Public Utility Finance

By Jeff Hughes, Shadi Eskaf & Liz Harvell The relationship between water pricing and water use is more nuanced than basic economic theory on supply and demand suggests. That’s what the Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (EFC) found inRead More

By Andy McCartney Personal financial advisors often recommend that families should have enough money in an emergency fund to cover at least three to six months of living expenses. Corporations such as Microsoft, General Electric and Home Depot maintain excess operating funds for their ownRead More

As a public agency, being open and transparent is a primary goal for the Orange County Sanitation District (OCSD). These goals were recently rewarded when OCSD was acknowledged for its 2018 transparency efforts and budgeting process by the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA). For theRead More

In January, water sector organizations including the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) and National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) joined nearly 100 other national and regional organizations in sending a letter to U.S. House and Senate leadership. The groups urged lawmakers to incorporate drinking andRead More

An expanded analysis of the largest and most comprehensive study conducted on Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) compliance suggests that community water systems owned by regulated water companies are less likely to violate the SDWA than water systems owned and run by local governments. TheRead More

By Prabha Kumar The ethos and expectations of the utility management, the administration, the rate-approving body and the ratepayers intersect during every utility’s rate setting and approval process. Municipal utilities, municipal authorities and investor-owned utilities that head down the rate setting path all need to effectivelyRead More

Karen Pallansch, CEO of Alexandria Renew Enterprises, is the 2018 Water Finance & Management Award Winner By Andrew Farr It doesn’t take long to conclude that Karen Pallansch is passionate about water. What she’s even more passionate about is working alongside operators, engineers, plant managersRead More

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a $614 million Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loan to the City of San Diego, Calif., to help finance its Pure Water project. “This WIFIA loan will help San Diego construct a state-of-the-art water purificationRead More

Great Lakes Water Authority’s WRAP Program Aims to Put Customers on a Path to Self-Sufficiency A widely-held viewpoint across the municipal water sector is that water distribution and sewage collection service is underpriced. Water and sewer authorities operate primarily with funding from rate increases butRead More

The City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management (DWM) has launched a partnership with Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies, Inc., to install and operate a nutrient recovery facility at the DWM’s R.M. Clayton Water Reclamation Center (WRC), delivered under a design-build agreement and financed through a uniqueRead More