[00:00:00] Speaker A: I'd say the data itself is telling us exactly what we've been hearing from contractors, especially that the dollars are slow to hit the streets.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: You I am Reese Tizzle, and this is the future of water, which we talk about all the ways which companies, utilities and people are addressing the challenges and opportunities in water. This is episode 90, and as always, I know it's going to be a good one, not only because it's episode 90, which is another milestone, but also because we've got Isabel Kasman, senior analyst at Bluefield Research, coming on to discuss her recent analysis of the Infrastructure Investment Jobs act. More specifically, we're going to talk about the pace of project activity, funding timeline, really, from its legislation or passage of the bill in November 2021 to now. So lots of good information, but why are we doing this? Well, quite honestly, we have a number of clients who've inquired about the status of the funding. Where are the dollars? Because they haven't seen it in many cases. And given the fact that Isabel has uncovered a trove of project data related to this, thought we'd share some of the results with you. So lots of really good stuff, and I'm certain it'll be of interest to anybody who is active in the water sector, particularly municipal infrastructure. But before we do that, I thought I'd share some news that caught my attention this past week. So data from the Census Bureau is out. This past week, non residential construction spending decreased, I think, 4% in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 1.19 trillion, according to the bureau. Why is this important? I guess the declines, or this past month's decline, ends a 19 month streak in construction spending growth. Although non residential construction spending is still up more than 17% of last year, it is the first time in a while that we've seen a slight downturn. The slowdown, which quite honestly had to come at some point, was reportedly caused by severe weather impacting sectors such as highways, but also sewer, wastewater, water supply, those that require outdoor work and have to be slowed down for various reasons. So it doesn't feel like much of a weather driven first quarter, but I guess that's the case. But also, higher financing costs and tighter lending standards are also slowing down investment and income dependent projects for which rents are somewhat flat or sagging in markets. So this includes everything from apartments, warehouses, offices, retail and lodging. So there's some little bit of softness. But like I said, overall, 17% over the past year, still pretty strong market. But why do we care at Bluefield? Well, non residential water supply spending felt 2%, sewage construction spending about 1.1%. So it's worth noting that 12% changes for water and sewage are up 22% and 23%, respectively. So they're outpacing sort of the overall non residential average. Considering that commercial construction starts have downshifted, that's a nice way to put it. With no clear horizons ahead, this is not a surprise. Higher interest rates, reduced credit access are also dragging down non residential spending, which is, I think, that's expected to continue for the months ahead, so be on the lookout for that. Also, when it comes to pipe networks and where the market is heading home builders, they are actually seemingly encouraged by low resale supply as well as a prospect for a soft landing and lower financing costs on the horizon. So I can't say that that was at a conference last week with the PBC pipe Association, and they had a speaker talking about the housing markets. 2024 might be a little tough when it comes to housing. And why do we care about that? Because it impacts the pipe markets. New build.
In the case of those guys, it does impact material choices. So these are some interesting sort of macroeconomic indicators of what's happening. But we're going to have Isabel Kesman on in just a second, and she'll talk about more specifically the 500 or so projects that have actually received funding from IIja and sort of what the gap is from 55 billion or more to where we are today. So if you're interested in the recent analysis and any data originating from our US and Canada Municipal Insight service team, reach out to us at
[email protected]. All right. With that, let's get on the horn with Isabelle and see what she has to say about Iija.
All right, so I'm joined here by Isabelle Kasman. Isabel, how's it going?
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Pretty good. Excited to be joining today.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Nice. So I think by the time this goes out, you'll be in Colorado at the water use conference. So maybe if anybody's listening, usually these drop on Tuesday, so I think you'll still be there. They can always grab you out of the crowd and ask you about what we're going to talk about. And that is Iija. So why don't we jump into it? So in the intro, I talked a little bit about clients were having questions for us about the infrastructure Investment Jobs act and where the dollars are, because some questions are being raised. We're not seeing it depending on where the company is in the value chain. So you've come across a treasure trove of data and actually put out a report. So let's step back a little bit just to kind of frame the house, so to speak, and talk about IIja. And so when we talk about it, what are we talking about when we say IIJ funding and sort of the size, the dollars, et cetera, programs, et cetera. So why don't you give us a little bit of a background.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: Sure. So for, I guess, context, IIja, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs act, it was signed in November 2021, and it represents the single largest investment in water infrastructure that the federal government has ever made. So it's pretty historic. We talk about it all the time. And our clients are interested because it's this newfound funding to boost project count and capacity for infrastructure upgrades across water, wastewater and stormwater. The bill specifically appropriates 55 billion for a bucket called water infrastructure and then another for another 8.3 billion for western water infrastructure. So collectively, we're looking at about 63 billion in new appropriations for the water sector. And this is to be distributed over the five year funding period, which actually started back in federal fiscal year 2022. And we'll continue to see annual appropriations through 2026. I think one important thing to note is about two thirds of this 63 billion is slated to move through the state revolving fund programs. And these are low interest grant and loan programs administered by the state governments, but they're capitalized by federal grants and then any state contributions or matches to those federal capitalization grants. And these programs have been around, I want to say, since the late 1980s, and they've historically been the main channel to market for federal relief funds for water. So I don't think it comes as a surprise that most of IIJA funding for water will move through these programs and supplement them?
[00:08:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that's super helpful because I think one of the confusions, I don't know if it's a confusion, but there's a lot to unpack. When you talk about, everybody talks about the 55 billion of IIJ funding, then there's, like you said, the western water, 63. So depending on who you're talking to, what we've tried to do is be a little bit more precise in our analysis and sharing that it's not easy what you've done here. So state revolving funds, obviously, the big chunk, that makes a lot of sense. I think we said that from the outset because the channel is already established and that is where the big chunk of the dollars are going. Can you provide a little bit of background or a little more information on the state revolving funds? How it's breaking out the dollars by its various programs.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: Sure, there are two existing SRF programs. There's the clean water sRf and the drinking water sRF. And maybe for the listeners who are less familiar with these programs, I think a good way to think of the clean water SRF as funding for wastewater stormwater, any water quality related projects. So basically anything to do with ensuring compliance with the Clean Water act, and then the drinking water SRF as funding improvements to drinking water systems. Basically anything to do with the Safe Drinking Water act. And the IIJA allocates about 43 and a half billion dollars across both of these programs, 30.7 billion to the drinking water SRF and then 12.8 billion to the clean water SRF. And this funding, most of it will supplement the traditional existing programs. What is currently eligible through those SRF programs that have been around since the 1980s. But there's also some sub programs that are created and specifically allocated through IIJA. So for drinking water, this breaks out as 11.7 billion for that traditional or general supplemental funding, 15 billion for lead service line projects specifically, and then 4 billion to tackle emerging contaminants of concern, most notably PFAS, and then on the clean water side, 11.7 billion for the general traditional supplemental funding, 1 billion for emerging contaminants, again specifically or mostly PFAs, and then about 127,000,000 for something called the 604 B grant program. Our analysis tracks the dollar disbursement to date for all six of these SRF sub programs and then a couple of other non SRF programs.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it feels a bit like a rat's nest when you start throwing out all the numbers and the general supplemental and the special funding. And I think the one takeaway is a big chunk of the funding within SRF actually does go to lead and or PFAS. Right. So I think that's sort of additive to what we've seen, and those are obviously topics to Jor, for obvious reasons. But this is a good segue into sort of my next question for you, and that is you've uncovered some data, you've done some analysis on all of this, and sort of like the question was, when we look at the timeline, where are the dollars from November 2021 to now? So what does your report cover? And let's maybe start there.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Sure. The report that we published mid late January, it covers the rollout of federal funding for ten discrete water programs funded under IIJA. These ten programs, which do include those SRF sub programs that I just mentioned, they account for about $51 billion of that 63 billion total appropriation in Iija. So overall, our report has pretty strong coverage, which allows us to kind of give an overall status check on the infrastructure bill and where the money stands. And so one way that we approach this, I guess I'll start with the SRF side of it, because that does cover, it's 43 and a half billion dollars. It covers about 85% of our analysis. So for these programs, we wanted to map the flow of federal dollars to the state agencies and then from the state agencies to any utility level projects that are receiving funding. And we wanted to do this across those six sub programs. And so for each program, we broke down the funding across four phases. There's appropriated, which is the top line number that you get from the infrastructure Investment and Jobs act bill. It is the total available funding over that five year period and then announced, this is any preliminary or non binding commitments of appropriated dollars. And this is typically subject to the recipients of any awards meeting certain requirements to actually get those awards. The next one, and this is where we got that new data set that tracks prime awards, which I'll get into in just a second, but the next phase is called obligated, and this is the actual contractually binding commitments that the EPA makes with the state agencies saying, well, you submitted your IUP and we're going to give you the full amount because you had enough projects in there and have shown us that you can use all of the money that we've allocated for you in that appropriation. Then the final phase that we looked at was outlays. And so this is when the federal government actually pays money to the state recipient. And it's not just the promise to be paid, as with that obligated stage.
And the way that we were able to kind of follow the money through these four phases was that we looked at about 480 prime awards of federal fiscal year 2022 and 2023 appropriations and a Prime award. You can think of it as tracking the obligations as well as the outlay dollars. So to visualize it, one award would be here is Rhode island requesting their federal fiscal year 2022 allotment of lead service lines, whatever that total top line appropriation is for them. We went in and we pulled that data and then we could see what has been obligated to them, and then any percentage that's been outlaid towards that obligation is also recorded in that prime award. And then after we kind of sorted through that prime award data, and of course, it's all 50 states and across six sub programs. So that's why there's so many prime awards. After we looked at that data and sorted out the flow from federal to state, there's also a data set of subawards. So states are required to report subawards that are equal to the amount of the federal capitalization grant called equivalency projects. Kind of getting into the weeds of it now, but basically they report how they distribute the capitalization grant to the utilities, and that's typically in accordance with their intended use plans. And so we have about 340 of those actual project level awards. So I feel like that was a lot. I don't know if we want to go into any of the specifics or walk back.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: No, I think that's back to my comment about the rat's nest. I mean, I think this is interesting. So, I mean, simply put, we've looked at appropriated, announced, obligated and outlaid. And so in a way that's sort of the project flow or timeline, at least for SRF projects. But this is where I think it gets interesting. Right? So you've sort of laid it out or mapped it, so to speak. So now I guess my next question really is, can we allocate dollars to each of those buckets? And so what does our data tell us when it comes to that?
[00:16:53] Speaker A: Yes, and I know it's the podcast, but I wish we could have up our visual that shows kind of the timeline from November 2021 to when we pulled this data in January 2024. So you can think of it like we'll put the appropriated amount, that total when we'll use SRFs collectively as kind of the example here, 43 and a half billion appropriated November 2021. And then the next bucket would be the announced 15 billion has been announced. Again, this is the non binding preliminary awards. And then we move to what's actually committed and obligated. About eleven and a half billion has been obligated for the SRFs. And then the final stage where we are now Q one of 2024, 1.8 billion has actually been paid out to the states.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes sense. Effectively, what you've done is created a waterfall, basically. Like, here's where we start, here's where we are. So that's pretty huge, right? So maybe, put it in percentage terms, where do we stand as far as total dollars?
[00:17:57] Speaker A: So 4% of the 43.5 billion appropriated to the SRS has actually been outlaid or paid out to the states.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: Okay.
It sort of validates what some of our clients are saying, right? At least as far as the data goes from the outset. I said in the intro, but also with you, that clients coming to us saying like, hey, we're not seeing the dollars, where are they? We'd like to know, where are we in that pipeline of funding? So is there any reason why it's only 4%? Because we're halfway through the program timeline. Right.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: I mean, there's a multitude of factors at play here. Bureaucracy is no doubt up there. And moving from federal commitments to states getting the money and then states distributing it to utility level projects, that's always going to take a bit of time to get things rolling. But then there's things like labor, build America, buy America, making sure your projects align with that. There's still inflation concerns floating around. And so collectively, there's a lot of things in the works that can kind of slow the distribution of these federal funds. But I'd say the data itself is telling us exactly what you mentioned at the beginning of this, that we've been hearing from contractors, especially, that the dollars are slow to hit the streets.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Okay. So when we look at it, though, and this is something we've done in the past, just looking at state revolving funds, is they are sort of managed, if that's the right way to put it, at the state level. Right. So in every state is a little bit different in how they approach it, how they manage it, how they prioritize the intended use plans and so on. So how does it differ geographically? Is there anything that we can glean from the map overall?
[00:19:56] Speaker A: Yes. So we looked at the outlays, and which states have specifically received any outlaid payments? 40% of outlays have gone to three states. Probably not super surprising. Texas, New York, but then also Ohio. But overall, outlays, lag obligations. So the 1.8 billion, compared to the eleven and a half billion outlays lag obligations by sevenfold. So while these three states have received the most overall, these payments, again, just to reiterate that point, are slow to actually get to the state agencies and then to the utility level projects.
And I guess another thing to keep in mind too, is that the actual cycle of SRFs allows for a little bit of lag too. So states have already had to submit their IUPs for federal fiscal year $2,022. But right now they have until the end of September 2024 to claim 2023 IIJ allotments. So there's states can submit the IOPs in the year that the federal fiscal year appropriations go out, but then the year after. And so one thing that we looked at in this report, because we looked at 2022 funding and we looked at what's been obligated already for 2023, even though states can continue to access that 2023 funding. We wanted to see which states were farthest along in this process, because to us, that could potentially be a telltale sign of where projects may mature quickest. In that if I've already gotten my 2022 funds and I've already submitted my 2023 IUP, and I've already gotten my obligations from the federal government for 2023, you would think that that would put you ahead in receiving any payments and then moving along with projects. And then as soon as the EPA finalizes the 2024 allotments to states for the SRF, that any state that's already done the 2023 can move along into the 2024 really early in the 2024 cycle because 2024 appropriations will go through September 2025. So there's already a lag in the process. But some states are much further along in their own accessing of the funds, if that makes sense.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think, simply put, this system is constructed or designed to allow for a lag, and so it's allocating dollars to specific. There's a rollover or period. But what you've been able to do, at least perhaps it's a proxy, right? Where you're able to say, hey, there are about 16 states that are actually on track for their payments.
They've been up on the curve as far as applications, submitting their documentation, receiving funds or requesting.
It's. I think it's states, if I recall, it's more mixed. Like California, I think, is way out there as an example. But it's not just California, New York, Texas, Florida. It's not just the big ones. It's a bit more mixed when you start looking at that. So I know you have that in the report, which is pretty interesting. And I think the takeaway is for clients is, hey, these are the states where the dollars may be more readily available. They're further ahead. Therefore, the opportunity is near term here than it may be in other states. And that's something just historically speaking, we've looked at. Some states have never fully leveraged state revolving funds. Right. In past years, where you'll see some states, they have access to capital through these programs, but they don't fully utilize it because it could be the program, it could be a number of different reasons.
Well, I know that state revolving funds get the most attention for obvious reasons.
That's the big chunk of the funding. But what about other programs? Right, you mentioned we've looked at ten programs overall, but I know we've got outside of state revolving funds. There are a couple of others worth looking at. Can you shed any light on what the dollars are and what the status is for those programs? And is it any different from what we're seeing in state revolving funds?
[00:24:35] Speaker A: Sure. The four non SRF programs that we tracked as part of this report were water infrastructure improvements for the nation. The emerging contaminants pool within Wynn is another, what we'll call it, water recycling and desalination, water storage and conveyance, and then water smart. And all of these are administered by the Bureau of Reclamation, except for that first program win. Collectively, the four non SRF programs have awarded about 1.3 billion in funding. This represents anywhere from four to 27% of total available or appropriated dollars for these programs. And to go into a little bit more detail, water infrastructure improvements for the nation, 5 billion appropriated in Iija. About 18% of that has been obligated.
Water recycling and desalination, little over 1 billion, I want to say, was appropriated in Iija, and 22% of that has been obligated. Water storage and conveyance, again, a little bit over a billion obligated, or, excuse me, appropriated in Iija, and then 4% of that has been obligated. And then the last category, water smart, 400 million appropriated in Iija, and 27% of that has been obligated.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: So better in most cases, a lot less dollars, obviously, as you mentioned. But still behind the midway point, right? I mean, it's not linear as far as what's announced obligated and outlaid. It's not like, hey, we're at the midway point of these programs, therefore the dollar should be there at the midway point.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'd also add to that the bureau programs may move a little bit quicker. I mean, 22% through water recycling and diesel, 27% water smart, because it's directly awarded in most cases to the utilities instead of moving through any sort of state agency. So the Bureau of Reclamation will open a request period for funding, and utilities can go and apply specifically to what they're interested in. So if they have a metering program that can get funded for a water conservation program and there's an open funding period for water smart, they can go in and apply. So there's a direct pipeline between them versus that middleman. That's the state agency for the SRFs.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: That's a really good point. Right. So there's just less friction in the process. Hopefully. All right, well, taking into account what you've said, so things are slow. The rollout has been at a pace sort of unexpectedly slow, but maybe it's probably more realistic given the state of things. So therefore, can we expect a tsunami of funds rolling down the pipe pretty soon and, or are there any other takeaways?
[00:27:43] Speaker A: I will take the more conservative approach in saying that I don't think there's going to be any sort of tsunami, but I'll let you defend the tsunami side if you want. But I do believe that all of this money theoretically will make it to projects. I just think it's going to be a continuation of kind of a slower timeline to reach the actual utility level projects. But the idea is that if there are any unobligated funds for any of these SRF programs, for example, there's going to be an opportunity to redistribute those dollars to states that actually have either the management capacity or the projects identified to utilize the funding. We've seen this with the lead service line program specifically, where a handful of states did not have enough projects identified to receive their full allotment of lead service line dollars. And so the EPA opened up or started the process to redistribute those funds to states that have already identified it. So I do agree with we're going to see an influx of funding still because there is so much funding out there and allocated specifically for 2022 through 2026. But I'm not sure if it's all just going to end up dumping at the same time. The other thing that I think is worth considering is that the state match requirement is going to go up from the 10% to the normal 20% for SRF starting 2024, and then we'll continue through 2025 and 2026 for the general supplemental funding for the clean water SRF and the drinking water SRF. So we'll have to see if that adds any disruption to management capacity for these programs. But I don't know, I'm kind of curious to hear defense of maybe the tsunami side.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess the question is that I have is whether, well, let's put it this way, we're halfway through the program. Let's use SRF specifically. So we only have a couple of years left. Right. We're obviously in election year. Who knows what's going to happen, whether it be in the executive branch or even the legislative branches. Right. So there's going to be potentially change. Right. And so there's already been complaining about everything from inflation to government, the federal government throwing dollars out there unnecessarily and so can it be taken away. Right. So I guess that's one question I think that's out there. The tsunami is there's still, like you said, SRF has only used less than 10% of the funds overall. So where are these other dollars going to come? They're going to have to come. I think your point about the matching percentage, ten to 20% is pretty significant. Right. That's when things aren't moving as fast. I think the idea was, hey, let's provide incentive to get these dollars out on the street, to provide jobs, stimulate the economy and so on and so forth. Has it happened? Potentially. I think there's no doubt that the water sector is incredibly busy right now, whether that's because it just needed to happen or whether there's anticipation and tailwinds created by all of these potential dollars out there. Tsunami. Yeah, I think it's still relative at this point, right? I mean, there's still so many dollars, it just not happening as fast as everybody wanted. So small wave.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I guess the other thing that just came to mind for me was a couple of the regulatory timelines that were approaching. So the October 16, 2024 lead service line inventory deadline right in the middle of IIJa funding. And we know that there's that whole bucket for lead service line specifically. And the last two years have shown the lead service line program to be the most difficult for state administrators because it's the only one that had multiple states saying that they don't have enough projects to receive full funding. So maybe we'll see a shift in the amount of projects funded by that lead service line pool from Iija. And then the other thing we're waiting for is the MCLs for PFAs.
That's going to be a little bit of a tricky timeline because we don't know what that final ruling is going to look like. There's likely to be some sort of grace period, but I think utilities are preparing for that future as well. So I think there is added regulatory pressure in the latter half of this IiJa period that could maybe add to the tsunami effect, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: Yeah, there's no doubt a lot of sort of friction in the process. The other thing that we really haven't talked about is Baba the buy American, build American.
That's a whole nother sort of a sideshow that's been happening. We've had a lot of clients asking about where do we stand in this process.
I think you know better than I. I think there's a waiver period that we're in and that's coming due at some point.
So that's going to have an impact as well. Correct?
[00:33:17] Speaker A: Right. I believe the waiver that was available for 2022 and 2023 is expiring at the end of September 2024. And I have it on my agenda to figure out exactly the implications of that. So for those of you who subscribe to municipal corporate subscription, that'll be in one of the quarterlies these days. But we are trying to track the ABA as well and figure out exactly how that's impacting project level activity.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: Yeah, so like I said, there are so many different metaphors, plates in the air, balls in the air, lots of things moving in parallel. But nonetheless, I think what you've done is really interesting. I think this is a question that clients have been asking for the better part of two years, since really the beginning of the IIJA, since the announcement. Where are the dollars? Where are the dollars? That questions come again and again and again. And then relatively recently, we came across the data. You've put out a report. So all really good stuff, which I really like, and like I said, a rat's nest.
[00:34:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And the last thing I'll add with that, maybe for clients, for something to look forward to. I think this is going to be something that we update every quarter, maybe every, I don't know. I think we're still trying to figure out the cadence of it, but we do want to expand our analysis of it. So right now we do have a dashboard that has those sub awards that I mentioned for the SRF programs, but then also any direct awards from the non SRF programs. I think it stands at about 500 or so utility level projects. And for those of you who are familiar with our research, one piece of the municipal service that we do every year is our capital improvement plan analysis. And we go in and we pull project level information from 750 utilities, and then we categorize it across water, wastewater, stormwater, and then a handful of categories and then some subcategories. So, like water treatment pipes or something along those lines. And I think we're trying to figure out ways to kind of get that visibility for the IIJA projects as well, just so we can see what types of projects are specifically receiving general supplemental funding versus emerging contaminants, because we started looking at it and I think we're still trying to obviously figure it out. But you do see interesting things. We are seeing a lot of manganese projects being funded through the emerging contaminants sub award projects, because that's also an emerging contaminant. And I think it could be the case where utilities already had that type of project in their CIP or on their radar, and then when this funding came around, it also qualified for that so you could actually move forward with that project.
So I think that's definitely on our list of things to get around to for the next iteration of Iija. But I'm excited to see how this data set evolves and how the funding plays out over the next couple of years.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think it's super interesting. I think once you uncovered it, everybody got really excited about it. So hopefully everybody who gets access to it feels the same way. So if anybody has any questions, you can always reach out to us. All right, so last question.
What else you got coming down your pipeline as far as work goes?
[00:37:07] Speaker A: Yeah, so you mentioned I'll be at water reuse in Denver, so I'm actually presenting on the 13th for anyone that's attending the morning session. My presentation is global lessons learned utility strategies for developing and commercializing reuse. It's pulling together some analyses that our Europe team completed on case studies and business models of different reuse schemes and why a utility ended up with the scheme that they have based on their enabling environment. So the regulatory framework, the drivers, any sort of cost considerations, value creation. Very interesting stuff. So I'm really excited for the opportunity to share some of their work with the US reuse community.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: Nice. Well, that'll be good. I know that'll be certainly well received. I look forward to hearing sort of what the turnout and also energy level is at reuse. Obviously we see it as a market opportunity. And I think historically speaking, when we really started getting into reuse was I think 2014, 2015, we built up and there was this huge wave of projects in the US. Now people are sort of up on the curve, to use that analogy again, but be interesting to see where we are today. I think there's obviously big push towards industrial, but also looking to see what else is happening outside of the mean, per your presentation, because the US, in many respects, as far as total volumes are concerned, is pretty far ahead, globally speaking. But as far as number and know, we're starting to see more activity in places like Europe. So in other parts, that'll be awesome. So maybe we'll see how it turns out, but maybe that'll be a presentation we throw up on the website as well. So we'll see who gets access to that. So if you're interested in that, you can always reach out. All right, Isabelle, I'll let you go. Thanks a million. Lots of detail here. So appreciate the time and look forward to talking to you again soon.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: See ya.
[00:39:30] Speaker B: Take care.
All right, that was super interesting. Like I said, we have been really excited about the analysis that Isabel has worked on when it comes to IJ and other things. So if you're interested, you can always reach out to us at water
[email protected]. And then the other thing I wanted to bring up is Bluefield research is hiring. So if you know anybody who's looking for an interesting, exciting job in the water sector doing market research and analysis, we got a number of different positions, whether it be analyst roles, consulting roles, but also sales roles in Boston, the Bay Area, and so on. So you can always visit us at our website and go to the careers page. And I think there are four or five different openings there, so doesn't have to just be for you. If you know anybody who else is looking. So where we sign off, if you're in Boston or Barcelona, let us know. We'd enjoy the opportunity for a meeting. It's always great to see people in person. Also, if you're going to be in Denver next week, and if you hear this in time, reach out to Isabel. She'll be there. Please subscribe to the Future of Water podcast and give us a review. Super helpful. It pushes us up in the queue, but also lets people know that other people are interested in what we're doing. So shout out to all those people on LinkedIn who recently gave us a kudos ranking us one of the top five water podcasts. Send us a note to water
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