Why now | Why us | Why it matters 💻

Remarks from the opening plenary session of the AWWA/WEF Transformative Issues Symposium Earlier this week the American Water Works Association and Water Environment Federation hosted their first-ever Transformative Issues Symposium, a two-day meeting focused on

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Answering the Bell 💻

Social science and defying the choice between clean and affordable water​   Warning: sports cliché coming. Boxing is more popular as a literary metaphor than as a spectator sport these days. Still, I’m a

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Political Decoupling 💻

A California Surprise, Part 2 More 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

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Zombie Metrics 💻

This guy measures water affordability as (Avg bill ÷ MHI)<2.0% Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad measurement, part 4 My criticism of average bill ÷ Median Household Income (MHI) as a measure of household-level

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Water Affordability’s Golden Numbers 💻

Not actually in the book of Numbers Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad measurement, part 3 As my last couple of posts explain, the conventional method of measuring household-level water affordability is to divide

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Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Measurement 💻

This officer is not trying to measure statewide alcohol sales A feral howl on the conventional method of assessing household water affordability, part 1 Recently a colleague asked me how I first got interested

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Cheeseburgers & water bills 💻

Why water utility service can be simultaneously underpriced and unaffordable Analysis of water and sewer affordability implies a concern that the prices of these critical services might be too high. At the same time,

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Tax Collectors and Other Sinners 💻

What California’s SB-623 reveals about water affordability and the politics of public finance Who shall pay? is the perennially vexing refrain for would-be providers of public goods. Everyone likes nice things; no one likes

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Water & Fire 💻

The case for rate-funded water affordability Warning: this post contains hardcore wonkery. One of the most trenchant questions that emerged during the recent California State Water Resources Control Board affordability symposium (pursuant to California

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Water affordability as poetry and prose 💻

Can declaring a human right to water help address affordability? Something extraordinary is unfolding in California. In 2012, to great fanfare, California governor Jerry Brown signed into law Assembly Bill 685, which amended the

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What Jacksonville utilities say about municipal governance 💻

The City of Jacksonville, FL is contemplating sale of JEA, its municipal electric, water, and sewer utility. For years Jacksonville has toyed with the idea of selling JEA to a private investor, but the possibility

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Private dollars for public works 💻

This is the second in my series of posts on the recently released White House infrastructure plan. We’re at a strange point in America’s fiscal history. Cash on corporate ledgers is high, bond rates

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Infrastructure & the Art of the Possible 💻

The growing national attention to public infrastructure in the United States has been gratifying to those of us who have been working on the issue for a long time. Infrastructure has been a simmering

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