Water Infrastructure: Comprehensive Asset Management Has Potential to Help Utilities Better Identify Needs and Plan Future Investments

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Having invested billions of dollars in drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, the federal government has a major interest in protecting its investment and in ensuring that future assistance goes to utilities that are built and managed to meet key regulatory requirements. The Congress has been considering, among other things, requiring utilities to develop comprehensive asset management plans. Some utilities are already implementing asset management voluntarily. The asset management approach minimizes the total cost of buying, operating, maintaining, replacing, and disposing of capital assets during their life cycles, while achieving service goals. This report discusses (1) the benefits and challenges for water utilities in implementing comprehensive asset management and (2) the federal government's potential role in encouraging utilities to use it.