Sources & Methodology

1. Overview — Why a Tiered Hierarchy

US water regulation is layered. The EPA enforces the Safe Drinking Water Act at the federal level, with primacy delegated to 49 states + the Navajo Nation. State Public Utility Commissions regulate rates for investor-owned water utilities. Local governing bodies set rates for municipal and special-district utilities. Industry associations (AWWA, NACWA, NRWA, ASDWA) publish standards and best practices. We work to a tiered hierarchy so that, when sources disagree, we know which source governs.

• The utility’s own website — particularly authoritative for current customer service phone, billing portal URL, autopay procedure, and CCR publication URL
• The utility’s customer service page — for current phone, address, hours, and emergency-line routing
• The utility’s billing portal landing page — for current portal vendor and current URL (we have tracked many vendor migrations: Tyler MUNIS, Cayenta, InvoiceCloud, Paymentus, Harris ERP, CIS Infinity, MUNIS)
• The utility’s current-year CCR page — published annually by July 1 under the CCR Rule (40 CFR Part 141 Subpart O)
• The utility’s LCRR service line inventory page — the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule Revisions / Lead and Copper Rule Improvements mandate public inventory of lead service lines, with publication deadlines staggered by utility size

• EPA SDWIS — epa.gov SDWIS — for PWS ID format (e.g., NY1234567), service population, source type, primacy agency
• Safe Drinking Water Act, 42 U.S.C. § 300f et seq. — the foundational federal statute
• National Primary Drinking Water Regulations (NPDWR) at 40 CFR Part 141
• State primacy agencies — located in each state’s Department of Health, Department of Environmental Protection / Environmental Conservation / Environment, Department of Natural Resources, or equivalent. Wyoming and DC do not have SDWA primacy; EPA directly enforces.
• Consumer Confidence Report Rule — 40 CFR Part 141 Subpart O — the annual report rule
• Lead and Copper Rule (LCR), Lead and Copper Rule Revisions (LCRR), and Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI) — the comprehensive lead-in-water framework
• PFAS National Primary Drinking Water Regulation — EPA’s PFAS NPDWR (April 2024) sets MCLs for PFOA, PFOS, and other PFAS

• State PUCs / PSCs — the 50 state commissions vary in name and structure. California’s CPUC, New York’s PSC, Pennsylvania’s PUC, Texas’s PUC, Florida’s PSC, Illinois’s ICC, Ohio’s PUCO, and others all regulate IOU water rates within their state.
• National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) — naruc.org — the umbrella organization of state PUCs/PSCs
• Tariff schedules — for IOUs, the current tariff approved by the PUC governs lawful charges
• Rate case dockets — the formal record of rate-setting proceedings
• Customer service rules — PUCs adopt rules governing deposits, shut-offs, payment plans, and weather moratoria for IOUs

• City council ordinances — for municipal utilities, the current rate ordinance, adopted at the city council meeting
• County board resolutions / ordinances — for county-operated utilities
• PUD commission minutes — for public utility districts (common in the Pacific Northwest), the elected PUD commissioners’ adopted rate schedule
• Cooperative member meeting minutes — for rural water cooperatives, member-approved rates
• Local water authority board minutes — for regional water authorities

• American Water Works Association (AWWA) — awwa.org — the leading US drinking-water industry association; publishes the AWWA Standards (including the M-series Manuals of Water Supply Practices) and the State of the Water Industry report
• National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) — nacwa.org — the leading association of publicly owned wastewater utilities
• National Rural Water Association (NRWA) — nrwa.org — supports small and rural water utilities
• Association of State Drinking Water Administrators (ASDWA) — asdwa.org — the association of the 50 state primacy agencies
• Water Environment Federation (WEF) — wef.org — the leading US water-environment association
• National Association of Water Companies (NAWC) — nawc.org — represents investor-owned water utilities

• Tyler Technologies (Tyler MUNIS, Tyler ERP Pro, Tyler Incode) — the largest US utility-billing software vendor
• Cayenta (a Harris/N. Harris Computer subsidiary) — enterprise utility billing
• Harris ERP / CIS Infinity — municipal utility billing
• InvoiceCloud — payment processor frequently used for water utility billing
• Paymentus — payment processor frequently used for water utility billing
• MUNIS (legacy) — predecessor product line

8. Verification Workflow — Eight Steps Before Anything Goes Live

1. Identify the right authoritative sources. Utility website, EPA SDWIS, state primacy agency, state PUC docket, local governing body archive.
2. Verify URLs are live. A human editor clicks every link before publication, including the billing portal landing page, autopay enrollment page, and current-year CCR.
3. Cross-check the billing address against USPS data and the utility’s own contact page.
4. Identify the regulator(s). State primacy agency for SDWA. State PUC for IOU rates. Local governing body for municipal/PUD rates.
5. Verify the billing-portal vendor. Visit the portal landing page; identify Tyler MUNIS, Cayenta, InvoiceCloud, Paymentus, CIS Infinity, Harris ERP, MUNIS, or other vendor.
6. Verify the CCR publication and link. Required annually by July 1 under the CCR Rule.
7. Dial-test the customer service and emergency lines. Quarterly cycle. We confirm the line answers and routes correctly — without generating any false emergency call.
8. Editor sign-off. A second editor reviews end-to-end, including a fresh check on the “this is not the utility” notice, the 911 / Poison Control framework, and the FCRA non-CRA disclosure.

9. Sources We Avoid

• Unregulated bill-payment services with hidden fees or aggressive collection terms
• Predatory utility-deposit financing schemes
• Fake EPA-branded or fake state-primacy-agency-branded sites
• Tenant-screening services as sources for utility account information — those are FCRA-regulated CRAs, and their data is not appropriate for editorial directory use
• Other utility-aggregator sites — we work to the original utility, not to other aggregators
• Outdated SDWA, LCR, or CCR references — we work to the current federal rule
• Pre-2024 PFAS references — EPA’s PFAS NPDWR (April 2024) significantly changed the framework; pre-NPDWR references are historical
• Pre-LCRR lead service line references — the LCRR (effective October 2024) mandated public inventory; pre-inventory information is incomplete

10. FCRA Non-CRA Reminder

uswaterbillguide.org/ is not a Consumer Reporting Agency under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. Our editorial content describes administrative details about utilities — not account-level information about identifiable individual ratepayers. We do not handle consumer-report information. Do not send us your account number, payment history, or any FCRA-relevant information. If you accidentally include any such information in an email to us, we delete it on receipt.

11. Federal Public Domain & Government Edicts

US federal government works are in the public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. We rely on the public-domain status when summarizing or extracting EPA, USGS, EPA OIG, or other federal-agency publications. State statutes, regulations, and judicial opinions are “government edicts” not subject to copyright under the doctrine confirmed in Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., 590 U.S. ___ (2020). We comply with state-government copyright terms where they apply to other state works.

12. AI and Automation Policy

We use software tools for spell-check, grammar review, and routine drafting assistance. However, no editorial fact, URL, telephone number, billing portal vendor, regulator attribution, address, or rate schedule reference on uswaterbillguide.org/ is published from AI without human verification against the utility's own published page. Every utility entry passes through human editorial review, including the eight-step verification process. We do not auto-generate or auto-publish utility entries. We do not use AI to generate FCRA-style content, which we do not publish at all.