Water Affordability, Conservation, and Community: Veolia’s Impact in Westchester

Guest:
Sophia Salis, Public & Government Affairs, Veolia Water New York

Episode Summary:
In this episode of I Live Here Westchester, host Jim Jockle sits down with Sophia Salis from Veolia to explore critical topics affecting Westchester residents, including water affordability, sustainability, and community engagement.

Sophia shares details of Veolia's groundbreaking Water Affordability Program—the first of its kind in New York State—which offers up to a 25% discount on water bills for eligible customers. She also outlines the many ways Veolia is helping local residents conserve water, lower their bills, and stay connected through meaningful community partnerships.

From rebate programs and PromisePay options to smart irrigation tips and even the return of Bailey the Beaver, this episode provides practical advice and local inspiration.

🔗 Helpful Links & Resources:

• Veolia Water Affordability Program:
  https://mywater.veolia.us/nyaffordwater
  Check your eligibility and view the list of qualifying government programs.
• Apply for Rebates on Water-Efficient Appliances:
  https://conserve.veolia.us
  Submit receipts for rebates on EPA WaterSense and Energy Star appliances.
• Veolia Customer Service (Westchester Office):
  Palmer Avenue, New Rochelle, NY
  1-877-266-9101
  https://mywater.veolia.us (Be sure to enter your zip code for localized info)
• Programs Mentioned:
  • PromisePay: Flexible payment plans for outstanding water bills
  • Budget Billing: Consistent monthly payments
  • Veolia Cares: One-time hardship grants
  • Conservation Tips: Leak detection, smart irrigation, native landscaping
• Community Engagement:
  • Town of Rye EcoFest at Crawford Park
  • Spark the Sound Fireworks, July 4th at Five Islands Park, New Rochelle
  • Partnerships with local municipalities and Cornell Cooperative Extension

Stay Connected:
For community appearances, rebate updates, and conservation tips, follow Veolia and check your local municipal bulletins.

Final Thought:
Water is more than a utility—it's a community resource. Whether you're a homeowner, renter, or simply conservation-minded, there’s a role for everyone to play.

Transcript

James Jockle (00:00)
Sophia, first and foremost, thank you so much for joining us today.

Sophia Salis (00:03)
Thank you so much, Jim, for having me. We're excited to join your show.

James Jockle (00:06)
Yeah, so can you give us an overview of the water affordability program Veolia launched in New York and who qualifies, how does it work?

Sophia Salis (00:14)
Sure, thank you for that. we actually the water affordability program is the first of its kind in New York State. And what we tried to do with the program is to pick up where LIWAP left off. So during COVID, there was the low income water affordability program.

And through Veolia's outreach, we helped our customers access, it was over $5 million in federal funding to offset the cost of their water and for families and individuals who having hardship during COVID. But that program sort of sunset at the early part of 2024. So when we were talking to the Public Service Commission.

we asked if it would be possible for us to kind of develop a program that would pick up where that left off and provide some assistance to our customers who even though, know, happy to say we're on the other side of COVID, there's still a need and there's still.

and there are still customers who are struggling to keep up with their water bill. So what the Water Affordability Program is for Veolia here in New York is it provides up to a 25 % discount on your water bill, and it essentially waives the meter facility charge, which can account for up to 25 % of the bill. And to qualify, we just ask for our customers to submit a letter documenting that they are a participant of another program, either through another utility.

program like HEAP, affordability program, or one of, it's close to a dozen government programs and those programs include Federal Lifeline, the Federal Public Assistance, Food Distribution Program.

Energy Assistance Program, mentioned HEAP, Medicaid, Safety Net, the list is quite lengthy and you can get all the information about the program including the government programs that help you qualify for Veolia's water affordability program through our website and you just visit mywater.veolia.us forward slash nyaffordwater and there you'll get the complete list of qualifying programs.

Jim, one thing to add is that in addition to getting the 25 % up to 25 % bill discount, customers who qualify for the water affordability program can also get some special benefits through our rebates. So I know we're going to talk a little bit about our conservation program, but customers who are part of our water affordability program get two times the rebates when they purchase qualifying water saving appliances. So the other thing that's an added benefit for

the water affordability program participants is if, we never want our customers to face termination or experience a termination, but if in fact it gets to that point, we will restore service and waive the reconnection fee. And that's one of the added benefits of being part of the water affordability program. I hope that's a mouthful, but I hope that answers your question.

James Jockle (02:56)
And, yeah, no,

in great detail. I love it. But why would you say a program like this is so important for Westchester residents? Perhaps you can share a local story or some statistics that helps really bring this issue to life.

Sophia Salis (03:13)
Sure. So we, as far as the statistic goes, we launched the program in, it was June, July timeframe in 2024. And, you know, just in a few short months between the launch of the program and the end of last year.

this program helped save over $200,000 for customers. And you your water bill typically out of other utility bills and you know, even factoring in other telecommunications, what we pay for our cell phones, tends to be one of the more affordable bills, but that's one of many bills we all get every month. so to the extent that we can help people manage that, it's important and it's needed and...

What we always try to keep in mind here at Veolia and our customer service team, every one of us, you may be cruising along in life and unexpectedly, you you get thrown a curve ball, you hit a speed bump, whatever the circumstance, whether it's personal, related to your family, an unexpected major expense, it throws you for a loop. So, you know, we just want to make sure that our customers know, reach out to us, call us. We'll find a way to help walk with you through

that downtime or whatever the struggle might be will help you navigate it. There's the water affordability program, but there's also other programs that we offer that can help people kind of break up their bill or any outstanding balance into more digestible pieces. So it's not overwhelming every month.

James Jockle (04:38)
What

kind of other programs?

Sophia Salis (04:40)
Sure, sure. So Jim, we have PromisePay. So I think about the Water Affordability Program as a program that can help you manage your bill moving forward. But if you, before you signed up for the Water Affordability Program or before you even knew about it, you accrued a large outstanding balance, overdue balance. PromisePay offers our customers an opportunity to kind of break it out into, so working with

with

Veolia, we can help our customers establish a payment plan where they can break it down into smaller amounts, like keep up with your current bill and then break up your outstanding balance into smaller monthly payments over a course of time. So we offer that to all of our customers. What's nice about our partnership with PromisePay is it extends that payment term for even longer. So say you have a large outstanding balance and Veolia

will offer you six months to 12 months to pay it back. You can pay it back over the course of two or even possibly three years when you work through PromisePay and there's no fee associated with signing up for PromisePay. And that, the information on PromisePay is also available on mywater.violia.us. And in addition to PromisePay, there's budget billing and there's also Violia Cares. Violia Cares is a program where we can provide customers a one-time grant to help them.

offset the cost of their outstanding water bill. And we'd like to believe that in combination, all of these programs working together can meet our customer where they're at, wherever they are.

James Jockle (06:14)
So

as we're getting into the dog days of summer, water conservation always comes up. I'm waiting for the local news to start talking about some sort of drought. What kind of water conservation tips do you have for everyday households?

Sophia Salis (06:28)
So I have to give a shout out to my colleague and friend, Shari Gold. Shari is the manager of the Eolia New York's conservation program. And I conferred with her before we got together, Jim, just to make sure that we captured the information that will best.

arm our customers to come into the summer months and save water at the same time. So the top five tips that Sherry shared, and some of these are very simple, but we take for granted. Like in the morning, some of my daughters, so I have a 16 year old son and a five year old daughter, my five year old with the teeth brushing, it's an experience, you know, but I always say, you know, there's water all over the floor everywhere. It's like, my goodness. you know, simple things like turning the water off when you're

James Jockle (07:04)
Tell me about it.

Sophia Salis (07:12)
brushing your teeth or you know when you're shaving like even just like when I'm in the kitchen washing washing dishes or whatever cleaning up don't just mindlessly let the water run run to the fridge go turn that tap off when it's not being used run dishwashers and washing machines with full loads

I do that. I wish I could find somebody in my household that would empty the dishwasher. I fill it up all the time it seems, but I never did. Identify another major savings is to just identify any leaks in your home and repair them as soon as possible. Believe it or not, and I didn't realize this until I started working at the water company, probably the biggest culprit of unknown water loss in a home is a toilet.

when the stopper goes, you can have your toilet running 24-7. And the amount of water that can waste over the day in and day out over the course of a week, a month, months at a time a year, it's just mind boggling. And actually I had them here. moved them to the, they're little tabs, little dye tabs. You just drop them in the tank of the toilet. And if you see the color show up in the bowl of the toilet, you know you have a leak. So whenever we get out into the community, we're always

standing out the dye tabs. So just check your toilet. Make sure it's not running unnecessarily. Again, turn off water when you're brushing your teeth. Think about the outside of your home. Think about it creatively. Native plants require less watering. Look for drought resistant plants. And install high efficiency water appliances.

and this time of year coming into the summer, smart irrigation systems. There are systems that connect to the weather forecast and will not overwater your lawn if there's rain in the forecast. It's really, know, Joe, I think the same thing. It's remarkable. The president of our company is so with tech. I just admire, he starts and stops everything from his cell phone. I'm kind of on the lag of, you know, I'm trying.

to keep up with it but I will say that it's really incredible how you can put smart technology to work for you and you know as it pertains to conservation those smart irrigation systems are incredible and can really help save a lot of water.

James Jockle (09:26)
mean, that actually seems useful. I think back to a year ago, we were in P.C. Richards, we were buying refrigerator and we're looking at this one model and the guy looks online and the same exact model was $1,000 less. We're going, what's the difference between the two? One had Wi-Fi. I'm like, why does my fridge need to talk to me? I don't understand it, but at least smart irrigation kind of, you know, that seems smart.

Sophia Salis (09:49)
Right.

I think my lawn would be very happy to have a smart irrigation system applied to it. I have to say, embarrassingly so, I am very conservation minded, whether consciously or not when it comes to my lawn. I let Mother Nature water my lawn. And you know what?

pretty well. They actually say that if you don't over mow your lawn and you don't over water it, you tend to kind of cultivate a hardier lawn because the roots just, by not over watering, you're forcing your roots to grow deeper. So inherently it's just hardier. That's what I'm told. So there are some benefits from being especially conservation minded as it pertains to your lawn. For me, it's more like I just forget to water.

James Jockle (10:32)
Well,

if that was controversial, I'm sure the comments on this are going to be outrageous and I don't want to be in your social media feed.

Sophia Salis (10:39)
no, well yeah, so we partner a lot with the Cornell Cooperative Extension and they have Master Gardener programs. So we do a lot of work with outreach to the community on xenoscaping and kind of smart, fun, creative landscaping things you can do to just kind of lessen the water demand for maintaining a nice lawn and a nice landscape around your home.

James Jockle (11:04)
That's good to know. So there is a rebate program in place. So what kind of products are eligible for this rebate program, and how easy is it to apply?

Sophia Salis (11:05)
Mm-hmm.

Sure, it's, so we, in a lot of the places you'd be buying your water saving appliances, there's look for signage. We have across our service territory and a lot of the shops that are selling appliances, signs that say, know, make sure to apply, know, take advantage of your viola rebate. There are, there are water sense, little like certificates.

stickers signage around a lot of the appliances that qualify. So really if you look for EPA WaterSense label, that will be a qualifier. EPA WaterSense certified shower heads and when you're looking at washing machines you want to make sure they're energy star. But you'll find the Veolia rebate signage in a lot of especially the larger like Home Depot's and Lowe's, PC Richards.

We have signage along the way to help steer customers to appliances that would qualify. And then you just visit conserve.veolia.us and you simply fill out the form, send us your receipt, and we'll process the rebate.

James Jockle (12:13)
Hmm. And you know, we've talked about a lot of different programs in terms of different ways you're engaging with the community. How is Veolia's approach compared with other utilities nationally? Is this something we hear in Westchester and Rockland could be like, yeah, we're the best.

Sophia Salis (12:28)
so I have to say first starting with our employees, we...

I'm very proud to be part of a team of people who truly are focused on giving our customers the best possible experience. There are times where we'll be responding to an unfortunate scenario where we to make a main repair or whatnot, but whatever the circumstances, found our employees are very responsive and very quick to go the extra mile to try to make sure that our customers have the information that they need and are provided with the service that they expect. So I think starting with our employees' commitment,

really are minded towards our customers being top priority. Safety is a top priority for us, the safety of our employees, safety of our customers, and the extent to which we partner in the community. We are your neighbors. The folks that work at Veolia live in the same service territory that you do. We're customers of Veolia as well.

We want to make sure that our neighbors are experiencing the time of the service we expect ourselves.

The community partnership for me also is what stands out. We're very much invested in our community. We want to be part of the community. Just last weekend we were at the Town of Rye's EcoFest at Crawford Park and we were really excited because it was their inaugural EcoFest and it perfectly fits with our focus on conservation. So Bailey, our mascot, was there and it was a beautiful day.

James Jockle (13:39)
you

Okay, who

is Bailey? Let's unpack that.

Sophia Salis (13:52)
Okay.

All right, so Bailey was on a little bit of a sabbatical. He's back. Bailey is Bailey the Beaver. is a water viola water New York's mascot. And he kind of we bring him out with us to a lot of our community events and he does a lot of good work helping our customers navigate, understanding how the water system works and the benefits of conservation. wherever we go, we always

have much more fun when Bailey comes with us. And Bailey was with us over at the EcoFest. We're hoping to get Bailey. We're looking forward to sponsoring the Spark the Sound Fireworks display at New Rochelle. That's July 4th at 930 at the Five Islands Park. So we're looking forward to sponsoring that. So wherever we can meet our customers where they're at and get out into the community and kind of spread word like you're helping us do is a wonderful

things. So I think the extent to which we're partnered up in our community, present in our community, and just our overall employees commitment to serving our community makes us, you know, I want to believe, you know, one of the best utility companies out there.

James Jockle (15:01)
As a part two to this, I'm going to have to interview Bailey.

Sophia Salis (15:04)
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I have to say

Bailey has quite an aggressive social calendar, but for you, Jim, I'm sure we can get Bailey to show up.

James Jockle (15:13)
So, know, Crawford Park, could throw a rock and hit Crawford Park from here. Soundtrack, how other ways are you getting the word out to communities? Are there other ways you're engaging?

Sophia Salis (15:24)
Sure, so I think we really lean on our municipal partnerships. Like the City of New Rochelle, Will, Kathy, you know, they're great. When we work with Stu over in Port Chester, I mean, our community partners help us get the word out to our customers. So...

We always want to make sure that we're keeping them updated on what we're working on so when they get calls from their constituents, they're prepared to answer, they have the information they need. So I really do think that our partnerships are key in helping us get word out to the community about all of our programs. Showing up at community events is essential. Less exciting, messages in your bill, bill inserts in your bill on our website.

Our website has tons of information. I always say our website's like an onion. You keep peeling those layers, you learn more and more and more. And there's a lot of information on every program we offer on our website. Mywater.veolia.us

And we try to advertise on all the stations out there, getting out to where people are. And if any customers have ideas for where we can be, we'd love to try to get there.

James Jockle (16:35)
Well, maybe in a year from now you should advertise right here. So one of the things that is fascinating to me about Westchester, especially, you know, me being here in Portchester is they are just leveling the town. Multi-family, multi-tenant buildings are going up. Are these programs accessible to all of these renters in Portchester, New Rochelle, White Plains, or Harrison, where you're seeing so much

Sophia Salis (16:37)
Yes, okay. Sounds good.

James Jockle (17:02)
infrastructure change.

Sophia Salis (17:03)
So if you have an account with Veolia, you may qualify for one of the programs. But when it comes to conservation, whether you are directly receiving the benefit as a customer,

or indirectly helping benefit your community at large through conservation. I want to believe that there's a place for everyone with our programs, whether or not you're paying a viola bill. I think a lot of what we try to share with the community is information and awareness that benefits us all. Because if you're consuming, which we all consume water, whether directly or indirectly paying the bill, the benefits will be felt as a community.

that when we're conserving water, we're not only conserving water, we're conserving the energy that's required to treat the water and all that goes into bringing it from the source to your tap. So water conservation is more than just conserving the water, it's conserving a lot of energy as well. So these are things to be mindful of and we really think that

What makes our community strong is the extent to which people are eager to learn and eager to be part of a society that's responsible when it comes to conserving resources and protecting the environment. So that's the bigger picture. For us, obviously, we're your local water company, but the big picture is just doing right by the environment. And whether or not you're a Veolia account holder, that's the right thing to do.

James Jockle (18:33)
Sophia, final question for you, and it could be breaking news. What's Bailey going to be for Halloween?

Sophia Salis (18:35)
Mm-hmm.

Well, so Bailey, Bailey's really good friends with the boulder bird. I don't know if you know this. The Rockland boulder bird. So I hear the two of them may, you know, switch places or, you know, just, I think Bailey might parade as a bird, the boulder bird might parade as a beaver, who knows? But it's sure to be fun. you know, your guess pretty much is as good as mine at this point. But that's a good question.

James Jockle (18:44)
The Rocklin? ⁓ boy.

Well, ⁓ I will

close on one bad beaver joke and say, damn.

Sophia Salis (19:09)
Jim, I love that. And can I just add one thing? I just want to make sure, or actually two, two thoughts very quickly. Talking about kind of what sets us apart, we're really proud to say that the customer service team that serves.

Westchester, our Westchester community is located in our Westchester community. I mentioned that our employees are your neighbors, they're Veolia customers too, but our team, we have a customer service lobby if you're running into any kind of issue and you feel like it's easier to work it out in person, we're located on Palmer Avenue in New Rochelle and you call us and you're connecting with a local Westchester customer service representative and that number is 1-877-266-

9101 and I mentioned that our website is just a font of information. There's so much to tap into on our website. When you go to our website, mywater.veolia.us, just make your first action entering your zip code because that will help make sure that you're connecting with your local information, everything about Westchester. So just mywater.veolia.us, plug in your zip code and connect with us.

James Jockle (20:16)
and I'll make sure all of that is in the show notes. So if you weren't writing down feverishly, you'll be sure to be able to get it. Sophia, I want to thank you so much for your time, your insight, your knowledge. I absolutely learned a lot.

Sophia Salis (20:23)
Thank you.

Thank you so much Jim for the opportunity. We look forward to visiting again.