American Water Works Company, Inc. (AWK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. I'd like to welcome you to the National Association of Water Companies Webinar, Keeping the Water Flowing: Water Industry Successes & Challenges During COVID-19. I am Becky Valcq, the Chairperson of the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin and member of the NARUC Committee on Water. At the PSCW, we regulate nearly 600 drinking water utilities. Issues of lead service line replacement and water affordability are critical to the health and safety of our residents. But as we all know too well, providing clean drinking water and reliable wastewater service is essential on a typical date. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the life-sustaining nature of services provided by our nation's water utilities has truly come into focus. Despite the obstacles and challenges presented by this pandemic, water utilities have continued to provide customers with safe, reliable and affordable drinking and wastewater service. On today's webinar, we will learn about the efforts of water utilities across the country to keep the water flowing, protect the safety of their workforce and maintain open lines of communication with customers during this difficult time. We have a great agenda plan for today. We have representatives from 4 water utilities, Aqua, San Jose Water, American and York Water, who will share with you some of the successes and the challenges that they have encountered in dealing with COVID 19. I'm also pleased to welcome 3 fellow state utility regulators who will share what their commissions have done to address the pandemic: Chairperson Dutrieuille from Pennsylvania, Judge Jagdmann from Virginia and Commissioner Trombold from Ohio. Because we only have 90 minutes today, I'm going to skip individual introductions. Instead, I'm asking each presenter to introduce themselves before they speak. We've also attached the presenters biographies as a handout, which you can find on the tool bar on the right-hand side of your screen. Although I'm not doing individual introductions, I will say that we have a fantastic group of speakers today coming to us from all around the country. Collectively, they have an impressive amount of experience, either running or regulating water utilities. And each of our presenters has been immersed in the novel issues that have arisen as a result of COVID-19. And so each of them brings a wealth of knowledge to this webinar. Before I turn it over to our first speaker, I want to mention that if you have a question, and I'm sure you guys are all becoming veterans at webinars. But if you have a question during a presentation, please type it into the chat bar. You can find that on the right side of your screen. We will have a short Q&A session after the regulatory panel if you have questions for any of the commissioners. And then at the end of the webinar, we'll do a second Q&A session for the remaining presenters. So we're going to kick off the webinar by addressing some myths and some facts about COVID-19 in water. Here to address this topic is Colleen Arnold, the President of Aqua. Colleen, thank you for joining us.

Thank you, Commissioner. I'm really happy to talk to you all about this. As this crisis has evolved, there's certainly lots of facts and myths out there, and water is no exception. So just moving on, April? So these are some of the questions, and please put in the chat box any that you've had as you've read things and seen things in the news. But first, is coronavirus even in water? Can I get the disease, COVID '19, from the water if I ingest it? Is it safe to drink? Is it safe to wash with? Why am I hearing that buildings need to flush before opening if the water is safe? And then on the wastewater side, is COVID-19 or the coronavirus in water -- wastewater? And can wastewater transmit it? Are operators going to get sick? Do they need added protection as they're operating our plants? And why are some towns -- why are we hearing about some towns monitoring levels in their wastewater? So those are the questions, again, that I thought would be good to address. But if you have any others, please add them. So I thought in terms of talking about coronavirus in water, to start with the basics in -- that most of our sources of drinking water in terms of the population served, I should say, come from rivers and lakes. And it's pretty common or -- to expect there's viruses and bacteria present in those -- in our sources of drinking water, especially the rivers and lakes and our surface waters. And the treatment that we have in place is protective against them. That's what we do, and it's what we do every day and how we keep our water safe to drink. So disinfection is one of our primary barriers in terms of treating our water. And it's designed to inactivate very high levels, ten thousands of counts of viruses in water. And I don't want to go into the technical details of the chart on the right, but what that's kind of showing are the standard doses of chlorine and UV that we need to use to inactivate bacteria and viruses in water. And really, just the point is, if you go in that lower-left corner, the red line is showing the minimum that we need to achieve. If you go to the left, those viruses that you see there, common viruses in water, if we were going to put coronavirus in that box, it'd be on the far left. Essentially, it's very easy to disinfect in water. What we use for standard treatment today is more than effective at inactivating it. So -- and we've been trying to get the message out on this, too. So if it's easily disinfected in mater and I don't need to worry about it, why are these public announcements about needing to flush our systems, especially buildings that have been maybe stagnant or not used as much during the shelter-in-place orders in different locations. And so again, in terms of like our -- just basic water knowledge, it's not like wine. It doesn't get better as it ages. Water that's freshest to its source and treatment is always the most ideal. So when a building has been shut down and the water use has become minimal and becomes stagnant, we all add no matter what primary disinfectant. In the U.S., we had a secondary disinfectant to provide a final kind of barrier out into the distribution system across main breaks and to maintain a chlorine residual. Well, that chlorine residual is not necessarily stable, and it's going to dissipate over time. So when a building has been shut down and the water hasn't been being used, we don't -- that secondary disinfectant barrier might not be there anymore. And so what can happen again, especially with surface water sources, the bacteria that we inactivated, we don't sterilize. We disinfect, we inactivate, we meet the standards we need, but the water is not sterile. And so some of the bacteria that's in there under that condition can regrow. And so part of what we need to do, if the buildings have been stagnant, is just get that fresh water in them. And then also from another water quality concern with stagnant water, again, the chemistry doesn't stop. And so if we have water sitting in metal pipes over time, we can have some of those metals reaching back into the water. So it's pretty easily dealt with, and that's why we're trying to get this information out. We are advising any building that's been shut down or have very little water use, before they reopen, to flush all the plumbing, flush your toilets, the faucets, hot water heaters, appliances. In general, we say go -- do your cold water first and then the hot, including your hot water heaters. And in general, it's good to go from low to high throughout the building. And then really, what you're looking for is you give the time guidance, but you're looking to smell that chlorine and then you know you're getting that fresh water throughout the building. And sometimes people forget about replacing refrigerator filters. So that's some of the general information. I know all of those water utilities have been trying to get out there. Legionella is a concern any day, and it has been more in the news recently. And unlike some of the other pathogens we treat, it's -- it will infect us from the air, like volatilizing in the shower. It's not something that we ingest and get harmed by, and it has respiratory-type side effects. So again, we want to ever -- minimize and we work a lot with building maintenance departments from large facilities on these kind of practices. But legionella is always a concern, but -- especially in COVID with respiratory illnesses and effects. Part of mind, we really want to do a good job at educating our customers about flushing the water. Next slide. So switching gears a little bit to wastewater. And we -- this is some of the first questions that came. And at least on -- for the upper side, it was interesting to me that the questions came from some like senior management and our accountants and people that -- our wastewater operators had a couple of concerns. But really, it was -- all of a sudden, people got aware that we had wastewater operators out there. Isn't it -- Is this a risk? And -- well, CDC, the Water Environment Federation, the risk of transmission through sewage systems is thought to be very low. And we had other outbreaks like coronaviruses, like SARS, and it's based on that kind of experience. And again, too, similar to surface water and drinking water treatment, viruses in wastewater are not new, like there are tens of thousands of viruses in wastewater every day, and other pathogens that could potentially make somebody sick. But the coronavirus provides no more added risk. And so the standard PPE that our wastewater operators use applies, but there's nothing needed or being recommended in addition to that. Next slide. And so one of the issues, and again, we've been trying to get the word out on this similar to flushing buildings. On the wastewater side, everybody is using a lot of wipes. And unfortunately, they say they're flushable, but they're causing quite a bit of hazards for us at our wastewater plants and lift stations and pumps. So there's even a national campaign right now, Wipes out of Pipes, and we've been really trying to get this message out. It has been quite a nuisance and maintenance issue across Aqua's wastewater plants. And then the other thing, at least, especially for our wastewater plants that are in essentially 100% residential, we have had -- I think with people being home, we've had increased loads as well as flows. And we've been dealing with that. But the white issue on top of that has made operations -- and very grateful again for all of our operators showing up every day and keeping it going. This, again, is kind of a technical slide, and I'm not going to speak to all the details in it. But it's to point out that biomedicine, in general, is one of the innovations that's being worked on. And this is even before COVID. And wastewater treatment plans have gotten identified, again, for COVID as being a possible mechanism of being able to track prevalence of diseases in communities. So next slide. And so I know here, like on the East Coast, there's a company, Biogen. And we're working right now with Drexel and some other university and some other utilities in the area on possibly starting with some wastewater plans. So you can use the wastewater surveillance to get possibly a better idea of the prevalence of the disease in the community. So it must be done in conjunction with the health -- the agency partner. This isn't something that utilities would want to do just out on their own. And like a lot of the treatment work that we do, the surveillance data itself isn't meaningful without knowing what the baseline is. And so what you're looking for is the signal of change above what the baseline is. And why this is of interest, in general, is that it can provide up to 2 weeks warning. We hear about how many asymptomatic people there are possibly, but it's going to show up in the wastewater, even if the person is asymptomatic. And so again, there are some labs that have been doing work along these lines all along, basically, unique to PCR capability. Some of them are indicated there. And then again, this is private lab from MIT [ Bio-Rad ]. And then there's some cost estimates there. So happy to put anybody in touch, who's interested in this, with Chris Crockett, Aqua's Environmental Officer. And we're just about starting a partnership with Drexel, like I said, in the Southeast PA area. And the next slide. So just to summarize, there's no evidence that coronavirus survives standard disinfection in water and wastewater. Our drinking water is safe to drink. It's not transmitted through ingesting water or drinking water. In fact, washing hands is a key mitigation strategy. We want to raise -- this is an opportunity for us to -- and the Commissioner highlighted this even in the beginning, awareness and appreciation and the need for safe drinking water. It kind of brings us back to our roots of basic hygiene and our strong ties to public health. And any building or house that has had limited or no water use should do a full flushing protocol from the guidelines that are out there. Wastewater -- coronavirus, no greater risk exposure in roll wastewater than other viruses and pathogens. Standard PPE is protective. The flushing of wipes is an issue and education continues. And the surveillance in wastewater is an innovative technique and possibly a really helpful tool for measuring the extent of the disease. And lastly, especially, the title of the talk was about facts and myths. And in this age of fake news and COVID may be exacerbating some of that, always look for credible resources. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, OSHA, Water Environment Federation, AWWA are some of the references that I use throughout this presentation, and that I know Aqua's been going to. So I'm trying to see some of the questions on this side. It was hard for me to look at the questions as I was talking. Anything -- anybody have any questions at this point. Okay. Then I'm going to turn it over to Jay Kooper, who's our next speaker.

Thanks, Colleen. This is April Ballou. I am Vice President of Legal and State Regulatory Affairs at NAWC. Unfortunately, Jay wasn't able to join us. So I'm going to be moderating today's regulatory panel, which will address moratoriums, collections and customer assistance. We are honored to have 3 commissioners joining us today to talk about what their states are doing on these topics: Chair Dutrieuille from Pennsylvania, Judge Jagdmann from Virginia and Commissioner Trombold from Ohio. I would like to thank each of them for taking the time out of their busy schedules to be with us today. COVID-19 has created unprecedented challenges for everyone across the country, and state utility commissions are no exception. For commissioners, their job of balancing the needs of customers and the needs of the utility are more important than ever. It is essential during this pandemic that customers have access to clean, affordable and reliable water. But in order for that to happen, we also need healthy utilities to provide this service. As you will hear today, each state has taken a different approach to achieving this balance, but there are some key issues that every state has to grapple with. The first is customer assistance. As we all know, water is critical in combating the spread of COVID-19. And so making sure that customers have clean water and can pay their bills and know their options if they are having trouble paying their bills is more important than ever. The key component of this is communication. I know that NAWC members have made an effort to step up their communications, both with customers and commissions, during this time. Related to the issue of customer assistance are shut-off moratoriums. I'm proud to say that when the pandemic began, every one of NAWC member companies voluntarily stopped disconnecting customers for nonpayment. In addition, many state utility questions have placed mandatory moratoriums on utility shut offs during the pandemic. Today, as we enter the fourth month of the pandemic, the conversation has begun about the best way to continue to ensure access to clean water to customers during COVID-19. With the effects of pandemic lasting longer than anyone initially expected, do we extend shut-off moratoriums for an indefinite period? If so, what do we do about the resulting increase in uncollectible expenses by utilities? Or maybe the answer is to create a federal-like e-program for water. Or another possible solution is to establish utility around customer assistant programs for water. Likely, there is no one-size-fits-all answer, and we look forward to hearing from our guest commissioners about what their approach in their states have been. One final item for consideration is the unanticipated expenses that utilities are incurring during COVID-19. As we all know, water providers do not have the ability to shut down their workforce during times of crisis, and so they've had to figure out how to continue to operate and keep their employees safe during the pandemic. This has involved staggering their workforces and shifts, increased cleaning and sanitation and the use of personal protective equipment, just to name a few. And there are costs associated with these preventative measures, and different states are taking differ approaches to dealing with this issue as well. Needless to say, these are challenging times. Thankfully, we have wonderful state commissioners at the helm, helping us address these complicated issues. NAWC and its members are thankful for the great relationship we have with the mayor community. The dialogue and interaction between utilities, commissioners and consumer advocates like we are having here today is key to developing effective resolutions to these issues. With that, I would like to welcome our panelists: Chairman Dutrieuille from the Pennsylvania Commission, Judge Jagdmann from the Virginia State Corporation Commission and Commissioner Trombold from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. Chairman Dutrieuille is going to kick it off for us by sharing what the Pennsylvania Commission has done with respect to moratorium's cost recovery and customer assistance.

Greetings, everyone. I hope that everyone can hear me. I am having some audio difficulties, so you may not see under my name a little pulsing of the color for my name. But hopefully, everyone can hear me. If you cannot, please use that chat box and let us know. My name is Gladys Brown Dutrieuille. I serve as the Chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, and I'm very happy to be on this panel and discuss what we have been doing in Pennsylvania. You can go to the first slide. So in Pennsylvania, in March, as we have been entering into our emergency order under the Governor's proclamation, which was on March 6. During that week, right afterwards, we were discussing many things. And part of that discussion was in consultation with our utilities, to see what they were doing to make sure that they're putting measures in place. And that included our water utilities, say, if we were going to be looking at some type of quarantine, stay-at-home measure, and we wanted to know what they're putting in place to make sure that people continue to have access to utilities. Our commission then, March 8, issued an emergency order, which I signed, placing a moratorium or disconnecting any of our regulated water, wastewater, electric, natural gas, steam and telecom customers. The important thing was to make sure that consumers had access to their utilities. We also did, under this emergency order, we encouraged our utilities to consider reconnecting customers who were shut off before the emergency order, and that was -- would be to the extent that they thought to be done safely. It was not a requirement, but they did it. So I'm pleased they considered and encouraged them to do that. And when we talked about whether it could be done safely, that meant that they have to go into the customers' home because we were also concerned about that as well. Emergency order, our order would stay into effect during the pendency of the Governor's proclamation of disaster or into other further action by the commission. And right now, the government's proclamation is set to expire June 4. A week later, in Pennsylvania, we also issued another emergency order under my signature that would permit the modification of regulatory and statutory deadlines and procedural rules affecting the filing and service requirements with the PUC. Of course, everyone was concerned with the fact that everyone was at home, there need to be an extension in filing of certain matters that would be for the commission, and things of that nature. And I see that the slide moved. Okay. Thank you. Moving on to the next slide then. And so just to give you a segue between that mid-March 20 emergency order. At the commission, we have been, for years, working to make sure, that we can continue our operations if we had some type of cyber-attack. We did not have a cyber-attack. We had another version of some form of -- or disruption of our operations in a way that we felt that our corporation was actually putting -- being put to test, and that we actually have done very well. I think sitting here today and say of our complement of over 500 employees with the measures that we had already been working on for over the last couple of years, we have about 17 different employees that cannot work from home based upon their work duties, which is excellent in terms of what we are able to do and continue our operations. So between that time of our March 20 emergency order and continuing our operations for home, we also wanted to start thinking of the future and issued a Secretarial letter on May 13, and that letter provided that -- looking at allowing all water, wastewater, electric, natural gas, telecom and steam utilities to establish a regulatory asset for uncollectibles. This action was to align with the moratorium on utility shut offs. The regulatory asset may be established for uncollectibles, and I emphasize, just the uncollectibles that has been experienced during this time, those that are above the already embedded -- those things that are already embedded in rates So that Secretarial letter also asked utilities to carefully track other COVID-19-related expenses for potential future action. Next slide. So other things that I wanted to make sure that you knew that -- what the commission is doing in the course of our -- this COVID-19 pandemic. We want to make sure that we got a lot of information out to the consumers. And that was part of the discussion our customer services staff has also been having with our utilities. And I emphasize water and wastewater because we are on a water panel, but with all of our utilities to make sure that we -- they are educating consumers about financial assistance that may be needed. I mean our alert stewards are in place to make sure that no one is cut off during this time. But the emphasis even when we ratified that emergency order, we emphasized that it was not meant to say they did not have pay the bill, but to work with utilities to make sure that we have information in place and work out at some form of payment. And with that, we also talked about things on our website in terms of us billing, information on like key parts of funds, energy conservation chips, things of that nature. I will give a shout out to our staff at the PUC because they've been working very hard with our Department of Human Services, who is the agency in our state that handles lagging and the different measures that have been put in place to allow for an extension of that program, actually, a new program to be used as far as the funding that our state would get under the Federal Act that has been implemented to help to add more on to like -- to help out a digital person. So I do thank our staff for that. You can go to the next slide. We have a significant number of utilities that have voluntarily waived late payment charges for customers, and we do appreciate that -- the initiative that they have already taken on their own. And also, we have established a COVID-19-dedicated web page, which just provides a summary of data and links to all other related actions that have been taken so far during this pandemic. Our website is at the bottom there for anyone that would like to access it. But I would just certainly say that we have been continuing our operations at the commission. Our staff has been doing a great job into making sure that consumers can still call in to our hotline and also that we have access by anyone that needs to do their regular filings and things of that nature. So we've been doing a great job. So that is my presentation. I'd like to turn it over to Judge Jagdmann.

Thank you, Chair Brown Dutrieuille. It's always a pleasure to work with you and Commissioner Trombold, and I'm very happy and pleased to be here this afternoon. And thank you, April and the association, for including me on this timely and important topic. As we all know, those who've worked in and around the industry for years, it's easy to take utility service for granted, especially water service. And for most of us, we have lived our entire lives with this life-sustaining necessity as simply being there. But we know in times of crisis, we are reminded that we just can't take it for granted. And we know, from our disaster exercises, that water is the critical utility. It's the one that basically determines whether you can stay at home and for how long you can get through one of these extraordinary episodes, which leads us to our topic today. What's been going on in Virginia with respect to the COVID-19, and our Virginia decisions. So I'm going to be talking about, as Chair Brown Dutrieuille did, our actions on moratoriums, our classification of essential workers, utility workers. And I'll be talking a little bit about regulatory asset treatment. If we could go to the next slide, please. The Virginia Commission issued a moratorium on utility disconnections on March 16, and this was just approximately 4 days after the President and the Governor of Virginia had declared an emergency, health emergency related to COVID-19. And we ordered every jurisdiction on electric, gas, water or sewer utility to suspend disconnections. And we also, of course, mentioned the corresponding utility tariffs that require conduct to otherwise. And the purpose we identified in the order was to protect residents and businesses in Virginia who, through no fault of their own, are temporarily unable to pay utility bills on a timely basis due to the health emergency. If we could move to the next slide, please. On April 9, the commission extended the moratorium on utility disconnections through June 14, and this roughly corresponded with our Governor's stay-at-home order, which is in effect through June 10. This order also addressed late fees, stating that they should not be assessed. And it also addressed -- while not for water companies, we do have some electric utilities who have prepaid service tariffs, and it also addressed those. Also in these orders, of note, we specifically stated that utility service is not free, and the moratorium does not mean that that the utility service will not have to be paid for eventually. And we also noted that these moratoriums cannot go on indefinitely, that these costs do have to be paid. And they're typically paid by other utility customers who are also struggling to pay their bills. So we felt it was important at this time to make sure that the complete story was out there in our orders that we're -- we know this is an emergency. People have to have water. But the service is not free, as we stated. Please go to the next slide. Two days ago, the Virginia Commission issued an order requesting comment on further extensions of the moratorium and disconnections. And I'll go through some of the questions that we asked. Should the mandatory moratorium be extended? And if it is extended, for how long? Are there any public-private programs or mechanisms that will fund the cost of unpaid utility bills to prevent higher cost to utility customers? And should the mandatory moratorium be replaced with voluntary utility measures, such as extending payment plans with no late fees, waving reconnection charges, et cetera? Comments are due by 5:00 p.m. on June 5, and all interested persons are welcome to comment, including public office holders. The order, by its specific terms, we are soliciting comment from all -- of the public, generally, utility customers, utilities and public office holders as well. In this order, we noted that an indefinite suspension is not sustainable. Again, that -- the costs do not go away, and they can have a negative impact on the health of the utility. So we will be addressing this issue after we get the comments and we will, of course, read all of them carefully and come to a decision. If we could go to the next slide, please. With respect to classification of essential workers, on March 23, the commission issued an order certifying service providers and their workers in the following areas to be critical infrastructure industry workers: Electricity, water sewer, natural gas and propane. The next day, we entered a similar order for telecommunication workers. In this order, we took judicial notice of the U.S. Homeland Security Memorandum of March 19, which basically noted that all of these workers are indeed critical. And basically, the commission is set up under the Constitution of Virginia as an independent department of government, so we were able to work pretty quickly with respect to this area and the moratoriums as well. And also with respect to the moratoriums, we also -- I also want to note that we heard from several utilities, they were active on their own and not seeking to disconnect customers. By and large, all our utilities have been good partners with the community, and that's something that we certainly appreciate. If we could go to the next slide, please. With respect to the authority to create regulatory assets, on April 20 this year, the commission issued an order allowing specific electric, water sewer and natural gas utilities to set up regulatory assets to record deferral of certain COVID-19-related expenses, including incremental uncollectible expenses incurred, late payment fees, reconnection costs, carrying costs and other incremental, prudently incurred costs. And we specifically stated that the recovery of such expenses may be addressed in future rate-making cases. And I'll just say this is similar to what the commission did with the recent federal tax savings. We issued an order there requiring utilities to journal the tax savings in a deferred account, and we later addressed those in an appropriate proceeding. And our goal here is to be balanced and fair. We'll look at these costs, as I said, in a proceeding. And what we're always striving for in Virginia is to do what's best for all concerned, and we believe that is to have a healthy -- not -- a healthy utility. We want to make sure that they're -- all utilities remain healthy. And I always say, we don't want them fat nor do we want them starved. Do we want them healthy. And so we'll be looking at all these costs in an appropriate regulatory proceeding. Let's go to the next slide, please. I'll speak just for a moment or 2 about the commission administrative orders. I know everyone has been working very hard to continue operations during this crisis, and the Virginia Commission is no exception. I'm not going to go through these orders that we entered, but these were administrative orders needed to -- needed for us to be able to continue to do our work remotely to support utilities and the public at large. And customers, of course, they're part of the public at large. We have continued our hearings using Skype for Business. Our IT personnel was more comfortable with that because it integrated with our pre-existing security programs that we had. Our hearing examiners have had several hearings in the commission. We just finished a third one yesterday. And I always say, when we have the prehearing conferences on these, we all just have to be patient with each other. Everything takes a little longer. We've had to have -- implement a few additional procedural requirements, like prefiling the exhibits that you tend to introduce or might introduce on cross or surrebuttal, not necessarily prefiling with the clerk's office, but sending them to all the other parties and to the commission so that we can pull them up. And so far, it's worked pretty well. We continue to refine that. So in closing, I will also give the disclaimer that I probably should have given at the top, that these are my comments. They're not meant to bind the commission in any way or to bind the commission in any current or future proceeding. I really respect this association and the water companies and the services that you provide. Again, I'm privileged and pleased to be with you. And at this time, I'm going to turn it over to Commissioner Trombold of Ohio.

Commissioner Yagmann or Yardmann is not something, Judy, that you've been called before.

My husband called, I was working. This was back when you got little -- those little pink slips that somebody had called. I got a note that it said your yardman called, and I was living in a condo. And that went your yardman, your yardman, then I realized it was Joe Jagdmann. So I call him my yardman now. But anyway, Commissioner Trombold, I know you're going to have great comments for us, and I'll sign off now.

Okay. Thanks, Judy. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm so glad my picture is up and you aren't seeing me virtually because this is what I look like every day from home, as I'm sure all of you do in your professional finest. So I just want to say thank you to the -- all the water folks for having us today. Although regulating water companies is one of the smaller areas we have in Ohio at the commission, as our authority is the only over -- privately owned, investor-owned water companies, we still take it very seriously. We are very interested and work very closely with the company and our state. In fact, Colleen Arnold and her team presented to each of their commissioners what they've been doing during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was really helpful. It's probably one of the best briefings that I've had as far as the company's outreach and ability to kind of pivot during these really uncertain times. And I also like to thank them because my 14-year-old at that time, when the pandemic was first came to us, her first instinct was Mommy, you have to go out and buy a ton of bottled water because God knows, we know if this is going to be in our water system. And I know all the grocery stores around me were out of bottled water for a while. But I was assured by Aqua Ohio that the water supply is safe, and it has been. And I take great comfort in knowing that. So if we want to move forward to the next slide, here, you see our Governor of Ohio. We're pretty proud of him because he was very quick in recognizing the significance of the pandemic and what was coming down the pike. He issued a state of emergency on March 9. And due to that, our commission, for the first time in history, has been holding virtual commission meetings via Zoom. And it's been going really well, I have to say. We weren't really sure how that was going to go, and I know other commissions probably ran similar positions. But we've managed to make the best of it. And as Commissioner Jagdmann said, things might go a little slower as far as meetings, and you have to take a little time. But all in all, I think we've been able to not contribute to regulatory lag, as some have said that occurs at commissions when we don't have our meetings on a regular basis. So can we go to the next slide? So actions taken related to water. There's been a couple of things that we've done. So one thing is since the PCR regulates the private water companies, we're in contact with them to address emergencies. And we worked sort of in tandem with our Ohio EPA director because she has some jurisdiction over requiring water systems to restore service and disconnections and so forth. Our legislature passed the bill pretty quickly at the end of March that authorized the director of the EPA to also require public water systems to restore service to anyone who was disconnected due to nonpayment. The bill also required public water systems to waive all fees for connection or reconnection. And thirdly, it prohibited a public water system from disconnection -- disconnecting a customer due to nonpayment. So we, as a commission, had already issued those types of things. But on March 31, the EPA director issued an order to direct the public water systems to do those things as well. And it's valid through to the declared state of emergency or December 1 this year, whichever comes first. As businesses began reopening, the PUCO also partnered with the EPA and the Department of Health here in Ohio to share guidance about flushing pipes and building that have been closed or partially unused in order to minimize risks associated with the water quality degradation that can result from stagnant water. So we've been kind of busy working in that regard. If you can go to the next slide. So in addition to specific water-type actions the commission has taken, we've also -- there's some other things you might be interested in knowing we've done in the other utility areas we regulate. And we ordered electric and natural gas distribution, water and wastewater, landline, telephone companies to review their policies regarding service disconnection and seek approval to suspend policies that would create service continuity hardships or create unnecessary risks, such as contacted meter readings and energy efficiency measures. So we've been working with them on -- making calls on what makes sense during this time. We also extended our Winter Reconnect Order through May 1, 2020. And the Winter Reconnect Order basically allows a customer to regain service to their electric or natural gas during the winter months by paying $175 and a reconnection fee, regardless of how much they owe, and then getting on a payment plan. So it allows customers in Ohio, where the winters can be pretty, pretty bitterly cold, to get service reconnected during those months and get back on a payment plan and regularly schedule that. We also directed door-to-door and in-person marketers to suspend activities that create unnecessary social conduct -- contact. I know they're asking for us to reexamine that, and that's something the commission will have to look at in the future as far as when we think it makes sense for those activities to begin again. We also suspended automatic approval processes, and that suspension was just lifted here in May. And we suspended completion deadlines for grade crossing improvement projects. And we authorized utilities to obtain loans from the Federal Paycheck Protection Program, so those folks had to come before us. But we allowed them to go ahead the small companies through the SBA to receive those loans that were applicable. The PUCO staff is also working with utilities to evaluate and address plans filed in response to the emergency. So we're beginning to ask for plans for our -- the "new normal" operations as Ohio begins the responsible start or reopening, so the meter reading, the creating payment plans, tracking deferred expenses, foregone revenues, all those types of things. And we're going to address those each separately by utility, because each utility has -- unique situations might be a more rural or might be more urban. And therefore, it might require a different type of discussion around their reentry into the new normal. Let's see. And, I guess, the last thing -- yes, thank you. The last thing, we've also taken -- we also regulate transportation, some other carrier trucks that go down the highway. And we've waived hours of service for those operators so they can get goods and services that are needed to consumers quickly. And we temporary waived requirement for provisional medical certificates, because a lot of them couldn't get to the doctor to renew those certificates anyway. And lastly, like all the commissions, we're continuing to tune in to calls with FERC. Great commission with NARUC, our national association; PJM, which is our regional grid operator; and all the industries to stay up-to-date on the developments and their future needs. We're trying to be as nimble as we can as regulators to really be able to react and pivot to the needs the utilities have in order to serve their customers. And it's no different in water as it is with the others. And so with that, I'm going to turn it back to April, and we're open to questions. So thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Trombold, and all the commissioners for your presentation. We're running a little behind, but I still think we have time for a few questions. We had a couple of questions typed in during the presentation. The first one is for Chairperson Dutrieuille. The question is, does the PUC plan to extend the DC moratorium beyond June 4?

That's a million dollar question. At this point, I don't have any answers for you, that we have not had any discussions as to whether or not we would extend it. But, in due course, it's coming up. So stay tuned.

Thank you, Chairwoman. The other question we have is related to whether or not any of the commissioners have suggestions related to enforcement actions other than disconnection of service for nonpayment. So I guess, if a customer is not paying and the disconnection is not an option, what other options are there out there? And I'll open that up to any of the commissioners who have an answer for that.

Well, I don't know if this is an answer directly on point, but it is -- I did want to clarify on one of our orders, extending the moratorium. We had -- there have been some comments, are moratorium extended to business customers as well as residential. And there were some comments that -- about that, whether or not that was indeed appropriate. And what we did say, if there is any customer that a utility thinks is not paying that could pay, that felt that they were just using the utility as float or they should file a proceeding at the commission, and we would hear it expeditiously. I mean the commissioners would hear it themselves. So we have not had anyone come in there, but we did want to make sure that we put something in the order along those lines to address the concern that had been expressed about perhaps some customers paying -- not paying when they actually could. And we've also tried to make it very clear that when you don't pay, it doesn't mean that you're not going to have to pay eventually. You may not be turned off, but it doesn't mean that the bill goes away. I don't know if that was on point, but it's -- maybe it was close to on point.

Yes, that's great. Thank you. Do any of the other commissioners want to respond to that?

I think it's pretty similar to what Judge Jagdmann just said. And our consumer hotline is open and operating remotely. And I know that they're working with utilities and customers on kind of bridging the gap, where that might be a problem. I have not heard a high number, or any for that matter, issues right now, not to say that's not going to be coming or doesn't exist out there. But I think right now, everyone's trying to be helpful in managing this the best way we can. And as Judge Jagdmann said, knowing that if you don't pay now, it will still be on your bill, and it will be due at some point.

So I appreciate that. I think we're going to turn to our next presenter now, who is Dr. Naci Ozgur, Director of Environmental Health and Safety from San Jose Water Group. Dr. Ozgur is going to speak about workers' safety and protocols for reopening. So I'll turn the microphone over to him, and I thank all the commissioners for your time and your presentations.

Thank you, April. Great to be here. It's challenging times for all of us. I'm just going here -- to share our story, we are going to reopen. Since we're professionals, we really like to be prepared. So we had a really good pandemic plan. We really wanted to test it out. And this was the opportunity for us. We literally mobilized overnight. We kept our mission-critical employees isolated within hours. It worked great. Once we started going through the plan, what we found out, our response was great, but also we found some deficiency in the recovery. These plans were never been probably in the real world. So how can we come back -- bounce back from the -- and start the full operations. So I'm here to share our story, which starts in the next slide. Our goal is pretty simple: return to full operations while mitigating every COVID-19 risks. We want to keep our employees, contractors, visitors, customers and the community safe. While this seems simple enough, but we found out we have tasks that we need to do in close contact. We have compliance spaces we have to enter. We have several shared vehicles, equipment, tools. We have a lot of paper-based systems. What can we do? We literally left the office overnight, so we didn't have anything ready on a -- not to come back to the office. So those are challenging. As simple as coming in -- back into buildings, even the restroom use was becoming an issue. We had anxious employees raising some concerns, this vulnerable group of people. So there was really interesting challenges we never faced before. Even yesterday, now we have a heat wave in San Jose. Its workers are trying to keep their face coverings, but it's almost impossible because of the heat. So we're trying to find cooling stations, shade areas. Now they're carrying tents with them. It's just becoming a constant change, and we need to respond to that fairly quickly. Next slide, please. So what we did is basically, we had 3 pillars to focus on: protect public health, protect employees and protect our brands, so we can serve our customers with safe drinking water we always do. So those are our 3 main goals to prioritize, to focus on. Next slide. And once we started evaluating strategies, how can we reopen? First one was the phased opening. Can we create phases to open? And what we found out, this was really too general for us. It was not suitable for specific vulnerable employees, also difficult to prioritize tasks. And then we switch to what we call the risk-based decision-making, which is basically conducting risk assessments per task. We categorize same risk profiles to assess and streamline the process. What gives us -- that actually enables layers for the vulnerable employees. So the same task, for example, in Downtown, San Jose had total different risk profile, but the same task is done in the mountain district will have less risk, different risk profile. So this way, we were able to not only identify and prioritize based on the task, but based on the risk profiles. One thing came out from the best, I think, of this whole process is the discussion amongst the task owners. And these controls were literally created in our dining tables. There was really no real-life experience on many of the controls we are suggesting. So these conversations between these task owners really give us the innovation that we were looking for. Next slide. So this is a quick show of the road map. There's a 3-phase risk assessment. First one is the similar field task. If it's not, let's stay at home, let's work from home. First stage we looked at are what are the risks of not doing the task. So we have regulatory, legal, customer expectations, obviously, we need to understand what are the risks. And if the benefit of not doing is not valuable, then still, we should shelter and ready to continue. For those that needs to be rolled out, the second stage is to do inherent risk. It's basically if did this work 6 months ago, what are the risks today is the way we conduct it, almost like no controls in place. We wanted to know what is -- if everything fails, what is our exposure to COVID-19 if everything -- every control fails. So based on that, we created the COVID-19 job hazard analysis. Collaboration helped greatly. And the next stage was the third time we did the risk assessment by what happens, what is the residual risk after all these risks are actually controlled. And then we've created priority zones, and the training goes with the JHA. At this stage, HR reached out to all employees asking, if we like to soft disclose any vulnerabilities, any issues, health issues. And based on that, we had extra redundant controls, and we roll out the tasks. And it's really important to have feedback weekly, so we need to understand this changing conditions. Next slide, please. So what we did is basically we created a 5x5 risk assessment, the consequence of 1 to 5 basically minimum to a severe impact and the likelihood of very low to very high. One thing we included on the likelihood is the contact with the COVID-19-related, basically, no contact to rare contact, moderate, high. And the 5 level is basically no social distancing as possible. You have to work with them at arm's length. If you remember our 3 pillars, we created 7 sections: First, the employee and contractor health and safety, how can we protect them. Make the assessment. The public health, what is our water service? How is that going to be adversely affected? Who are the critical customers who will be affected with our risks? And what are the environmental health issues? And finally, we need to know adverse financial effects. Obviously, we want to make sure that our customers and social media is also not affected. And least, but not the last, obviously, legal and compliance, we were on track with our requirements. Next, please. So these are examples of some of the controls we have for specific COVID engineering. Elimination is basically not get in touch, stay in your car, keep doors open while pick-up and drop-off periods, call customers before making a contact, bring your own lunch. These are all about eliminating the possible contact with others. We have heavily administrative controls. We have 2020 plus interim guidance documents to let everyone -- to give standard operating guidelines. We have temperature check controls, health screen protocols, hand washing disinfection, working in public protocols and maintaining social distancing. These are all administrative controls. On top of that, we have PPE requirements, gloves, not to share PPE, cleaning wipes, disinfecting sprays and all the necessary equipment to maintain clean and hygiene. We included a public health section on the JHA, making sure that we don't cause a spread to the public. So wearing a face covering, following protocols, maintaining distance and so forth. Another category we created is for those who need extra protection. How can we actually protect these employees that -- who are vulnerable to the disease? Can we get them start early or later? Can we give different tasks? Can we use work hours? Can we limit the in-person tasks? So those are the controls we come up with. Next, please. This is an example, field service small meter change. There are 3 rows, now to the row is -- the highest risk was because we were going behind our schedule, legal and compliance. Also, on the second row to the inherent is the employee exposure, which is the highest if you don't have a control. And third row, which is the residual, which means we have the controls. We also included vulnerabilities. It's the individual's health factors and also county health -- public health indicators. That's where you see in that graph that -- actually having amount of different levels of spread in our community will determine our risks. At the moment, we are at the peak and almost like in the yellow section. So we're currently using 1.5 multiplier for our risks. And hopefully, this will go down to 1, which will normalize the risks. Next, please. So where we come up with that is how can we prioritize these tasks. Well, we plot it to basically scatter plotter for benefit versus risk. The most favorable side is the bottom-right corner, Zone 1 and Zone 2. You want to be there because that's the highest benefit and lowest risks. So this is where we are shooting. And this example -- for example, the triangle shows that residual risk, was actually landed in Zone 2. It was in Zone 4 in the inherent level. It was lower to risks by controls. So that means that we have a trade level management team review and making sure these controls are in place. And then the President, the company will determine -- to roll out the final recommendation is given to roll out. The least favorable is Zone 4, where it actually is high and top, high risk, low benefit. Those are the lowest priority right now. We are trying to wait to roll these tasks out just because we just don't want to put our people more risks. So these are the -- these zones actually will create us -- give us the opportunity to prioritize properly. Zone 3, that was the hardest because it's benefit, high, but also risks are high. So we actually -- on top of the trade level management team, we have a collaboration team, which is made out of about 12 people, to come up with a better controls, or even if you cannot control it, how can we deal with the residual risks that we need to make sure that our employees and our community is safe. So this was our approach, and this is continuing as we speak. This is being found really helpful for us. I think the main point was really the conversations around the tasks and how we can actually improve it. It was really helpful for all, really positive feedback from the field staff as well. Our journey continues. But for now, I will hand over to JT Hand from The York Water Company for his story. Thank you.

Well, thank you so much for turning it over to me. I thoroughly enjoyed that presentation, and I can definitely take advantage of some of the risk management techniques that you're implementing there in San Jose. So thanks for sharing that. Everyone should see up on the presentation right now, that front slide, that's a picture of me right there. That's what I look like today and every day and have since March 9 of this year, following the stay-at-home order from our Governor, which went into effect on March 6 in Pennsylvania. If you had a chance to take a look at the bios that were posted, you may have noticed that I stepped into my role as President and CEO of The York Water Company on March 1, 2020. 5 days later, the stay-at-home order was implemented, and 12 days later, we closed the doors of The York Water Company for the first time in the history of The York Water company's current headquarters, which was constructed in 1929. The topic of my presentation today is really unique challenges for the small water companies. And I think what some of you may recognize following my presentation is that I don't believe these challenges are unique to small water companies, although they may be exacerbated by the size or the scale of the company and the operations that we have. I'd certainly like to appreciate the invitation from April and Rob to join you today. Next slide. Just for a flavor, I just want to show you who we are and where we operate to give you a sense of the scope of the company. Here we are in South Central Pennsylvania. We're just about 50 miles north of Baltimore. We're just to the west of Harrisburg. We're just to the east of Gettysburg. We serve just over 72,000 water and wastewater customers, 20 million gallons of water per day. 202,000 people in South Central Pennsylvania depend upon The York Water Company and the services that we provide. Next slide. So here's a snapshot of kind of where we were. I want you to think about what I was doing on March 17. I'm a good Irish man. I was at home with my family. 2 of my children came home from college because their campuses were shut down. I was celebrating St. Patrick's Day on March 17. The following morning, it was confirmed with The York Water Company that we had our first employee with a confirmed positive result for the coronavirus. Now I want you to imagine how I felt that morning, on the morning of March 18, when we determined we had an employee who had tested positive. We very quickly made a determination that, that positive was not as a result of anything related to working at the company, that it was something that was most likely contracted elsewhere. But we immediately put in place our contact testing officer, which we didn't have before, to try to determine where this contact may have occurred. We identified that there were 5 other employees within the company who may have had an increased risk of exposure to this positive employee. And all of a sudden, 6% of The York Water Company's employees were self-quarantined, 6% self-quarantined for 14 days as we awaited the next set of results coming back from those employees that had been tested. CDC guidelines had not been well-established at that point. So we were struggling just a little bit on how we were going to deal with isolating, separating these employees. And because we have such a lean staff, it became quickly obvious to us that as a small company, we were going to have to depend upon contractors. Contractors were going to have to step in and help us out in the event that this positive case expanded to other employees within the company. Obviously, we had already started to isolate and separate all of the other employees. We started to mitigate. But we needed a backup plan, and the backup plan was the contractors. Unfortunately, the same conditions did not exist in Maryland, as existed in Pennsylvania at that time. Construction activities had not been curtailed in Maryland as they had been in Pennsylvania. So all of our contractors started heading South for work in Maryland, and it really put us in the bind very, very quickly. The net result is that we had to be nimble, adaptable and resilient. And because we are small enough to succeed and big enough to get things done, that is part of the culture of small companies, right? You do not have a lot of depth within your company. So each and every person has to be very, very nimble. They have to wear a lot of different hats, and they have to be ready to step in to whatever void is created. If we can go to that next slide. So we did, as the -- Chairman Dutrieuille explained, we did follow all the guidelines from the Governor. March 6 was that stay-at-home order. We started full practicing on social distancing with all of our employees. 50% of our employees were sent home, 50% of our employees stayed to work. We maintained that for a number of weeks, actually 6 full weeks. We eliminated all customer -- face-to-face contact, and we had daily communications with all of our employees. As the Chairman explained from Pennsylvania, all service terminations, there was a moratorium in place on those. But we had already placed our voluntary suspension prior to the actual order being put into effect within Pennsylvania. Next slide. As a small water company, we like to say that we don't just support our company. We support our community. We are our community. Our community depends upon The York Water Company. We take tremendous pride in the fact that we provide, for over 200 years, physical and face-to-face contact with our customers. We like our customers. We want them to come visit us. And all of a sudden, as I said, we had to close our doors, and we had customers that did not know what to do. These are individuals who do not have access to banking facilities that are typically coming through our doors once a month to pay their water and wastewater bills and even to have a chat with our customer service team. We very, very quickly had to embrace this virtual environment for both customer service as well as day-to-day operations. Prior to the onset of the coronavirus, we had 1% of our employees who were working in a virtual work environment. Within 7 days, that 1% had gone up to 18%. We had to adapt very, very quickly. One of the challenges we had in adapting is that as a small utility, our entire IT department consists of 4 people. So the ability to be able to flex that quickly meant that we had to, again, rely upon contractors who, if you may recall, were doing the same thing for every other private company within our community. Everybody is trying to flex and go virtual. So the demand on IT support was very, very large and we did not have sufficient in-house resources, and meant that our IT department was working very, very hard for a very long time. The other thing that we had to do is an order to create separation for all of our employees as we had to stand up in alternate operating locations, which we had thought we would use one day for a drought or for a flood or for a hurricane or for some other natural or man-made disaster. It turns out, no, we didn't need that alternate operation center for any of those contingencies, we need it in order to be able to respond to the coronavirus. We did end up standing up that alternate operation center, and that alternate operation center became our alternate and virtual customer service location for our customer service reps to ensure that we had sufficient separation amongst all of our employees. Next slide. So what's the moral of the story for us? The moral of the story is this: the challenges of this virus really are our opportunities. What we've realized is this: as a 240-year old company, as the oldest investor-owned utility in the nation, for 240 years, we've been investing in infrastructure. We're really, really good at it. All right? And we've been doing it for a long time. Through that investment in infrastructure, what we're realizing is we've simultaneously been doing that investment in the people, the processes and the procurement tools in order to run our business as efficiently and as leanly as possible. 105 employees serving the needs of 72,000 customers, 201,000 people means that small utilities have to be nimble, that they have to invest in that succession planning, that they have to invest in those efficiencies. And that -- through that investment, they're going to be prepared for these types of contingencies like the coronavirus. Two points I want to make. We had a total of 2 of our employees test positive for the coronavirus. Both of them have returned to work, and they are working full-time for The York Water Company right now. We opened our front door to The York Water Company for our customers to come back into our front door earlier this week, May 26, 8:30 in the morning. First day, we had 41 customers come in to see us who had not been able to come and see us because our doors had been closed. So again, I thank -- thank you, everybody, for your time today. And with that, I'll turn it over to Bruce, President of Regulated Operations and Military Services with American Water. Bruce Hauk.

Thank you, JT, and wonderful presentation, and absolutely works well with the message that I have. The title of this communication is Customer Communications During the Pandemic. But I hope to share, similarly to what you did, was really, it's a company that cares about its regulators, a company that cares about its customers and a company that cares about its employees. And so with that, I want to thank April and the NAWC for allowing me to participate in this webinar. I would be remiss if I did not say how much I was smiling to see all the names that I recognized, logged in and hearing the familiar voices. And so with that, let's kick it off with a short video that April is going to kick off, and then I'll come back and speak, at a very high level, to some of the slides in the presentation. Thank you. [Presentation]

Thank you, April. So if we could go to Slide 3. Great. Thank you so much. First and foremost, strategy and value, both, of American Water is safety. And what I really like to highlight here is American Water is focused on safety for our employees and our focus on safety for our customers. And as I mentioned, a company that cares about its employees, that cares about its regulators and cares about its customers. One of the first things that we did, the company draw in guidance from its business continuity plans, transitioned all of our nonessential employees to a work-at-home status, if possible, while taking extra measures to promote a safe environment for our field and plant employees, such as modifying workdays to accommodate social distancing efforts, adjusted work schedules, implementing additional sanitation procedures, encouraging frequent hand washing, distributing face coverings and suspending most nonemergency customer appointments. In this slide, what we represent here is our employees -- and a little bit of having fun, social distancing, if you will, but also an example of a placard that we placed on our vehicles as we're out in the public. Not only is it important for our employees to social distance, but it's -- oftentimes, customers will come up to our employees in the field, ask questions about what they're doing, why they're out there. And we have to continue to keep them safe and social distancing as well, and that's just an example of what that shows. Additional support for our employees are as follows: the company has taken a variety of actions, one of them being encouraging our employees to self-quarantine. Additionally, paid time-off to accommodate and secure -- securing childcare needs and taking care of our loved ones. Also various support measures were focused on helping employees so that they can accommodate personal needs in order to still be safe and available as the company continues to provide safe, clean and reliable water service. Moving to Slide 4, the importance of communication to our commissioners and stakeholders. This slide just gives you a brief example. To the right, too hard to read. I understand that. But throughout this event, American Water has been in constant communication with local regulators, stakeholders regarding the communications the company has implemented regarding actions previously mentioned. So an example here is in this description there, we're really talking about how we can connect socially through social media. One of the things that we talked about and have here is we do surveys of our employees. It's important to know how they're feeling, how they're dealing with the situation, what their concerns are. We've gotten great feedback that we're providing the proper PPE. We've gotten feedback that we -- the employees really appreciate the extended benefits and the way that we're caring for one another. And some of the other points on this slide, I'll talk about a bit later in terms of a little bit more detail. Moving to Slide 5. The communications to our customers is hugely important. The suspension of water shutoffs, the COVID bill inserts, those are just examples of how we communicate to our employees. The suspension of billing and related concerns, I really want to share the importance of that. Because of the importance of hygiene and preventing the spread of coronavirus, the company also temporarily suspended billing-related shutoffs, waived late fee payments and turned on water service -- restored water service for our customers who had previously been shut off for nonpayment. In order to properly address this pandemic, our customers, regardless of payment status, needed to have life-sustaining resource in water and be able to carry out and practice that proper hygiene. Since the beginning of COVID-19, American Water was well ahead of the nationwide mandates to suspend shutoffs, reconnect customers that were shut off for billing-related issues and the suspension of late fees. We've voluntarily implemented these measures just prior to many of the nationwide mandates in mid-March of 2020. We felt it was the right thing to do for our customers during extreme challenging times for the communities that we serve. The virtual plant description there is helpful for our customers to go in online and visually see how our facilities operate and work. And as you had heard in previous presentations from Colleen Arnold with Aqua, the importance of understanding, can you contract coronavirus from the public water supply system. And as other commissioners have talked about, the importance of being able to communicate to our customers what the reality of the situation is and how it affects their public water service or wastewater service was important. We use these vehicles and various mediums, whether it's with the customers' bill, whether it's with social media or whether it's direct communications with stakeholders, such as our commissioners, which was presented earlier in that example, we're updating regularly. During the early onset of the pandemic, we were sending communications on a regular basis, up to as much as weekly. And as we progress through this, I think maybe some of the commissioners are thankful that we're not communicating that much information weekly, but when it's meaningful and material and has changed. Moving to the next slide, Slide 6. This is just some examples of things that I've mentioned previously, the importance of conservation during the pandemic. Some of the things you heard earlier about the importance of flushing, the importance of hand washing, the importance of social distancing. So these are just other media vehicles that we've used to communicate to our customers, ultimately, to our stakeholders and other employees as well. And lastly, the last slide I really want to share is, it's important for us to reach out, and as I've mentioned, survey our employees to understand how they feel, how we're doing. But we also solicited feedback from elected officials, regulators as well. And I would just highlight in the center of this, not oversimplifying anyone's comments, but from the Iowa Utility Board (sic) [ Iowa Utilities Board ], Iowa-American Water recognizes the importance of water as part of the requirements for preventing the spread of the virus. The Board applauds the policies adopted by the water utilities and encourages other water utilities not regulated by the Board to adopt similar policies as part of the measures adopted the spread of the virus. And I would tell you, for the opportunities that we have to serve numerous states across this great nation, the feedback, the support from our regulators and other stakeholders has been tremendous. And we will continue to update and keep those informed on what we're doing as we move forward. And lastly, I want to highlight the last slide. I would just really like to draw attention to American Water and how we have reached out to care for others beyond the traditional things that we've shared in terms of customers, how we have donated $500,000 to an American Water Employee Crisis Fund and a new COVID-19 Response Fund distributed through the American Water Charitable Foundation to the tune of $500,000. And additionally, the $100,000 that we provided to the food banks to be distributed to the communities that are in very much need as we are all growing through and maintaining through this entire pandemic. And that would be the last of my comments. And I think we are up for questions and answers. So I'll turn it back to the Chair of the program. Thank you.

Thank you, Bruce. This is Becky Valcq from the Wisconsin Commission again. As Bruce indicated, we're open for any questions for our water companies. I have a question. Bruce, both you and Colleen Arnold from Aqua mentioned the building flushing guidelines that are going to be so important as we see states start to reopen. Is there a place that we and state government can go to get some of that information? Because this is the first I've heard of that, and it seems to me that as we're going to reopen, it's important to get that message out.

Maybe Colleen can augment my comments. But we'd be happy to share that information to you and to the various different jurisdictions that we're in. Typically, your EPA or your Board of Health Department or agency within the state would have similar type of information. But American Water would be happy, and I'm sure Aqua as well, to provide that information. And I'll turn it over to Colleen to augment my answer.

Okay. That would be great.

Yes. I just want to reiterate, we're happy to share. We did create some consumer- and customer-friendly documents and how-to's on it. We -- where we could, we reached out directly to some of the more sensitive commercial customers that we knew already were critical and maybe had been shut down. So we did some personal outreach. And then like Bruce said, pairing with the health departments in our different communities. So we did a more personalized approach. We were cognizant of maybe not going too public with it in terms of a mailer to -- we do want to alarm people unnecessarily with all the information that was out there. And so we did a more targeted communication. It is up on our website. We did notify customers, especially, we if we thought the ones that are more sensitive to it, and we're happy to share with any of the commissions. And we did outreach to all of our like public health, environmental organizations, too.

Okay. Yes, that's important information. Well, to the water companies, I just -- I want to thank you for your efforts to continue providing safe, clean and reliable water service, especially during this time. Over the last 75 days, that's how long we've been at -- stay for at home in Wisconsin. I've had many opportunity to make it known that our utilities in this country really are the lifeblood to our economy. So to the water companies on, I want to thank you again. Thank you for participating. Thank you for everything you do to keep that service flowing. And to my fellow regulators, thank you for the leadership that you're demonstrating in your states. I know that this is definitely unchartered territory. But I think we can be proud as a regulatory community that we are -- we've been able to strike a balance between protecting consumers but also keeping an eye on the financial health of the utilities that we regulate. So I see -- I don't see any questions. So nobody has any questions? I'm going to sign off because I'm sure we all have another webinar or some sort of video conference to attend. So thanks, everyone, for attending, and be safe. Stay well. Thanks.