Debate kit Grade 10 Social Studies & Civics
Should Pellrick's Wells Join the Hallowmere Regional Authority?
A grade 10 debate kit on a state bill that would merge a fictional village's troubled water system into a larger regional authority, with two-sided evidence.
Objectives
- Students will explain why the cost of treatment falls harder on a system with few customers.
- Students will argue for or against mandatory consolidation using named evidence from both sides of the file.
- Students will evaluate a shared services agreement as an alternative to a forced transfer of ownership.
Vocabulary
Key words: consolidation, regional water authority, economies of scale, health-based violation, local control, shared services agreement, certified operator
Teacher overview
This kit runs as a simulated state legislative hearing across two class periods. One team argues for a bill that would require small water systems with repeated violations to merge with a larger neighbor, one team argues against it, and a panel of student legislators questions both sides before voting. The resolution is genuinely contested, because the village at the center of the hearing cannot pay for the treatment its own water needs, while the merger would end a water board its residents have elected for generations. Plan for one misconception that comes up often: students assume a small local system must be safer because it is close to home and easy to watch, when in practice the smallest systems have the hardest time meeting drinking water standards, since the cost of treatment, laboratory testing, and licensed staffing is spread across very few customers.
Resolution & Background
Resolution: "The state should require small community water systems with repeated health-based violations to consolidate with a larger neighboring utility."
Background: Pellrick is a fictional village of about 1,900 people with roughly 700 water customers. Its system is two wells, a small chlorination building, and equipment that blends water from the two wells to hold nitrate down. Over the past five years, Pellrick has exceeded the federal nitrate limit twice and has missed a required monitoring deadline once. The village engineer says a treatment building that would end the nitrate problem for good would cost about $2.4 million, which is far more than the roughly $310,000 the village collects from water bills in a year. The village also has one part-time certified operator, and he retires in two years. The job has been advertised twice with no licensed applicant.
The Hallowmere Regional Water Authority, also fictional, serves about 46,000 people in five towns from a river plant with certified operators on every shift. Under the proposed bill, Pellrick's wells and pipes would transfer to the authority. The elected Pellrick water board would dissolve, and the village would receive one appointed seat on the authority's nine-member board. Pellrick households now pay about $38 a month. The authority charges every customer the same rate, about $52 a month, while the village engineer estimates that paying for the new treatment building alone would push a Pellrick bill to about $61.
Roles: The affirmative team argues for the bill and speaks as the bill's sponsor and the authority's general manager. The negative team argues against it and speaks as the Pellrick board president and a village ratepayer group. Five students serve as the legislative panel, and one student keeps time. Each team gives a four-minute opening, answers six minutes of panel questions, delivers a three-minute rebuttal, and closes in two minutes. The panel then deliberates aloud using the rubric and votes.
Evidence File
Case for requiring consolidation:
- Pellrick has exceeded the federal nitrate limit twice in five years and missed a monitoring deadline, while the authority has met standards throughout the same period. Consolidation puts every Pellrick household behind a plant with certified operators on every shift. (Source: the compliance record written for this fictional scenario.)
- The same $2.4 million treatment cost spread across about 700 village customers is far heavier per household than the same work spread across the authority's much larger customer base, which is why the authority can offer Pellrick a $52 bill while the village's own path leads to about $61. (Source: village engineer's estimate in this kit's scenario.)
- Staffing is a statewide problem rather than a Pellrick failure. Roughly one-third of the water workforce becomes retirement-eligible within the next decade, and about 10,000 operator openings are projected each year, on average, from 2025 to 2035, all of them to replace operators who retire or move to other work. A one-operator village competes for those workers against employers who can offer full-time hours, benefits, and a path to a higher license class. (Sources: EPA America's Water Sector Workforce Initiative; BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook.)
- Small systems are a large part of the national repair problem, and the ASCE 2025 Infrastructure Report Card graded US drinking water a C-. In this fictional scenario, the authority already qualifies for state loans that require an asset inventory and a certified capital plan, neither of which Pellrick has produced. (Source: ASCE 2025 Report Card; loan eligibility is part of the scenario.)
Case against requiring consolidation:
- Pellrick voters now elect the board that sets their water rates. After a transfer they would hold one appointed seat out of nine, on a board where the largest member town holds four. On any vote about rates or about which pipes get replaced first, Pellrick could be outvoted every time. (Source: the fictional board structure described in the background.)
- A uniform rate raises the typical Pellrick bill from about $38 to about $52 on the day of transfer, before any new pipe is laid in the village. A widely used rule of thumb, built from two EPA benchmarks, treats combined water and sewer costs above roughly 4.5 percent of household income as a high burden, and in this fictional scenario the village's median household income sits below the authority's service-area average. (Source: EPA affordability benchmarks and 2024 Water Affordability Needs Assessment; the income comparison is part of the scenario.)
- A middle path already exists. Under a shared services agreement, the authority would operate and maintain the wells under contract while the village kept ownership and its elected board. A fictional village attorney testifies that this arrangement solves the staffing problem, can be renegotiated, and can be ended if service declines. (Illustrative testimony created for this debate.)
- The bill applies statewide and triggers on violations alone, so a system already correcting its problems could be swept in. A fictional statewide association of small water districts argues that the state should first fund treatment grants for small systems, and reserve consolidation for systems that ask for it or that refuse to fix violations. (Illustrative testimony created for this debate.)
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Rubric
| Criterion | Emerging | Developing | Proficient | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evidence use | States a position with no evidence from the file | Cites one item from the file without explaining its relevance | Cites at least two items and explains how each supports the team's position | Cites several items, explains each, and separates documented sources from the scenario's illustrative testimony |
| Rebuttal quality | Does not answer the other team's points | Answers one point without new evidence | Answers a specific opposing point using a named item from the file | Answers several opposing points and explains why this team's evidence should carry more weight with the panel |
| Response to panel questions | Cannot answer, or restates the opening speech | Answers partly, then drifts from the question asked | Answers the question directly and ties the answer to the resolution | Answers directly, concedes what the evidence does not settle, and returns to the team's strongest ground |
| Organization and delivery | Argument is hard to follow and runs past time | Structure is present but transitions are unclear | Argument follows a clear claim, evidence, and conclusion order within time | Argument is tightly organized, delivered clearly, and shaped around what the panel must decide |
Differentiation
Support
Give these students a one-page card for their side listing the two strongest points in plain language, with the fictional dollar figures already matched to the households they affect. Provide rebuttal sentence starters, such as "The other team says ___, but our evidence shows ___." Allow them to read the opening from a written script, or to serve as questioners on the panel rather than as speakers.
Extension
Ask a pair of students to draft an amendment to the fictional bill that keeps the consolidation requirement but answers one objection from the negative case, such as guaranteeing the village a seat with veto power over rate changes for ten years. The pair presents the amendment after the vote, and the panel votes a second time.
ELL supports
Pre-teach consolidation, health-based violation, certified operator, local control, and shared services agreement with short definitions and a simple diagram showing two wells and a small building on one side and a river plant serving five towns on the other. Allow students to give testimony from written notes, and hand the panel's questions to both teams in writing before the hearing so students can prepare answers.
Extensions
Students can compare the fictional bill with the real rules in their own state by looking up how their state drinking water program handles systems with repeated violations, then writing a short memo on whether the state already has a consolidation tool. A second option is a follow-up hearing on the shared services agreement alone, in which the same teams argue whether a contract that leaves ownership with the village would satisfy the state.