01
Executive summary
One-page operator-ready summary with composite score, tier, and the three signals that drove the score most.
Methodology
How the score is built.
Water Hawk publishes a Infrastructure Readiness Score for every U.S. water and wastewater utility. The score is opinionated, defensible, and reproducible. Here is how it is built and what it does and does not include.
01 / Score
Infrastructure Readiness Score
A composite from ten weighted categories, normalized to a 0 to 100 scale. Candidacy thresholds (muni-facing): strong 60 plus, emerging 35 to 60, not yet a candidate below 35. Aggregate display tier (investor rollups): high 70 plus, medium 30 to 70, low under 30. Unscored when data completeness is too thin to publish. See methodology for the distinction.
| Category | Weight | What it captures |
|---|---|---|
| Enforcement | High | Federal and state enforcement history, permit exceedances, and consent-decree presence and milestones. |
| Permits | High | Discharge-permit limits, expiration risk, and recent renewal activity. |
| Financial | High | Continuing disclosures, debt-service coverage, rate trajectory, and financial-distress signals. |
| Infrastructure | Medium | Asset age, capital project pipeline, recent SRF activity, capital-intensity proxies. |
| Population | Medium | Service population size and growth, tax-base stability, federal designations. |
| P3 legislation | Medium | State-level P3 enabling statutes, recent water-PPP precedents in the jurisdiction. |
| SRF funding | Low | State revolving fund award velocity, federal funding overlays. |
| PFAS exposure | Low | Regulatory exposure to incoming PFAS limits, treatment-upgrade pressure. |
| Funding gap | Low | Capital need versus available funding, asset-management plan completeness. |
| Financial capacity | Low | Ability to absorb new debt, tax-rate flexibility, refinancing posture. |
| Data completeness | Hygiene | Confidence flag. Low completeness lowers all other category weights. |
Weights are calibrated against historic P3 award outcomes and re-fit quarterly. The data-completeness category is a hygiene signal; munis with thin disclosure are penalized rather than silently scored.
02 / Dossier
Eleven-section dossier
Every dossier follows the same shape so analyst review and customer comprehension scale. Sections drop the score down to its citations and back up to a decision rubric.
02
Score waterfall
Per-category contribution with consent-decree flag and top-signals callouts.
03
Compliance and enforcement
Enforcement history, permit context, recent actions, and consent-decree milestones.
04
Financial indicators
Continuing-disclosure history, debt service, rate-stress sensitivity, and peer comparison.
05
Infrastructure profile
Asset age, capital plan, treatment train, source-water context, system size.
06
Trigger events
Time-ordered events (regulatory, financial, political) that bear on Infrastructure readiness.
07
SRF and federal funding
SRF pipeline, federal awards, capital-context for the planning horizon.
08
Comparable munis
Five most similar municipalities by score, geography, and infrastructure profile, with explainability.
09
Scenario models
Operator, mature, and stress scenarios. Probability-weighted outcomes for capital decisions.
10
Decision rubric
Operator-facing yes/no rubric with counter-factuals and the conditions that would flip the recommendation.
11
Methodology and citations
Source of every figure, model versions, recency stamps. Reproducibility for IC review.
03 / Pillars
Two cohorts, separate scoring
Infrastructure readiness and chemical procurement use different signals. We keep the two pillars separate so a chemical-side customer reading the score is not confused by a P3-shaped composite that does not reflect their decision.
Infrastructure capital
Infrastructure Readiness Score plus capital-decision dossier. Used by investors, Infrastructure developers, and water-utility advisors to size opportunity, time pursuit, and prepare investment-committee materials.
Chemical procurement
Bid library, supplier profiles, lane-level pricing benchmarks, bid-calendar tracking. Used by water-treatment chemical suppliers and BD teams to size pursuit and price competitively.
04 / Data protection
Antitrust-safe by design
Customers integrate their CRMs and ERPs because our model is useful only if it sees real win/loss data. We separate the parts that touch your data from the parts that publish forward-looking signals.
Forward signals
P3 score and scenario models come from public data and Water Hawk first-party research only. They never incorporate your contributed data.
Your private dashboard
Your CRM data feeds your private win-rate dashboard immediately. Visible only to your organization.
Cross-customer aggregates
Your contributions enter aggregates only after a 90-day window with strict thresholds (5+ contributors, no contributor over 25 percent), one-way hashing, and differential privacy.