Too Small to Succeed: State‐Level Consolidation of Water Systems

Abstract

Key Takeaways US water utilities deal with significant challenges such as aging water infrastructure, climate change, staffing, and maintaining water quality. Consolidation is an option for water systems to better meet compliance requirements and manage their water supplies. A recent survey examined reasons for, barriers to, and alternatives to consolidation, as well as the nature of state involvement in the process.

The Minus Approach Can Redefine the Standard of Practice of Drinking Water Treatment

“…In the United States, small DWT systems account for the majority of drinking water regulatory violations, many of which are located in marginalized or financially disadvantaged communities. Consolidation of smaller systems into larger systems that have the financial capabilities to meet growing regulatory costs offers the opportunity to install Minus Approach treatment processes . The authors suggest that goals related to improved water quality, increased public trust, and greater water affordability are clearly stated and described before consolidation takes place.…”

“…Consolidation of smaller systems into larger systems that have the financial capabilities to meet growing regulatory costs offers the opportunity to install Minus Approach treatment processes. 139 The authors suggest that goals related to improved water quality, increased public trust, and greater water affordability are clearly stated and described before consolidation takes place. Quantifying the goals for water quality and service outcomes is imperative and is being proposed to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as it modifies the Water System Restructuring Rule process.…”

Resilient water infrastructure partnerships in institutionally complex systems face challenging supply and financial risk tradeoffs

“…Multiple water providers collaborating to nance, build, and operate shared facilities with joint bene ts can be more cost effective than independent provisioning due to economies of scale, reduced redundancy, improved access to capital, and diversi cation of supply and demand patterns [15][16][17][18][19][20] . Regions across the U.S., from California to Kentucky, have encouraged cooperative regional infrastructure investments with funding programs and technical assistance 21,22 .…”

Correlating forested green infrastructure to water rates and adverse water quality incidents: A spatial instrumental variable regression model

“…The brunt of such impact is typically disproportionally borne by low-income customers (Swain et al, 2020). While many factors contribute to inequities in access to safe drinking water, remote rural and marginalized communities in Canada and the U.S. are especially vulnerable (Bain et al, 2014;Norriss et al, 2021) because of limited financial resources and operational response capacity (Blackburn et al, 2021). Accordingly, they are more likely to experience water quality violations such as those associated with landscape disturbance-associated fluctuations in source water quality, especially when consolidation of resources (regionalization) is not an option (Norriss et al, 2021).…”

“…While many factors contribute to inequities in access to safe drinking water, remote rural and marginalized communities in Canada and the U.S. are especially vulnerable (Bain et al, 2014;Norriss et al, 2021) because of limited financial resources and operational response capacity (Blackburn et al, 2021). Accordingly, they are more likely to experience water quality violations such as those associated with landscape disturbance-associated fluctuations in source water quality, especially when consolidation of resources (regionalization) is not an option (Norriss et al, 2021). In the long run, exposure to insufficiently treated drinking water increases public health costs and increasingly harms human capital in the labour market (Graff Zivin and Neidell, 2013).…”