Tag: Policy Collaboratory

Ongoing Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic Conditions on North Carolina’s Water and Wastewater Utilities

Over the past 6 months*, the EFC has continued to investigate how utilities across NC are faring as the ongoing pandemic continues to create a variety of challenges related to revenue and operations. The big picture takeaway is that some things are improving while some things remain the sameMany utilities continue to feel a variety of impacts from COVID-19 on utility revenues and practices, some utilities are transitioning to pre-pandemic billing practices, and some utilities will be providing funds for bill payment assistance to customers who have past due bills.   

This week, the EFC is releasing a report, funded by the NC Policy Collaboratory, that details some of the on-going impacts on water and wastewater utilities that have resulted from COVID-19 and the implementation of NC’s Executive Orders 124/142which prohibited disconnection of residential customers and mandated the establishment of payment plansAs part of its research, the EFC interviewed staff from 16 different utilities and collected survey responses from a total of 34 utilities between August and December 2020. This research included utilities across the state that varied in size from 42-300,000 accounts and which had a wide variety of financial health characteristics. 

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Financing Nutrient Management in North Carolina

The EFC Enters Third Year of Considering Financing Strategies for Nutrient Management in the Jordan Lake Watershed.

In 2016, the North Carolina legislature commissioned a six-year nutrient management study to be done through the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for the purpose of reevaluating the nutrient management strategies for the Jordan Lake and Falls Lake watersheds.

The Environmental Finance Center (EFC) is one of more than a dozen teams working on the study, and our work is focused on the legislative directive to “review the costs and benefits of existing nutrient management strategies,” so that the State can modify such strategies in order to “share costs on an equitable basis. The first three years of the six-year study are focused on Jordan Lake, and the last three years will be focused on Falls Lake. Continue reading