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
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
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
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
Sustainable solutions for Jackson, Mississippi not a sustainable solution 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,
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,
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
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
Notes on the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Part I No need for air conditioning In November President Biden signed the long-awaited $1.2 trillion 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
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
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
Organization of U.S. drinking water utilities in a few simple figures Here are some graphs that convey a few key things about the organization of drinking water utilities in the United States.* Sources: Energy
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
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
Lessons from California water conservation, 2019 Reservoirs aren't supposed to look like this. Tough water times may be back in California. After the Golden State suffered through a historically severe drought from 2012-2017, pleasantly
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
Playing to win not to lose in water utility management Nature's Prevent Defense Warning: strained sports metaphor coming. It’s late January, and the National Football League season soon reaches its climax with the Super
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
Water Sector Reform #2: Regulatory Transparency & Fairness Bringing together the best of both states With a major federal investment in water infrastructure possibly on the horizon, the United States has a once-in-a-generation opportunity
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
A Kansas water utility gets affordability measurement right And lo, there arose from the Kansas City suburbs a mighty measurement Recently we’ve seen progress in affordability measurement, as more water utilities are using better
A trillion-dollar federal infrastructure package and a chance to reform the water sector This post is not about theoretical physics - Warning: mixed metaphors ahead - Observers of America’s water, sewer, and stormwater systems
Devils (and angels) in the details, Part 1 Governor Newsom (nice haircut in the black jacket, back to the camera) dragged his cabinet down the Central Valley to hear what folks had to say
Sometimes progress is visible in what you don’t see Earlier this week I had the pleasure of speaking to the annual conference of the California Water Association, an organization of that state’s investor-owned water
Some observations about the new law & what it tells us about the politics of water infrastructure in America Here's looking at you, America The Senate recently passed the America’s Water Infrastructure Act (AWIA)
Why rate structures, not assistance programs, offer the most promising path to water affordability yeah this stinks kid, but it beats smallpox When discussions of water and sewer affordability turn to policy solutions, they
