The Energy and Utilities project is interested in opportunities to help low-income
households, communities and advocates address the growing problem of unaffordable
water and sewage services and the need for water conservation programs targeted
to low-income consumers. In 1998, under a grant from the American Water Works
Association Research Foundation, NCLC prepared a comprehensive study of rate
design, billing and collection practices to reduce the burden of water prices
on low-income households. The study, titled "Water Affordability Programs"
points out:
"Poor households
are typically not refusing to pay for water service; they are becoming more
unable to pay for water services. . . . There are important lessons that
can be learned from the experience of energy utilities. There are alternative
rate structures and billing and collection methods that promise benefits
to the utility, to the general body of ratepayers, and to the payment-troubled
households. In addition to helping low-income customers maintain service,
affordability programs in electric and gas industries have proven to be
effective in reducing arrearages, disconnections, and reconnections, as
well as the associated costs -- benefiting not only the customer but the
utility as well." --Water Affordability Programs, xxi.
Olivia Wein was a member of the National Drinking Water Advisory Council's
(NDWAC) Small Systems Affordability Work Group. The Working Group's final
report, as adopted by NDWAC can be found on the EPA
NDWAC website at under NDWAC Working Groups, Recommendations
of the National Drinking Water Advisory Council to U.S. EPA on Its National
Small Systems Affordability Criteria (July 2003). One of the recommendations
in this report is the adoption of a Low-Income Water Assistance Program to
help low-income households facing high drinking water costs, funded through
a congressional appropriation similar in structure to the federal Low Income
Home Energy Assistance Program (see 6.2.5 and discussion at 3.2.2).
Soaking Tenants: Billing Tenants Directly For Water and Sewer Services,
Published in NCLC's Energy & Utility Update (Fall 2003) Full
Text
and NCLC