Sewer - Manny Teodoro

Squeeze Play 💻

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 & Sewer Affordability in America, 2019 💻

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

The Plan 💻

A five-point proposal to transform the U.S. water sector As 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

Water Color 💻

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

Smart People 💻

Water Sector Reform #4: Human Capital People + Pipes 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

Time Warp 💻

Water Sector Reform #3: Smart Systems Sewer inspectors: Old School & New School With a major federal investment in water infrastructure possibly on the horizon, the United States has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to leverage

Garden Badger 💻

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

Grow to Shrink, Shrink to Grow 💻

Better Together Water Sector Reform #1: Consolidation 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 reforms to transform

Golden 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

String Theory 💻

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

Water & Sewer Affordability in America 💻

What low-income households pay for essential service in the United States This post reports findings from 2017; an update for 2019 is available here. Over the past 18 months I’ve been working to

Men, Women, and Water 💻

Gender predicts concern for water utility issues coliform contamination would make this way less romantic Do men and women think differently about their water utilities? In a recent post I wrote about some findings

Water Pros and Regular Joes 💻

How utility people—and everybody else—think about water issues Where'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).

Inoculation & Therapy 💻

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

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

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

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

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

Looking at the Wrong Things 💻

Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad measurement, part 2 As my last post explained, the conventional method of measuring household-level water affordability is to divide a utility’s average residential bill by its community’s Median

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

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,

Conference Room 💻

On the proliferation of water conferences I like conferences. That’s a good thing, because academics attend a lot of conferences. The conference circuit is especially busy for those of us who do significant interdisciplinary

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

Human Capital as Infrastructure 💻

This is the fourth in my series of posts on the recently released White House infrastructure plan. Release of the White House infrastructure plan triggered a flurry of news about the nation’s ports, dams,

Water on the infrastructure menu 💻

This is the third in my series of posts on the recently released White House infrastructure plan. One of the most remarkable things about the White House plan is that water is a big