Founded in 1886, American Water Works Company, Inc., is a Delaware holding
company. American Water is the most geographically diversified, as well as the
largest publicly-traded, United States water and wastewater utility company,
as measured by both operating revenues and population served. As a holding company,
we conduct substantially all of our business operations through our subsidiaries.
Our approximately 6,400 employees provide an estimated 15 million people with
drinking water, wastewater and/or other water-related services in 47 states
and one Canadian province.
Our Regulated Businesses operate in approximately 1,600 communities in 16 states
in the United States. Our primary operating assets include 89 dams and 81 surface
water treatment plants along with approximately 500 groundwater treatment plants,
1,000 groundwater wells, 100 wastewater treatment facilities, 1,200 treated
water storage facilities, 1,300 pumping stations, and 48,000 miles of mains
and collection pipes. Our regulated utilities own substantially all of the assets
used by our Regulated Businesses. We generally own the land and physical assets
used to store, extract and treat source water. Typically, we do not own the
water itself, which is held in public trust and is allocated to us through contracts
and allocation rights granted by federal and state agencies or through the ownership
of water rights pursuant to local law. Maintaining the reliability of our networks
is a key activity of our Regulated Businesses. We have ongoing infrastructure
renewal programs in all states in which our Regulated Businesses operate. These
programs consist of both rehabilitation of existing mains and other equipment
and replacement of mains and other equipment that are damaged or have reached,
or are near, the end of their useful service lives.
The level of treatment we apply to the water varies significantly depending
upon the quality of the water source and customer stipulations. Surface water
sources, such as rivers, typically require significant treatment, while some
groundwater sources, such as aquifers, require chemical treatment only. In addition,
a small amount of treated water is purchased from neighboring water purveyors.
Treated water is transported through our transmission and distribution network,
which includes underground pipes, above ground storage facilities and numerous
pumping facilities with the ultimate distribution of the treated water to the
customers’ premises.
We have installed production meters to measure the water that we deliver to
our distribution network. We also employ a variety of methods of customer meter
reading to monitor consumption; ranging from meters with mechanical registers
where consumption is manually recorded by meter readers, to meters with electronic
registers capable of transmitting consumption data to proximity devices (touch
read) or via radio frequency to mobile or fixed network data collectors. The
majority of new meters are able to support future advances in electronic meter
reading.
Wastewater services involve the collection of wastewater from customers’
premises through sewer lines. The wastewater is then transported through a sewer
network to a treatment facility, where it is treated to meet required effluent
standards. The treated wastewater is finally returned to the environment as
effluent, and the solid waste by-product of the treatment process is disposed
of in accordance with applicable standards and regulations.
Economic Regulation and Rate Making Process
The operations of our Regulated Businesses are generally subject to extensive
economic regulation by their respective PUCs. The term “economic regulation”
is intended to indicate that these state PUCs regulate the economic aspects
of service to the public but do not generally establish water quality standards,
which are typically set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”)
and/or state environmental authorities. State PUCs have broad authority to regulate
many of the economic and service aspects of the utilities. For example, state
PUCs often issue certificates of public convenience and necessity (or similar
authorizations) that may be required for a company to provide service in specific
areas. They also approve the rates and conditions under which service is provided
and have extensive authority to establish rules and regulations under which
the utilities operate. Specific authority might differ from state to state,
but in most states PUCs approve rates, accounting treatments, long-term financing
programs and cost of capital, significant capital expenditures and plant additions,
transactions and relationships between the regulated subsidiary and affiliated
entities, reorganizations and mergers and acquisitions. In many instances, regulatory
approvals are required to effect the transaction. Regulatory policies not only
vary from state to state, but can change over time as well. These policies will
affect the timing as well as the extent of recovery of expenses and the realized
return on invested capital. Our results of operations are significantly affected
by rates authorized by the PUCs in the states in which we operate, and we are
subject to risks and uncertainties associated with rate case delays or inadequate
rate recovery.
Economic regulation of utilities involves many competing, and occasionally
conflicting, public interests and policy goals. The primary responsibility of
PUCs is to promote the overall public interest by balancing the interests of
customers and utility investors. Although the specific approach to economic
regulation varies, certain general principles are consistent across the states
in which our regulated subsidiaries operate. Based on certain legal and regulatory
principles, economic regulation is generally intended to provide a utility the
right to serve specific geographic areas. In return, the utility undertakes
the obligation to provide safe and adequate service to all customers within
its service area and is authorized an annual revenue requirement intended to
provide recovery of prudent operation and maintenance costs, depreciation and
taxes and an opportunity to earn a fair return on capital investment necessary
to provide service to customers.
Our operating revenue is typically determined by reference to a volumetric
charge based on consumption and a base fee component set by a tariff approved
by the PUC. The process to obtain approval for a change in rates generally occurs
by way of a “rate case” filed by the utility with the PUC on a periodic
basis. The timing of rate case filings may be determined by either periodic
requirements in the regulatory jurisdiction or by the utility’s need to
increase its revenue requirement to recover capital investment costs, changes
in operating revenues, operating costs or other market conditions. A PUC may
also initiate the filing of a rate case to conduct an investigation and may
impose other conditions on the content and timing of filings under certain circumstances.
State PUCs differ with regard to the types of expenses and investments that
may be recovered in rates as well as with regard to the transparency of their
rate-making processes and how they reach their final rate determinations. However,
in evaluating a rate case, state PUCs typically focus on a number of areas,
including, the cost and prudence of investment in facilities; operating and
maintenance expenses and taxes; the appropriate cost of capital and equity return;
revenues or consumption at current and expected levels; allocation of the revenue
requirements among customer classes; service quality and issues raised by customers.