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Current Blog Posts
Paying for Clean Energy and Global Climate Change: Sweden and the Road to Paris, December 2015
When I was growing up, my family would drive up each summer to the northeastern United States to visit my paternal grandparents. My grandmother grew up in a Swedish-speaking household, with Swedish immigrant parents, in…
Key Financial Indicators for Water and Wastewater Systems: Current Ratio
In previous posts, we outlined how to use the financial statements of a water or wastewater system to calculate the key financial indicators of operating ratio (a measure of self-sufficiency), debt service coverage ratio (a measure of…
Fitting Together the Puzzle Pieces: Developing a Sustainable In-Lieu Fee Program for Wetland Mitigation
Depending on where you live, you might have wandered through scaffolding that supports new high-rises in a rapidly-developing city, or driven past brand new housing developments cropping up where wetlands used to thrive. You might have…
Four Trends in Government Spending on Water and Wastewater Utilities Since 1956
According to data collected and published by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), federal, state and local governments in the United States spent more than $2.2 trillion in the last 59 years on operations, maintenance and…
The Revenue Ups and Downs of the Water Business
The Upside: The water business sells one of the most important, if not the most important, products on earth. It is a product that can be used for thousands of purposes and one that has…
Public Finance and Environmental Sustainability
The intersection between public finance and environmental sustainability is a complex and often challenging space. However, where there are challenges, there are also opportunities. Projects and initiatives that link together public finance and environmental sustainability…
Finding Money in the Water System Budget: Energy Savings Performance Contracting (ESPC)
The way that drinking water and wastewater systems pay for energy improvements in the United States is changing – including for small drinking water systems (serving 10,000 or fewer people). As has often been mentioned…
Crafting Wetland Program Plans to Increase the Likelihood of Securing Appropriated Funds and Grants
EPA is encouraging all states and tribes to create wetland program plans. These plans lay out the activities that each state or tribal program plans to undertake over the next few years in each of the…