AWWA launches online platform for water/wastewater rate information

A greatly enhanced online platform to provide information about U.S. water and wastewater utility rate structures and financial statements is now available through the American Water Works Association (AWWA).

AWWA and Raftelis developed the new digital platform to provide users with more timely, comprehensive and customizable data. The platform replaces the Water and Wastewater Rate Survey Books produced bi-annually by AWWA and Raftelis between 2002 and 2021. 

The new platform will provide updated data every six months and is available by subscription. It currently includes data collected in 2022 from 450 water utilities and 388 wastewater utilities representing small, medium and large utilities from all 50 states. It also includes more detailed income statement and balance sheet information that is comparable on a per capita, per account or per flow basis. 

“Our grand design was to enhance the user experience and leverage technology as the pathway to do that,” said Rocky Craley, vice president with Raftelis. “We developed the online tool, really, in response to past questions and requests from users based on what data they wanted to see and how they wanted to use the dataset.”

The data was collected by the University of North Carolina’s Environmental Finance Center and can easily be filtered by key characteristics including region, state, population, number of accounts, and customer usage. This allows users to access aggregate data and analyze specific information to compare their rates with their peer organizations.

Although historical data that can provide information about trends is still being loaded onto the platform, the most recent survey data shows that the average 2022 water bill for a residential customer using 10 ccf (7,500 gallons) per month was $45.09.  

“Now, for the first time ever, the user can input whatever level of monthly water usage they wish to compare,” Craley said. “For example, the average water bill at 8 ccf (6,000 gallons) was $38.53.  At 6 ccf (4,500 gallons) the average water bill was $32.28. Having this capability will enhance the use of the data and allow for more tailored comparisons.”

There also are plans to develop an executive summary periodically to highlight key findings.

“We’re excited to offer more comprehensive and useful water and wastewater rate structure and financial data to support the ability of utilities to design and implement sound rates and charges for their services,” said Barb Martin, AWWA’s director of engineering and technical services.

“We know from our State of the Water Industry Report, as well as our Water 2050 discussions, that many water systems are continually challenged to fund infrastructure renewal, replacement and maintenance,” she added. “This new platform provides the most comprehensive rate and financial information that we’ve ever had.”