When setting rates, most water and wastewater utilities are concerned (at least to some extent) about whether their customers can afford the resulting bills. Many utilities are also wondering how they can assist the poorest segments of their customer base … Read more

Bad debt plagues every utility: electric, water, sewer, phone, gas – you name it. A utility can spend thousands of dollars trying to recover the costs of delinquent accounts, and unfortunately, utilities with bad debt meet a costly fate. Bad … Read more

Unlike your favorite TV show, college football, or even your cell phone, water is a truly vital part of life. However, many Americans may still not have affordable access to this necessity. The question of whether or not water is … Read more

Water pricing is a delicate art, as utilities often must balance competing priorities when setting rates. How can the utility set rates that ensure financial sustainability for the system while also balancing affordability concerns for customers? With any rate increase, … Read more

This week of Thanksgiving, we at the Environmental Finance Center (EFC) are grateful for many things, including work in an interesting field and the opportunity to assist communities with the challenges of sustainable environmental finance. But not all Americans are so fortunate during this holiday time, including when it comes to affording needs such as drinking water, wastewater, electricity, stormwater, and other environmental services.

When the five small water systems in Hampton County, South Carolina decided to band together to create the Lowcountry Regional Water System (LRWS), they, like many other small water systems across the country, faced a number of managerial and financial … Read more

In previous posts, we have talked about publicly available data on inflationary measures including the Consumer Price Index and the Construction Cost Index as well as on commercial energy use from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the US Census.  The US Census also has a rich set of data … Read more

Jeff Hughes is a Faculty member at the UNC School of Government and the Director of the UNC Environmental Finance Center. Jeff is also the Principal Investigator for the Water Research Foundation’s “Defining a Resilient Business Model” Project (#4366). Conventional … Read more

Shadi Eskaf is a senior project director for the Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “What is the [national/state/recommended] threshold of affordable rates? Is it 2.5 percent MHI?” If I had a dollar for … Read more

Stacey Isaac Berahzer is a Senior Project Director for the Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina, and works from a satellite office in Georgia. Water prices are rising faster than any other utility service nationally. Of course, there … Read more