Water Dreaming

Deck: 

Risk vs. Advantage

Fortnightly Magazine - April 2017
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The water utility industry was featured at the recent NARUC meeting in Washington. It reminded me of a period in the 1990s when interest in investment in the water utility industry was high globally and in the U.S.

The most vivid example was the announcement on December 3, 1998 by Enron CEO and Chairman Ken Lay of the creation of a new Enron subsidiary, Azurix, to lead the way in water and wastewater investment.

The scene was the 26th annual Energy Daily conference in Annapolis, Maryland. I had been invited by the publisher of Energy Daily, Llewellyn King, to hear Ken Lay's presentation. The title was "Strategies for Global Success - Why Water?"

King knew that earlier, as a Wisconsin Public Service Commission commissioner, I had regulated five hundred municipal water utilities and one hundred wastewater utilities. He knew I had been a water rates consultant before and after serving on the commission.

Ken Lay's description of the global opportunities for freshwater production and wastewater investment laid out a scenario which was plausible but difficult to achieve. However, when he turned to the opportunities in the U.S. market, the proposal struck me as being in the realm of fantasy. By coincidence, I recently found a copy of Lay's presentation in PowerPoint format.

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