the eye and vision is better for distant than for near objectsLast week I had the pleasure of speaking

Conference Room 💻

On the proliferation of water conferencesI like conferences. That’s a good thing, because academics attend a lot of conferences. The conference circuit is especially busy for those of us who do significant interdisciplinary and

Tax Collectors and Other Sinners 💻

What California’s SB-623 reveals about water affordability and the politics of public financeWho shall pay? is the perennially vexing refrain for would-be providers of public goods. Everyone likes nice things; no one likes to

Water & Fire 💻

The case for rate-funded water affordabilityWarning: this post contains hardcore wonkery.One of the most trenchant questions that emerged during the recent California State Water Resources Control Board affordability symposium (pursuant to California AB-401) was