Water-Centric Planning

Before interacting with the media, water system professionals should learn and practice a few rules for effectively communicating risk to the public.

Equity has long been an important principle of utility rate design, but until now no measure of rate equity has been developed and applied systematically to municipal water rate structures.

To improve the nation's waters, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a new web-based tool, the Causal Analysis/Diagnosis Decision Information System (CADDIS), which simplifies determining the cause of contamination in impaired rivers, streams, and estuaries. An impaired body of water does not meet the state or federal water quality standards for one or more pollutants.

Many utilities face difficulties in raising rates to accommodate the costs associated with infrastructure renewal, enhanced security precautions, and other necessities. Contributing to this issue is a general under-appreciation of the value a utility provides to its community. At the core of this problem is the value of water. This value—the commodity itself and the service provided—must be communicated to customers and factored into utility decisions. But in order to do so, we must first understand the term.

There are three areas that utilities should address to improve their financial strength: financial planning and management, effective pricing, and affordability. This article discusses these areas, as well as their benefit and importance in encouraging effective planning and preparation for utilities to meet future challenges.

This publication reviews nine common smart growth techniques and examines how they can be used to prevent or manage stormwater runoff.

Industry studies in recent years have raised awareness of the magnitude of asset renewal and replacement needs in the water industry, but little comparative work has been done on asset management. To help fill this gap, the AWWA Research Foundation sponsored the study summarized in this article.

Faced by the need to repair and replace aging infrastructure and at the same time build new systems to meet population growth, water utilities must make increasingly complex decisions about where, when, and how to invest their capital improvement dollars. What's more, their decisions must involve a range of stakeholders and win their “buy-in” in order for projects to receive necessary financial and community support.

Technology will transform the water utility workplace—from how utilities manage and use information to how they treat and monitor water. Understanding the nature of these changes and the appropriate use of technology can reduce costs, allow for better and quicker decision-making, and enable better management of increasingly complex information databases.

For ten great years, Surrey young people have had the chance to get knee-deep in stewardship efforts for their waterways. The City of Surrey started the Salmon Habitat Restoration Program (SHaRP) in 1996, employing students to work in enhancement and community education during the summer.