Environmental Sciences and Engineering

This article tests the importance of cost, demand, institutional and geographic factors on the bills that consumers pay for water and sewer service in North Carolina and the pricing signals utilities send to customers. The authors apply spatial regression models to test whether other factors besides costs drive rate-setting practices. Results indicate that cost factors, operating ratio, temperature, the application of "outside" rates, and utilities’ primary importance on affordable rates affect combined water and sewer bills at average levels of residential consumption. The study also finds that bills are significantly and positively correlated to bills paid in nearby utilities. Community income and the percent of customers below the poverty line are weakly associated with combined bills. However, utilities facing higher growth rates and those that value conservation are no more likely to send stronger pricing signals than others.

Studying customer behavior has become an essential financial management and research component for most commercial enterprises. Should customer sales analyses play a role in shaping or preparing for water utility management decisions, such as changing pricing or providing a new customer program? In this paper, we investigate how individual customer sales information can be collected and analyzed, using billing data, in a way that supports water services management decisions. We conduct customer sales analyses for three large utilities in North Carolina, and by tracking each customer's history and billing experience, we examine trends and relationships related to usage patterns and fluctuations, irrigation and capacity use, timeliness of payment and cutoff patterns, and geographic variation within communities. The variation in the results for each of the utility studied reinforces the necessity of customizing pricing and policy to local conditions. Customer level analysis also permits utilities to carry out targeted marketing so that they communicate messages directly to customers most likely to respond or need the message.

Interconnections are an increasingly popular water management strategy that allows water to be redistributed between neighboring water systems. One attraction to interconnections is that they build up redundancy in the water system. Water utilities are risk-adverse entities that are concerned about having access to an emergency water supply. While some utilities rely on interconnections for their regular water source, it is becoming increasingly common to have emergency contracts and connections between utilities. Interconnection projects are expensive and their avocation presents an asset management opportunity. Not only do they comprise a large part of a utility"s risk management plan, but they also create an incentive to perform more accurate asset mapping. This paper explores a method for developing an asset management database for community water systems (CWS) and interconnections for North Carolina. We begin with an overview of data collection and the current water interconnection system. We then develop a method to assess where the most feasible location for a future connection exists between neighboring CWS while taking into consideration geographic constraints and opportunities. We found that 31% of the CWS in our study do not currently purchase water, and of those 36% have a "relatively cheap" geographically feasible interconnection opportunity.

The purpose for these rate setting guidelines is to provide water and wastewater utility managers and technical assistance providers with a framework in setting water and wastewater rates and rate structures that would meet the state's and the utility's policies and objectives. These guidelines provide step by step instructions and necessary information to allow the utility manager to make an informed policy-driven choice on the rate structure design. These guidelines do not provide instruction on how to project revenues and costs and how to calculate rates (dollar amounts) to balance a budget, but references other documents that provide such guidelines.

Water system interconnections provide a means of redistributing water from water systems with excess supply or capacity to water systems that need additional water. Interconnection contracts include both the buying and selling of water on a regular basis or for emergency purposes only. It is essential to describe and understand the network of water system interconnections in North Carolina prior to developing an overall policy for water resource management and planning at the state level.

Abstract This paper identifies opportunities to enhance management capacity for small community water systems through cooperative management. Shared management is a non-structural form of regionalization that would not require reluctant water system owners to give up ownership of their systems, thereby eliminating two of the main obstacles to regionalization.

ABSTRACT The Rates Dashboard is a benchmarking tool developed to assist water and wastewater utility managers and decision-makers in developing rates that adequately fund necessary programs such as asset replacement and management. The Rates Dashboard is a free, interactive tool designed to allow users to compare rates across a given region while simultaneously considering financial, affordability and socioeconomic indicators.

Customer water-use data and analyses are essential to understanding water use among different subgroups of customers, planning and implementing successful water conservation programs with appropriate water-saving goals, and setting rates that effectively meet utility objectives. By segmenting a customer base by water use and benchmarking consumption over time, utilities can better design and target conservation programs and rate structures. Water-use indicators can be used to categorize each customer’s water use patterns over a period of time and identify subgroups of customers with similar patterns. These subgroups go beyond the sometimes ambiguous and generic classification of “residential” or “commercial, industrial and institutional (CII)” customers, to a more precise categorization of individual customers based on their own water-use patterns. This method segments a customer base further within the larger and more traditional classifications to help utilities better understand customer consumption patterns. Using the proposed indicators in this document will guide a utility to divide its customers into several subgroups based on unique water-use patterns.

Water pricing can be one of the most effective methods to driving conservation and is also the primary mechanism for recovering the revenue that a water utility needs to protect public health and the environment.  The Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina and the Sierra Club, Lone Star Chapter have written a report to help Texas water utilities use their water rates and financial policies to encourage customers to reduce their water use while maintaining the financial viability of the utility.

Do voters punish incumbent legislators for raising service costs? Concern about electoral punishment is considered a leading obstacle to increasing taxes and fees to fund service provision, but empirical evidence of such backlash is surprisingly sparse. This paper examines whether voters hold local elected officials accountable for raising water service costs. Using 10 years of panel data on municipal elections and water rates in North Carolina, we find rate increases do not reduce incumbent city council members’ vote shares. Local politicians may overestimate their electoral risk from raising taxes and fees to fund public services.

The purpose of this report is to help North Carolina water and sewer utilities meet their policy objectives and assure that they have the revenues they need to protect public health. The report provides up-to-date information on current rate-setting practices and trends that can inform and influence (but not dictate) local decisions. The analyses uniquely determine and compare water and sewer bills for multiple levels of consumption and relies on data from multiple sources, including 1) a rates and financial practices survey completed by 277 utilities, 2) a rates inventory and database that includes information from 333 utilities, 3) a financial information database compiled and maintained by the NC State Treasurer, and 4) data from the United States Census Bureau.

Carolina, Chapel Hill is part of a network of university-based centers that work on environmental issues, including water resources, solid waste management, energy, and land conservation. The EFC at UNC partners with organizations across the United States to assist communities, provide training and policy analysis services, and disseminate tools and research on a variety of environmental finance and policy topics. The Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill works to build the capacity of governments and other organizations to provide environmental programs and services in fair, effective and financially sustainable ways. About the Sierra Club, Lone Star Chapter The Sierra Club is a national environmental organization, and the Lone Star Chapter is the state level entity for the Sierra Club in Texas. The Sierra Club, Lone Star Chapter is a partner with the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) in the Texas Living Waters Project. The Texas Living Waters Project works with water policy specialists, public officials, and communities in Texas to ensure adequate water for both people and the environment. The Project works to reduce future demand for water through advocating for efficient use of existing supplies. A key goal of the Project is to involve citizens in decisions about water resource management at the local and state levels.