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