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
A conversation with Sabina Shaikh, University of ChicagoThe burgeoning bottled water industry presents a paradox: Why do people choose expensive, environmentally destructive bottled water, rather than cheaper, sustainable, and more rigorously regulated tap water?
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,
Cambridge University Press, 2022The choices people make about drinking water reveal deeper lessons about trust in government and civic life.The burgeoning bottled water industry presents a paradox: Why do people choose expensive, environmentally destructive
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
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
AWWA Water Science, March 2022This study uses an embedded survey experiment to evaluate the effects of issue framing on willingness to pay water and sewer rate increases. Government-owned utilities require public support for financial
Ramiro Berardo, Director...And Water For All is an educational documentary about water affordability in Ohio. The film aims to amplify the voices of those who work toward providing clean, affordable water for all. Even
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
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
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
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
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
Sovereignty, primacy & environmental protectionPolicy Studies Journal, May 2020Mellie Haider, Manuel P. TeodoroThe landmark American environmental laws of the 1970s originally made no mention of American Indian tribal lands, and subsequent research on environmental
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
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
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
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
Organization of U.S. drinking water utilities in a few simple figuresHere are some graphs that convey a few key things about the organization of drinking water utilities in the United States.*Sources: Energy Information Administration
Sovereignty isn’t what’s on paper, it’s what flows through taps and riversEnvironmental sovereignty (Photo: nativenewsonline.net)America is slowly awakening to the dire state of tribal water and sewer systems. Access to drinking water and sanitation
A five-point proposal to transform the U.S. water sectorAs daunting as the challenges in the U.S. water sector are, solutions are possible and within our grasp. Thanks to legions of smart, creative scientists and
Better TogetherWater Sector Reform #1: ConsolidationWith a major federal investment in water infrastructure possibly on the horizon, the United States has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to leverage that money into reforms to transform America’s water
What the Cuyahoga River Fire says about the past and maybe the future Fifty years ago this week the Cuyahoga River caught fire in downtown Cleveland.Observers of U.S. water policy and environmentalism more generally have
A trillion-dollar federal infrastructure package and a chance to reform the water sectorThis post is not about theoretical physics- Warning: mixed metaphors ahead -Observers of America’s water, sewer, and stormwater systems have known for
Devils (and angels) in the details, Part 3In early January the California Water Board released its draft proposal for a statewide low-income water bill assistance program. My last couple posts summarized the proposal and
drought pornDuring California’s recent drought, the utilities that own their supply sources conserved more than the those that purchase water from wholesale suppliers-Warning: this post contains hardcore wonkery-A while ago I blogged about my ongoing
Some observations about the new law & what it tells us about the politics of water infrastructure in AmericaHere's to you, AmericaThe Senate recently passed the America’s Water Infrastructure Act (AWIA) by a 99-1
Private Implementation of Public PolicyPSJ: Policy Studies JournalManuel P. Teodoro, Youlang Zhang, David SwitzerWhere policy goals can be achieved through regulation of private firms, private provision of public services allows governments to separate public
Gender predicts concern for water utility issuescoliform contamination would make this way less romanticDo men and women think differently about their water utilities? In a recent post I wrote about some findings from a
How utility people—and everybody else—think about water issuesWhere's your head at?Each year the American Water Works Association (AWWA) conducts a survey of its members on the State of the Water Industry (SOTWI). The survey
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
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
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
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
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
