Water Infrastructure
Why It Matters
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To safely deliver water and wastewater services to our customers, adequate infrastructure must be in place to support
these services. Across the U.S., there are many examples of water and wastewater infrastructure that has fallen into
disrepair due to a lack of funding for upgrades and replacements.
The American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) U.S. water infrastructure report card provides insight into the
current state of the country’s water and wastewater infrastructure and underscores the need to maintain adequate
infrastructure. The ASCE’s most recent report card in 2021 gave the U.S.’s water infrastructure a C-grade and
wastewater infrastructure a D+ grade. The latest water infrastructure grade represents a modest improvement from
a D+ in 2017, while the wastewater infrastructure grade remained consistent. For the first time, the report card rated
storm water infrastructure, which received a D grade.
These scores demonstrate the ongoing need for infrastructure investments that promote efficiency improvements and
increases reliability. Looking ahead, we know that climate change will have a significant impact on water infrastructure
across the U.S., underscoring the importance of upgrading infrastructure to maximize resiliency and mitigate intensifying
climate change impacts.
Our Approach
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We strive to balance infrastructure needs with water
and wastewater affordability by consistently making
infrastructure investments that will minimize significant
risks and maximize benefits to our customers. Our
comprehensive planning process uses a long-term,
risk-based and comprehensive approach to evaluate
the capacity, condition and performance of our water
and wastewater systems. When evaluating our assets,
we evaluate risks related to water pressure; water
quality; regulatory compliance; system capacity;
water main leaks and breaks; sewer system inflow,
infiltration and overflow events; and overall system
reliability and resiliency.
We conduct numerous comprehensive planning
studies (CPS) and asset management plans (AMP)
annually, and we evaluate systems on a rotating basis
by priority, resulting in a prioritized capital improvement
plan for each system. The combined CPS and AMP
process includes:
- Evaluating the availability of our water supplies
and system capacity against the projected growth
of customer water usage;
- Assessing our water treatment performance against
projected changes to water quality regulation and
significant emerging contaminants;
- Evaluating the capacity and treatment capabilities
of our wastewater systems; and
- Evaluating the condition and performance of
our assets.
We make annual capital investments over $1.6 billion
per year towards upgrading and expanding our installed
asset base, totaling over $25.6 billion in book value.
Our investments increase annually as we work to fix
leaks, improve water quality, safeguard consistent
water supply and maintain regulatory compliance
across our water and wastewater systems. In the
past decade, we have significantly increased our
infrastructure investment budget, totaling over
$12.7 billion of regulated investment. We expect
the need for significant infrastructure investment to
grow, and over the 2021–2025 period, we expect
to invest approximately $10.3–$10.5 billion in our
regulated footprint with approximately $8.9 billion,
or 85%, dedicated to regulated investments.
We attribute the need for increased infrastructure
investments to several factors, including our growing
footprint, aging infrastructure and increased climate
change volatility. We leverage advanced climate models
and forecasts to evaluate our risks and opportunities
for increasing the resilience of our assets. For more
information, please see Climate Variability.
We have a strong record of operating and maintaining
distribution and treatment infrastructure, which can
foster greater community resiliency for residents and
businesses and boost economic development. Our
reputation also allows us to grow our business through
acquisitions of both municipal and private water and
wastewater systems. Additional capital investments
into the infrastructure of our acquisitions helps acquired
systems increase compliance with regulatory standards
and meet our own internal best practices for adequate
and resilient infrastructure.
Our Performance
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We measure our water infrastructure performance
by measuring our water main replacement rate
and the number of unplanned service disruptions.
These indicators help inform decisions about
future pipe replacement needs and support for
regulatory mechanisms.
Despite increasing climate variability and frequency
of extreme weather events, the number of unplanned
service disruptions and main breaks per mile has
steadily decreased since 2018. In 2019, we experienced
0.22 breaks per mile, a nearly 25% decrease from
the previous year. In 2020, our main breaks per mile
decreased an additional 10% down to 0.20 main
breaks per mile.
In 2019, we replaced 0.75% of our water mains, equating
to a replacement rate of 133 years and an improvement
of more than 21% from the previous year. In 2020, the
replacement rates remained consistent; we replaced
0.76% of our water mains, equating to a replacement
rate of 135 years. Since 2015, our pipe renewal rate has
averaged an approximate 145-year replacement cycle.
We have a long-term goal to achieve a 100-year pipe
replacement cycle, compared to the current industry
average of approximately 185 years.