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Punishing Efficiency
With the passing of several years since the Great Recession, citizens and governments are making fitful progress in repairing their broken balance sheets. However, everyone remains concerned with...
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What Water Utilities Can Learn From the Donald Trump Phenomenon (And Why He’s...
No one can really say how long the Donald Trump presidential campaign will last. If you told most veteran journalists or political junkies a year ago that Trump would be a front-runner through the...
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Engaging Customers in Water Loss Management
Operating a public drinking water system is capital intensive. This means delivering the first gallon of water is infinitely more expensive than the second. The first gallon requires all the...
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Watering Down Rules?
I’m a rule follower. I always have been and I suppose I always will be. I guess I engaged in my share of hijinks and shenanigans back in my salad days, but by-and-large, I’m an average rule-following,...
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Forecasting the top 5 water trends in 2016
As the dawn of 2016 emerges and we look forward to the year ahead, it’s instructive to engage in a little prognostication. While none of us claim the clairvoyance of Nostradamus, there are some clear...
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Three Lessons That Every Utility Can Learn From Flint, Michigan
A Front Page Nightmare It is every water utility manager’s worst nightmare: your town made the front page of the national news because of contaminated drinking water. That’s the situation that Flint,...
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Saving Water through Smart Energy Choices in 2016
2015 proved to be another weird weather year around the country, especially for Texas. 80 degrees and dry in Austin on Christmas Day, spring wildflowers in bloom, and kids playing outside in shorts –...
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Job Number One (and Two, and Three)
Utility executives have never been under more pressure. A growing number of factors are making life more difficult for most water suppliers. Challenges such as unpredictable weather patterns, water...
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Hacking the Water Problem
Water and energy are intimately linked: no energy, no water; no water, no energy. Just one example – there is a huge amount of energy embedded in every drop of water. For example, 19% of California’s...
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Drought Shaming vs. Social Comparison – What’s the Difference?
The California drought has given way to a prevalent new phenomenon of “drought shaming” – Californians have taken to social media to snitch on each other’s water-wasting habits. If you search...
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WaterSmart is now a Public Benefit Corporation!
We are very pleased to announce that in March of 2016 WaterSmart Software officially became a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC). A Benefit Corporation is a new legal designation in 22 states so far...
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The U.S. Water Fragmentation Conundrum
United States Water Systems The United States has a very unusual and fragmented network of water systems. There are over 150,000 water systems in the United States serving nearly 320 million...
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The 5 Main Drivers of the Water Crisis
The California drought has grabbed America’s attention, but our water problems — and the coming scarcity — stem from a lot more than a few years of diminished rain and snow. The U.S. government’s...
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The Customer Engagement Case for AMI
Water utilities are increasingly evaluating new metering technologies to reduce non-revenue water, drive down operational costs of data collection, and gain greater visibility into meter asset health....
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You Can’t Always Get What You Want – A Mick Jagger theory of drought management
“You can’t always get what you want But if you try sometimes you just might find You get what you need,” – Rolling Stones (1969, Let It Bleed album) The recent California drought has many lessons for...
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Six Keys to Improve Your Water Utility’s Credit Rating
Water and Wastewater utilities receive “credit ratings” just as a private individual has a FICO® score. While organizations like the Fair Isaac Corporation calculate personal credit scores, for...
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The Future Is Here – Just Add Utility
Water utilities are responsible for one thing above all: supplying safe drinking water to their populations on a daily basis. In light of the recent public health crisis in Flint, MI, utilities have...
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Public Messaging for Rate Increases
Water utilities are having a hard time getting public support for increasing investment in their infrastructure — a crucial need that underpins the viability and resilience of our cities and suburban...
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The Utility Communications Spectrum – Finding what works
As water industry observers recognize, utilities have historically considered themselves silent providers of service. In the past, customers would only choose to communicate with their utility in the...
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The Utility Communications Spectrum – Finding what works
As water industry observers recognize, utilities have historically considered themselves silent providers of service. In the past, customers would only choose to communicate with their utility in the...
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