Drinking water – Manny Teodoro

Variable Flow Rearranges the Deck Chairs 💻

Sometimes there’s a little to say about a lot of things. Welcome back to Variable Flow.Battle of Helm’s Deep-PFAS liability editionLet the suits commenceWhen EPA announced their proposed Maximum Contaminant Limit (MCL) for PFAS a

Women, Wages, and Bottled Water 💻

The gendered relationship between income and bottled water consumptionBottled water was something of a novelty in the U.S. back in the 1990s when I started working in the water sector. It was perceived as

Variable Flow is Shocked. Shocked! 💻

Sometimes there’s a little to say about a lot of things. Welcome back to Variable Flow.i can haz clean river?Tribal ripple effectsSince the late 1980s, tribal governments in the United States have had the option

TAP Dance 💻

Lessons from six years of income-based water assistance in PhiladelphiaSix years ago, to great fanfare, Philadelphia Water launched a new approach to bill assistance for low-income water and sewer customers: the Tiered Assistance Program

Big Pipes, Little Pipes, and Bottles 💻

Customer perceptions of utility quality & premise plumbing both contribute to consumer choices about drinking watertrustworthy tap?A central theme that emerges from The Profits of Distrust is that the choice to drink bottled water

Variable Flow Gets Clawed Back 💻

Sometimes there’s a little to say about a lot of things. Welcome to Variable Flow.*coming for your COVID leftoversCongress giveth, Congress taketh awayThe debt ceiling drama that recently roiled D.C. culminated in the Fiscal Responsibility

Lien On Me 💻

The fifth pillar of affordability is Delinquency ManagementAn epic battle of good & evil at the water meterThis is the final in a series of posts outlining five pillars of affordability strategy for water

Lighten the Load 💻

It’s hard to ask for help. Utilities should make it easier.Paperwork can be burdensomeWater and sewer affordability is a complicated challenge that demands a multifaceted solution; to meet that challenge, I’ve developed five pillars

Towels, not tuxedos 💻

How much assistance should each customer get?When things get hot, coverage matters more than fitCustomer assistance programs (CAPs) form the fourth pillar of affordability strategy. Previous posts described the first three pillars of affordability—quality,

Bill Assistance on Walden Pond 💻

The fourth pillar of affordability is income-qualified assistancesimplify, simplify, simplify...in which I lay out a framework for water utilities that want to set up customer assistance programs.This is the latest in a series of

Broken politics, broken pipes 💻

Sustainable solutions for Jackson, MississippiNot a sustainable solution. (Photo credit: Mississippitoday.org)National attention is back on drinking water utilities, and once again for all the wrong reasons. As readers of this blog surely know by now,

Of Bills and Balance Sheets 💻

The third pillar of affordability is Rate Design“Affordable” means different things in different contextsThis post is the third in a series outlining five pillars of affordability strategy for water and sewer utilities. None of

The Donut Budget 💻

The second pillar of affordability is EfficiencyOne of these matters more than the otherThis post is the second in a series outlining five pillars of affordability strategy for water and sewer utilities. Together, these pillars

Defensive Spending 💻

The first pillar of affordability is QualityGotta count the bottles and the billsSo long as water and sewer services operate on a fee-for-service basis, ensuring that these critical services are affordable will remain a

Frame Game 2: Back to the Data 💻

Gendered and partisan responses to proposed rate increases[An absurdly busy couple of months has kept me away from the blogosphere—sorry. Will try to get back into a regular groove now]Winning public support for investments

The Frame Game 💻

The science of talking about water rate increasesIt’s not about the water tower—it’s about what’s insideStrictly from a value standpoint, it’s hard to imagine anything that provides more bang for the buck than well-built

The Revolution Will Not be Legislated 💻

Notes on the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Part IIIWater professionals of America, unite!Late last year Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, authorizing $63.3 billion

Reading the Tea Leaves 💻

Notes on the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Part II*The Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act is 1,039 pages long. That’s a lot of tea.The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, better known as the Bipartisan

Half a Cadillac 💻

Notes on the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Part INo need for air conditioningIn November President Biden signed the long-awaited $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) better known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act.

The Sweet Spot 💻

How much consolidation is enough?You know it when you hit the sweet spot.There’s a growing consensus that there are way too many water utilities in the United States.America’s 50,000 community water systems are operated

SNAP H2O 💻

Better federal water bill assistance with this one weird trickClick here to read my op-ed on this topic in Newsweek.When Congress created a new $638 million federal Low Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP)

(Un)taxing the Tap 💻

How to stop taxing waterIt’s hard to know exactly how much money Americans are paying in taxes at the tap, but it’s a lot. Last time I described the variety of ways that governments

Stop Taxing Tap Water 💻

Collecting tax revenue through water bills hurts affordability & turns utilities into coercive agents of governmentCan you find the tax?They may not realize it, but tens of millions of Americans pay taxes on the

Game Changer 💻

California utility regulators lead the way with comprehensive affordability assessmentWonderboy was the star of the movie, but Savoy Special won the gameBetween a global pandemic and a presidential election, you might have missed it, but

Batting .400 💻

On the limits of means-tested assistance programs for water & sewerRed Sox legend Ted Williams was the last player to bat over .400... in 1941**Warning: sports metaphor ahead**Like hitting a baseball, running a means-tested

Lone Star Blues 💻

When utility regulation fails, democracy failsPhoto: Texas TribuneThe utility failures in the Lone Star State last week cascaded into a disaster when extreme weather hit an isolated electrical grid.* But more than a natural

Ready, Fire, Aim 💻

Managing the $638 million low-income water & sewer assistance in the federal COVID relief packageNow what?As frequent readers of this page likely know, the COVID relief bill that Congress passed in December included $638

Confluence 💻

Confluence. [kän-flü-ən(t)s]. n. A coming or flowing together, meeting, or gathering at one point.Water is a big deal in Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania is a swing state. Am I being to subtle?More evidence that, in a

Art of the Possible 💻

Why water should be the Biden Administration’s top environmental priorityEvidently the president-elect is confident managing stormwater.The Biden administration’s environmental policy priorities are likely to be quite different from the Trump administration’s, and the impending