Sometimes there’s a little to say about a lot of things. Welcome back to Variable Flow. u can haz ​assistunce A tale of two memos EPA Office of Water recently released a memorandum outlining
Strengthening trust in tap water—and in government—means taking aesthetics seriously the ultimate consumer confidence indicator (Photo by Engin Akyurt) A great irony—and in some ways, a great tragedy—of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)
A new book aims to shape the national conversation Now available from Palgrave Macmillan In December 2024, the La Follette School at UW-Madison and the Water & Health Advisory Council gathered researchers, regulators, water sector executives, and community
sometimes justice demands different approaches to different contaminants On the fiftieth anniversary of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) in 2024, the Water & Health Advisory Council unveiled the Madison Declaration, which identifies five
Sometimes there’s a little to say about a lot of things. Welcome back to Variable Flow. Don't Blame the Victim wazn't me Congress is considering PFAS liability exemptions for water and sewer systems under
You shouldn’t recruit survey participants through social media—or trust studies that do Waters of the United States? Every couple of weeks a post hits my social media feeds asking me to participate in a
In an economy awash in capital, why does water want for investment? Cryptocurrencies turn code into gold, but water is the ultimate liquid asset. America’s water and sewer utilities need trillions of dollars of
Why complaints are actually good for a utility Water Environment & Technology Manuel P. Teodoro and Mark Holstad Abstract Customer complaints may feel like a burden, but they are often a powerful sign of
Maybe engineers really are better at managing water utilities* if Hogwarts had an engineering school Does a utility leader’s education matter for the performance of his/her utility? Recently I wrote about the academic backgrounds of
Sometimes there’s a little to say about a lot of things. Welcome back to Variable Flow. i can haz flouride? Fluoride follies Grand Rapids, Michigan began adding fluoride to its water in 1945 to
Exploring the diverse academic backgrounds of water’s top leaders School’s out for summer, so I finally have a bit more time to blog about… school.🙃 This post continues an occasional series on water utility
Early dispatches from the revolution It’s been a little over two months since the Wisconsin Waterworks Excellence Project (WWEP) released the first public report cards for 572 Badger State water utilities. The WWEP publishes
Report cards for 570 Wisconsin water utilities strong marks for the Badger State’s capital city Back in 2019 I did something quite foolish: thinking out loud while testifying in a public hearing. When a
Sometimes there’s a little to say about a lot of things. Welcome back to Variable Flow. u needz bettur sooer purrmit Hooray? The US Supreme Court's handed sewer utilities a win last week in
A Field Experiment to Promote Low-Income Assistance Programs Public Administration Review, January 2025 Manuel P. TeodoroJean Smith Summary Direct mail can reduce learning burdens associated with assistance programs, increase awareness of those programs, and
Racial diversity in water leadership AI's idea of diverse water utility leaders. Creepy, I know. Long ignored, racial and ethnic diversity are now high priorities for the water sector.* Diversity is especially important in
The water comms test kitchen serves up a low-tech triumph *chef's kiss* A couple years ago I had the opportunity to work with Jean Smith at the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD) to
Sometimes there’s a little to say about a lot of things. Welcome back to Variable Flow. maybee you haz teh led pipez? It’s been a minute, I know. Water comms: moar science! Regular readers
Gendered routes to water utilities’ top executive jobs different ways to the top for boys and girls Once an afterthought, workforce and leadership diversity is by now a subject of major attention in the
Data on a thousand utilities’ CEOs tell a tale of uneven progress A decade ago, I published a national study of American water utility chief executive officers (CEOs) with data gathered in 2011. That
Sometimes there’s a little to say about a lot of things. Welcome back to Variable Flow. Battle of Helm’s Deep-PFAS liability edition Let the suits commence When EPA announced their proposed Maximum Contaminant Limit (MCL)
A pricing strategy for safe, sustainable, affordable water Not to be confused with Action Jackson Last month JXN Water announced a simple and bold new strategy to finance sustainable, affordable water in Jackson, Mississippi.
The gendered pattern of water consumption among federal food assistance participants My last post showed that there’s a gendered relationship between household income and bottled water consumption in the United States. For men, there
The gendered relationship between income and bottled water consumption Bottled 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
Sometimes there’s a little to say about a lot of things. Welcome back to Variable Flow. i can haz clean river? Tribal ripple effects Since the late 1980s, tribal governments in the United States have
Lessons from six years of income-based water assistance in Philadelphia Six years ago, to great fanfare, Philadelphia Water launched a new approach to bill assistance for low-income water and sewer customers: the Tiered Assistance
Customer perceptions of utility quality & premise plumbing both contribute to consumer choices about drinking water trustworthy tap? A central theme that emerges from The Profits of Distrust is that the choice to drink
It’s hard to ask for help. Utilities should make it easier. Paperwork can be burdensome Water and sewer affordability is a complicated challenge that demands a multifaceted solution; to meet that challenge, I’ve developed
​A conversation with Sabina Shaikh, University of Chicago ​The 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
A thought experiment and back-of-envelope illustration Water/sewer utility customer assistance programs (CAPs) don’t run themselves. When utilities use rate revenue to pay for CAPs, administrative costs can quickly eat into benefits that such programs
Administratively costly assistance programs can hurt more than they help perpetually stylish. timelessly true. Water and sewer affordability is a complicated challenge that demands a multifaceted solution; to meet that challenge, I’ve developed five
Citizen-Consumers, Drinking Water, and the Crisis of Confidence in American Government Cambridge University Press, 2022 The choices people make about drinking water reveal deeper lessons about trust in government and civic life. The burgeoning
The first pillar of affordability is Quality Gotta count the bottles and the bills So long as water and sewer services operate on a fee-for-service basis, ensuring that these critical services are affordable will
Notes on the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Part III Water professionals of America, unite! Late last year Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, authorizing
