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So much has been said about our nation’s failing water infrastructure that another blog post would hardly do the topic justice. We’ve done plenty of them here already (here, for example). There have been many who have done well to help us identify the problem, and the problem is an imminently solvable one. We know [...]
Great vision isn’t always attributed to leaders of the nation’s wastewater utilities. It’s an unfair reality that when great leaders of our local, state, and national water and wastewater industry are successful, the natural result is that everyone quickly forgets that there was ever a problem that required any vision to begin with. Yet, there [...]
The Kentucky PSC has decided to allow the Kentucky American Water Co. a 29% increase in its water rates. The average residential customer will see monthly bills increase from $27/mo to $35/mo, or about $96 per year. The PSC had considered this case for about 10 months. We first reported the filing on this blog [...]
In a report published in February, the US Conference of Mayors is predicting that spending on water and wastewater systems will increase by by as much as four times. Depending on how fast the country’s population grows, spending could double, triple, or quadruple, according to the report. We’ve posted the full report here, which is [...]
I’m not sure what’s going on in Naples, FL when their water rate consultant is telling the City Council that the City’s water rates are not legally defensible, but we can speculate if only to illustrate a point. There are lots of reasons why utilities should address their rates on an ongoing basis, but legal [...]
City governments have long admired the money making ability of a water or sewer utility. The enterprise funds are not tax based and, after all, they are natural monopolies where the cities could charge nearly anything they wanted. Plundering enterprise funds to shore up budgets elsewhere is an old practice, and it’s one of the [...]
We’ve been following the story in Oceanside, CA for several weeks now and were not surprised to awake to today’s headline that the city council rejected the water rate increases that had been proposed by the utility managers (Council Rejects Water, Sewer Rate Increases). As this story has unfolded, we’ve learned a few things: a) [...]
The following links will take you to PDF files for the 4-hour seminar on water and sewer rates. The seminar is a short course that we present from time to time with the targeted audience being elected officials and general managers. It’s not a hands-on course that teaches the ins and outs of utility rates [...]