Aging infrastructure and difficulties in securing financing for capital improvements are top issues facing water and wastewater utilities today, according to AWWA’s annual member survey described in its “State of the Water Industry Report.” Respondents cited concern with long-term availability of water supplies and lack of public understanding of the value of water systems and resources.
A gap between financial needs and revenue was seen as the underlying challenge to the health of water systems, and 16 percent of respondents expressed concern that water and wastewater utilities will not be able to cover the full cost of providing water services in the future. Thirty percent of respondents said utilities are currently struggling to implement full-cost pricing.
The report noted that decreased water demand due to conservation and efficiency improvements has further hurt utilities’ ability to recoup costs through water sales to ratepayers. Forty-three percent of utility respondents reported that their total water sales are declining, while 29 percent reported that their total water sales were flat or that little had changed in the last decade.
To download the report, go to: www.awwa.org/resources-tools/water-and-wastewater-utility-management/state-of-the-water-industry.aspx.