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
Affordability in America, 2023 | Part 3 (Featured image above by Bruno Guerrero.)little known fact: the Dollars Trilogy films were utility management allegories Higher prices don’t necessarily create affordability problems. Across the United States, water
Affordability in America, 2023 | Part 2 How you distribute the load matters. An odd thing about water compared with most other things we buy is that residential water demand represents qualitatively different uses
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)
Affordability in America, 2023 | Part 1 Prices at Der Rathskeller are up, too It’s not your imagination—water and sewer service really are more expensive than they used to be. But figuring out how much more
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 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
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
Sometimes there’s a little to say about a lot of things. Welcome to Variable Flow.* coming for your COVID leftovers Congress giveth, Congress taketh away The debt ceiling drama that recently roiled D.C. culminated in
Strategic guidance for water sector leaders Over the past several months I’ve written a series advancing five pillars of affordability: broad principles to guide affordability policy for leaders of America’s water and sewer utilities.
The fifth pillar of affordability is Delinquency Management An epic battle of good & evil at the water meter This is the final in a series of posts outlining five pillars of affordability strategy
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
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
How much assistance should each customer get? When things get hot, coverage matters more than fit Customer assistance programs (CAPs) form the fourth pillar of affordability strategy. Previous posts described the first three pillars
The fourth pillar of affordability is income-qualified assistance Utility bills were very affordable in Thoreau's day! But then, he also died from tuberculosis. ...in which I lay out a framework for water utilities that
The third pillar of affordability is Rate Design “Affordable” means different things in different contexts This post is the third in a series outlining five pillars of affordability strategy for water and sewer utilities.
The second pillar of affordability is Efficiency One of these matters more than the other This post is the second in a series outlining five pillars of affordability strategy for water and sewer utilities. Together,
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
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
Better federal water bill assistance with this one weird trick Click here to read my op-ed on this topic in Newsweek. When Congress created a new $638 million federal Low Income Household Water Assistance
How to stop taxing water It’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
Collecting tax revenue through water bills hurts affordability & turns utilities into coercive agents of government Can you find the tax? They may not realize it, but tens of millions of Americans pay taxes
California utility regulators lead the way with comprehensive affordability assessment Wonderboy was the star of the movie, but Savoy Special won the game Between a global pandemic and a presidential election, you might have missed
On the limits of means-tested assistance programs for water & sewer Red Sox legend Ted Williams was the last player to bat over .400... in 1941 **Warning: sports metaphor ahead** Like hitting a baseball,
Managing the $638 million low-income water & sewer assistance in the federal COVID relief package Now what? As frequent readers of this page likely know, the COVID relief bill that Congress passed in December
No, EPA did not propose affordability guidelines for municipal utilities Late last week the EPA published in the Federal Register some proposed new guidelines for evaluating sewer utilities’ financial strength. In press releases and
About that water affordability study in The Guardian... Water is a ZILLION PERCENT unaffordable! Also, aliens. The Guardian recently published a big story on water utility affordability in the United States. The headline was shocking:
The congressional COVID cavalry isn’t coming to save the water sector "Nobody got nothing to say about a 40-degree day." The ink was barely dry on a $2 trillion coronavirus response law when Congress
During a public health crisis, getting the research right is paramount It started with a tweet. beware the confundus charm (Image: Julio Oliviera) A new peer-reviewed Utilities Policy article on water utility ownership, low-income
for a federal low-income water bill assistance program All watery eyes are fixed on Washington The ink is barely dry on the $2 trillion coronavirus response law, but there are rumblings that a another
How the federal government might end shutoffs & keep water flowing during the COVID-19 crisis Can’t do this if your water has been shut off. The COVID-19 crisis has escalated America’s water and sewer
Understanding progressive & regressive water pricing By J. Antonio Teodoro & Manny Teodoro maybe she runs a dialysis clinic in the basement? How do utilities distribute the costs of drinking water systems to their
U.S. water utilities are shifting costs to low-volume customers—good for revenue stability, but bad for affordability The squeeze bunt puts more pressure on the hitter than any other play in baseball. Utility financial managers
An update on what low-income U.S. households must pay for essential service It's hard to come up with amusing images for this topic About a year ago I also published the results of a
Water Sector Reform #5: Environmental Justice Photo: EJCW.org With 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 a structural transformation
