Keeping Pace With Water and Wastewater Rates
Abstract
We present that water and wastewater treatment and delivery are the most capital-intensive of all utility services. The literature indicates that historically underpriced water and wastewater rates have exhibited steadily high growth in the past 15 years, while the consumer price index (CPI) of water and sewage maintenance has outpaced the general CPI by an increasingly wide margin. This article employs a chained analysis method to examine water and wastewater rates for a group of utilities across US Census regions between 2000 and 2014. Results demonstrate that water and wastewater prices for this sample group have consistently increased and have surpassed CPI growth since 2006. Finally, current and upcoming challenges facing water and wastewater utilities suggest that rate increases are likely to continue in the foreseeable future.
- Authors:
-
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Energy Efficiency Standards Group
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1437970
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1787351
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231; DE‐AC02‐05CH11231
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Journal of the American Water Works Association
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 109; Journal Issue: 10; Journal ID: ISSN 0003-150X
- Publisher:
- American Water Works Association
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION; CPI; rates; wastewater; water; Water Rates
Citation Formats
Stratton, Hannah, Fuchs, Heidi, Chen, Yuting, Dunham, Camilla, Ni, Chun Chun, and Williams, Alison. Keeping Pace With Water and Wastewater Rates. United States: N. p., 2017.
Web. doi:10.5942/jawwa.2017.109.0101.
Stratton, Hannah, Fuchs, Heidi, Chen, Yuting, Dunham, Camilla, Ni, Chun Chun, & Williams, Alison. Keeping Pace With Water and Wastewater Rates. United States. https://doi.org/10.5942/jawwa.2017.109.0101
Stratton, Hannah, Fuchs, Heidi, Chen, Yuting, Dunham, Camilla, Ni, Chun Chun, and Williams, Alison. Sun .
"Keeping Pace With Water and Wastewater Rates". United States. https://doi.org/10.5942/jawwa.2017.109.0101. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1437970.
@article{osti_1437970,
title = {Keeping Pace With Water and Wastewater Rates},
author = {Stratton, Hannah and Fuchs, Heidi and Chen, Yuting and Dunham, Camilla and Ni, Chun Chun and Williams, Alison},
abstractNote = {We present that water and wastewater treatment and delivery are the most capital-intensive of all utility services. The literature indicates that historically underpriced water and wastewater rates have exhibited steadily high growth in the past 15 years, while the consumer price index (CPI) of water and sewage maintenance has outpaced the general CPI by an increasingly wide margin. This article employs a chained analysis method to examine water and wastewater rates for a group of utilities across US Census regions between 2000 and 2014. Results demonstrate that water and wastewater prices for this sample group have consistently increased and have surpassed CPI growth since 2006. Finally, current and upcoming challenges facing water and wastewater utilities suggest that rate increases are likely to continue in the foreseeable future.},
doi = {10.5942/jawwa.2017.109.0101},
journal = {Journal of the American Water Works Association},
number = 10,
volume = 109,
place = {United States},
year = {2017},
month = {10}
}
Web of Science