In most cases, a city provides water and wastewater service within its boundaries, but when development occurs outside city limits or when the city cannot provide services, there must be some method for paying for the water and wastewater services. In Texas, a developer can create a Municipal Utility District (MUD), which is a political subdivision authorized by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to provide water, wastewater, drainage and other services within its boundaries. In this arrangement, the infrastructure is paid for through bonds; and these bonds are then paid back through a tax levied on the homeowners within the MUD boundaries. Developers often form MUDs when there is not another financially feasible option for the infrastructure. Often the city nearest to the MUD may feel that it is losing developmental control and can see MUDs (that have bond debt) as a hindrance to growth through annexation. In the city of Austin, MUD development allowed development to occur in sensitive areas in which the city did not wish to see growth. In 1997 the city eradicated many MUDs through annexation, in which the city assumed significant MUD debt. With substantial growth and a new state highway under construction, MUDs are still continuing to form in the Central Texas Region. Without a clear plan and significant regional cooperation, Austin has little control over the development of MUDs. But with regional cooperation and a vision for future growth, MUDs can become a funding mechanism for accommodating healthy and well planned growth consistent with a larger vision. / text

While the utilization of energy efficiency has grown in recent years, it has not been distributed evenly across the country. In some states, over 2% of a utility’s budget is spent on energy efficiency; in other states that number is 0. Much of the growth in energy efficiency has been due to state policies and the development utility-level energy efficiency programs. Yet, all utility programs are not created equal. Because they are often exempt from state regulation (and therefore state energy efficiency policy), publicly-owned utilities have traditionally lagged behind IOUs when it comes to EE programs. This research quantifies energy efficiency programs in four Midwestern states: Iowa, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. The first part of the thesis evaluates 474 electric utilities as to whether they had an energy efficiency program in 2010. The second part of the thesis evaluates each utility’s EE program spending in terms of energy and utility specific factors, as well as socio-economic, housing stock and political variables. Through descriptive statistical analysis and the creation of a predictable linear regression model, this thesis identifies relationships between the dependent variable (EE program spending as a % of a utility’s total revenue) and commonly cited barriers to EE program development. Through the analysis, this study finds widespread EE program coverage in Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin. Also, it finds states are the greatest predictor of utility energy efficiency program spending. A utility’s ownership type and the share of homes that heat with electricity are also significant predictors of program spending.

Construction of municipal utility complexes has to support continuing population growth, economic development, and a widespread of social interest in environmental preservation. Municipalities face challenges in designing, constructing, and operating environmentally sustainable utility complexes, and their primary goal in developing such a complex is to minimize the environmental impact resulting from energy production and waste treatment (both liquid and solid), management, and disposal. However, decision and policy makers lack a system of systems approach that takes into account multiple interdependent systems comprised of the functional system (infrastructure, facilities, operations within the complex…), the economic system, the social/cultural system, and the environmental system (environmental impact on air, water, soil…). This research proposes a decision support system (DSS) with a new methodology using Vensim software and system dynamics methodology to assess the sustainability of a municipal utility complex system. This DSS incorporates 1) multiple interdependent systems, 2) multiple sustainability/performance indices, and 3) composite sustainability index. Engineers, managers, and researchers should benefit from a system of systems perspective, and from the application of a sustainability assessment method that is developed to provide an environmentally-conscious design, construction and management. Although a municipal utility complex is built with synergistic opportunities for integration of processes of a wastewater treatment plant, a resource recovery facility (aka waste-to-energy (WTE) or incineration facility), a material recycling facility (MRF), and a landfill; engineers tend to use the traditional sustainability assessment methods only to assess the life cycle (LCA) of each system's process over time. They might not necessarily incorporate an assessment based on system dynamics of the functional, economic, environmental, and social/cultural systems. Data from a case study is utilized in this dissertation based on the municipal utility complex in Pasco County in the western region of the State of Florida, USA.