Funding programs that support drinking water and wastewater infrastructure projects generate benefits that exceed simply providing cost savings to the communities receiving subsidized loans and grants. Water and wastewater infrastructure is critical for economic development, environmental protection, public health, and various aspects of improving communities’ quality of life. When investing in water and wastewater systems, attention is often given to the funding amounts, cost savings, and improvements to the physical infrastructure, such as how many miles of distribution lines were replaced. Quantifying the broader outcomes, such as improvements to local economic and quality of life conditions, is more challenging. Yet, the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) sought to evaluate the impact of its water and wastewater investments in those terms. To accomplish this program evaluation, the EFC at UNC and researchers at Virginia Tech recently assessed 379 projects that were at least partly funded by ARC between Fiscal Years 2009 – 2016. The results show that ARC’s water and wastewater investments contributed to significant positive economic growth and development across the Appalachian Region. Continue reading
Tag: water utility (Page 2 of 6)
Imagine a town called “Smallville.” Smallville, as you might guess, is small. The town’s water utility needs a new water tank, and they need it now. Like most systems across the US, Smallville’s system is aging and has significant infrastructure needs. Smallville generally knows the assets that are most critical and has assigned a level of risk to each. The numbers say that Smallville needed to replace the tank a few years ago, and failure is imminent. The tank will cost Smallville $400,000.
So, what does Smallville do? The utility does not have a lot of cash on hand and has historically relied on grants to supplement the funding package for infrastructure replacement. The customers are just like those across the county–sensitive to rate increases. Unfortunately, Smallville has felt the reduction in available grant funding and worries that even if the utility does get a grant for the tank that the asset could fail during the “waiting” period between applying for funds and receiving them. Continue reading
Water and wastewater utilities are adapting to the rapidly changing conditions imposed across the country and the world by the COVID-19 pandemic. With stay-at-home orders, closures of schools, restaurants, and other businesses, and major disruptions to the workforce and operations, utilities are changing practices and procedures every day to continue to operate and provide the general public with an essential public service. How will these changing conditions and operations affect utility finances? How will utilities accommodate these financial effects?
While the current environment continues to rapidly change, it is nearly impossible to comprehensively assess all financial implications to utilities at this time. However, some practices are becoming more commonplace among utilities across the country. This is an attempt to consider their financial implications on utilities on a broad level, and it follows a March 23rd webinar that we conducted with the UNC School of Government. As the weeks go on, utilities should monitor their revenues and expenses to more accurately estimate the effects of COVID-19 on their own finances. Continue reading
Leigh DeForest is a graduate fellow in the 2019 Leaders in Environment and Finance (LEAF) program. As a part of the LEAF Fellowship, Leigh spent the summer of 2019 working at Triangle J Council of Governments. While at Triangle J she researched the ancillary benefits of stormwater utilities and green stormwater infrastructure as well as contributing to the Jordan Lake One Water initiative.
When communities consider establishing a potential new stormwater fee, residents may inquire about why they are being charged and where their money is going. Forming a stormwater utility fee creates a dedicated revenue source that can be used to support long-term planning for the control of urban stormwater runoff that benefits both the community’s functionality and the surrounding environment. Both permitted and non-permitted municipalities can benefit from instituting a stormwater utility. Continue reading
Successful and long-lasting businesses are all about capturing and creating value. Value creation or value added can broadly be defined as taking an action where the benefits of the action exceed the costs of the action. For example, value creation can manifest itself through increased quantity and improved quality. Value capture has to do with retaining a portion of value in a transaction with the consumer and is typically achieved through pricing. When looking at environmental products or services, the role of creating and/or capturing value may not be readily apparent. Continue reading
- The UNC EFC’s webinar on financial benchmarking tools for elected Maryland officials is TOMORROW from 1-3PM ET! Lea… https://t.co/dvrxpdrhl2
- @GEFAloan Information about the Georgia Rates Dashboard can be found here: https://t.co/N3ZMh6rEof
- REMINDER! Learn how to maintain long-term financial sustainability in this FREE webinar on May 31. Hosted by the UN… https://t.co/CIfHsyIuTj
