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-- Certificates of Convenience and Necessity (CCNs)
A Certificate of Convenience and Necessity (CCN) grants a CCN holder the exclusive right to provide retail water and/or sewer utility service to an identified geographic area. Chapter 13 of the Texas Water Code requires a CCN holder to provide continuous and adequate service to the area within its CCN boundary. Municipalities and districts normally are not required to have a CCN; however some municipalities and districts do have a CCN. A district or municipality may not provide services within an area for which another utility holds a CCN unless the district or municipality has a CCN itself for that area. Water and sewer utilities are certified to provide services in various types of service areas. The most common are (but are not limited to):
Bounded Service Areas: These are areas that form closed boundaries. These boundaries often follow identifiable physical and cultural features such as roads, rivers, streams and political boundaries.
Facilities+200 Feet: These are service areas of utilities and are represented by power/electrical lines; however, they also include a buffer of a specified number of feet (usually 200 feet). The lines can, but may not necessarily, correspond to distribution lines or facilities in the ground and which normally follow along roads.
Facilities Only: Facilities only lines are granted for a "point of use" service area that covers only the customer connections at the time the CCN is granted. Facility Only service lines can, but may not always, correspond to the location of the utility's distribution lines in the ground. |