Tag: drinking water (Page 1 of 2)

Setting Rates During COVID-19: Florida Rate Survey Shows Utilities are Looking for Answers in the Experience of Others

Guest Post By Nicholas Smith of Raftelis

A new fiscal year typically means new water and wastewater rates for utilities in Florida. Florida utilities have long relied upon small and predictable annual rate increases to ensure their rates are sufficient to cover the cost to serve their customers. In setting rates, Florida utilities have always depended on careful financial analysis. Although COVID-19 has complicated this norm — Florida utilities can still proceed with rate changes, but it is best to proceed with some enhanced strategy. With universally high unemployment rates and utility governing bodies more concerned about affordability than ever, research by Raftelis shows utilities are moving ahead with rate increases, but they are looking for more data than before to support their decisions.

Continue reading

New State-Specific Resources on EFC Website

By: Erin Ansbro

New growth has sprung up at EFC! To make our many resources more accessible, we have added “Resources by State” pages for all fifty states. The new layout changes include a clickable map, state-specific information, and all available years of resources in one place.

From the home page, hover over the “Resources” Tab at the top and select “Resources by State” from the dropdown menu that appears. This will bring you to the interactive map where you can then pick the resources you want to view by state. Continue reading

The Perils of Comparing Water Rates

The Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill conducts surveys of water and sewer rates in many states across the country and turns those results into rates dashboards.  In recent years, at least three news outlets in Arizona, Illinois, and North Carolina have used data from these surveys in their stories showing that neighboring water systems often charge vastly different amounts for the same quantity of water.

In the Arizona story, News 4 Tucson interviews a local resident who doesn’t understand why he pays more for water at his system than he would if he were a customer at neighboring systems.

“Water is water to us,” said the customer to News 4 Tucson. “How is it possible that one water company can charge 70 percent more than another water company within a local geographical area?”

Is he right?  When it comes to price, is it true that water is water? Absolutely not.

Many customers incorrectly believe that the cost of providing a gallon of water is the same regardless of which water system provides it.  In reality, there are many factors that can influence the price of water and cause water rates to vary, sometimes significantly, even among neighboring systems. Continue reading

Catawba County’s Innovative Water Service Partnership Model

It seems like almost everyone, including regulators and utility organizations, recognize the benefits and need for expanded partnerships and collaboration in the water and wastewater sector. Small towns are finding it difficult to meet their growing infrastructure and regulatory needs and are talking with each other and their larger neighbors about different regional service models.

Partnerships are not limited to small systems; the cost of new water and wastewater supply is so great, that even large, financially healthy systems are increasingly working together to share costs and partner on  large facilities. Most of these partnerships involve two or more utilities working together, but in at least one North Carolina county, one of the key partners in many of the region’s recent water partnerships is a local government that is not a direct utility service provider.  For more than 20 years, Catawba County has assisted many of the municipalities in the county to install high impact water and wastewater projects without ever sending out a single water or wastewater bill to a retail customer. Continue reading

The Gray Area in Funding Affordability Programs

Why Water or Wastewater Utilities in Many States May Be Apprehensive to Fund Affordability Programs with Rate Revenue

One of the reports recently completed at the Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel provides an analysis of the legal and policy environment surrounding rate-setting for water and wastewater utilities in all fifty states, as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. The report, Navigating Legal Pathways to Rate-Funded Customer Assistance Programs, attempts to answer the question of whether, state by state, water and wastewater utilities can implement assistance programs for low-income customers, where these programs are funded with rate revenue. However, after researching and drafting the summaries for each state, the black and white answers we were looking for, have turned out to be in fact, mostly gray. That is, in most states, there is not a clearly defined path that water and wastewater utilities can follow to legally fund affordability programs with rate revenue. Thus, despite the importance of ensuring affordable water for all, there are many utilities which don’t have these types of cross-subsidized affordability programs, perhaps, in part, due to this legal uncertainty. So why are some states black and white, while others remain gray?

Continue reading

« Older posts