Water Industry Facts

Think of a water company as a delivery service – but instead of delivering packages to your front door, these companies deliver water to your faucet and efficiently take wastewater away. Just like a municipal system, water companies are responsible for making sure the water is clean and safe and that the infrastructure – the pipes, pumps and treatment facilities – is up and running. ¹

Private water operators are in the business of providing water services – delivering safe, reliable water at the tap, and operating efficient wastewater systems – not owning water. ²

A public-private partnership is an agreement between a city, town or county and a private company. Public-private partnerships allow municipalities to leverage best practices and strengths of both government and private enterprise to provide important services like delivering your drinking water. Public-private partnerships aren’t a new idea – in fact, they’ve been around for more than 200 years. More than 2,000 water and wastewater facilities across the country are operated under public-private partnership arrangements. Just like municipal systems or private utilities, public-private partnerships are an important option for meeting local water needs. ³

The private water industry serves more than 73 million Americans. Water companies produce 4.6 billion gallons of water every day, 1.7 trillion gallons per year, and maintain 100,000 miles of water pipes to serve their customers. ⁴

Water companies are experts at what they do. Municipalities often partner with a water company because water companies can efficiently and affordably provide critical water services. Because many private water systems are regionalized, they have the ability to provide economies of scale and a high level of efficiency. Nationwide affiliations and mass purchasing power also give water companies the ability to gain significant savings on the cost of fire hydrants, valves, pipes and meters. ⁵

Just like under public operations, a water company’s rates are set and approved by public officials – by the municipality, the state public utility commission or another public authority. No matter the model, rate setting is always a public process with opportunity for input by all interested individuals and groups. ⁶

Your water rates won’t go up just because a water company is operating your system. Private operators have strong incentives to operate as efficiently as possible, and public-private partnerships have been shown to lower a system’s costs by 24 percent on average. No matter what the model – public or private – the main driver of rate increases is investment to improve or maintain the infrastructure needed to provide better and more reliable service, and rate increases are always decided with significant public input. ⁷

Yes, just like under municipal operation, water companies must comply with all state and federal water quality standards. In fact, our country’s largest water companies have “near perfect” records in delivering water compliant with the Safe Drinking Water Act, according to a 2011 American Water Intelligence (AWI) analysis of EPA data. ⁸