Our Stories

At American Water, we keep life flowing. Safe, clean, reliable, and affordable water and wastewater services are central to our customers' health and quality of life. The essential infrastructure needed to provide these services plays a vital role in supporting our communities. 

Why are municipal-owned systems struggling? 

• Aging infrastructure: Decades-old systems are breaking down and are costly to repair. 

• Rising maintenance costs: Keeping up with repairs and upgrades strains local budgets. 

• Mounting municipal debt: Municipalities often carry significant financial burdens tied to water and wastewater systems. 

• Lack of capital for community investment: Proceeds from the sale of a municipal system can be used to eliminate legacy debt and fund vital initiatives for community and economic development. 

• More stringent regulations: New standards for PFAS, Lead and Copper demand costly compliance and prompt cities and towns to seek outside expertise from a private water provider. 

• Competing priorities: Cities juggle a wide array of duties that go far beyond water and wastewater, such as public safety, roads, schools, youth services, housing, parks – and water and wastewater improvements often get deferred. 

These pressures lead leaders to turn to and depend on trusted solutions providers, like American Water, to bring the enhanced efficiency, financial resources, and management expertise necessary to deliver quality, compliant water and wastewater services to their communities. 

How are private utility providers stepping in? 

Municipal leaders are turning to trusted partners like American Water to: 

• Relieve operational pressure: At American Water, we specialize in water and wastewater: It’s all we do. 

• Bring expertise: Our teams include trained experts, scientists, engineers, and technicians with decades of experience and knowledge of the water industry’s best practices. 

• Invest in the future: We provide proactive capital planning and long-term infrastructure investment across our systems.

• Ensure Compliance: We stay ahead of evolving regulations to protect public health. 

Key benefits of professional private water and wastewater providers 

• Laser focus: Water and wastewater are our core mission. American Water is a single-focused utility.

• Skilled workforce: We invest in our workforce and develop industry veterans using best practices and cutting-edge technology. 

• Financial strength: We possess capital resources to modernize systems and meet future demands. 

• Efficiency: Our size and scale allow us to maximize efficiencies through economies of scale, from our buying power to centralized business functions, and more.

• Affordability:  By maximizing efficiency, American Water is able to invest while maintaining affordable rates, approved by a state Public Utility Commission (PUC), for our customers. American Water also offers several payment assistance and affordability programs to help customers manage their water and/or wastewater bills effectively.

• Regulatory accountability: We have a deep understanding of federal, state and local water and wastewater standards, so we not only meet but often surpass requirements through proactive monitoring, investment and innovation. 

Revisit part one of our Water Privatization Solution blog series: Private Water and Wastewater Companies as Solutions Providers.