WATER AFFORDABILITY AND THE DWSRF

The Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) was established under the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) to provide financial assistanc e to water systems that cannot afford to make improvements that would allow them to comply with regulatory standards. Disadvantaged communit ies are also targeted for aid under the DWSRF. But to implement the pr ovisions of the SDWA, states must adopt affordability criteria for use in their DWSRF programs. ''Affordability'' is the term used to descri be the ability of a water system and its customers to support the cost of compliance. Although a considerable amount of research has been co nducted on affordability, no simple solution has emerged. This article describes a framework for understanding the multidimensional issue of affordability.