Debate kit Grade 9 Social Studies & Civics
Should Ryehill Sell Treated Water to Neighboring Pentrewick?
A grade 9 debate kit on a fictional twenty-year wholesale water contract, weighing revenue and spare plant capacity against a town's own future supply.
Objectives
- Students will argue a contract decision using evidence supplied in a shared file.
- Students will explain how selling spare capacity changes what a town can do later.
- Students will distinguish a documented national figure from a detail invented for the scenario.
Vocabulary
Key words: wholesale, safe yield, spare capacity, fixed cost, transmission main
Teacher overview
Towns often sell water to one another, and the contracts they sign can outlast the councils that approve them. This kit runs as a two-team debate before a five-member council that must vote and give reasons. The question is genuinely contested, because keeping spare treatment capacity costs money every year, while selling it can leave the town short of supply later, and the two costs land on different generations of the same town. The evidence file separates documented national figures from details invented for the fictional towns.
Resolution & Background
Resolution: Resolved, that the town of Ryehill should sign a twenty-year contract to sell treated water to the town of Pentrewick.
Ryehill and Pentrewick are fictional towns, written for this debate. Every figure naming them is invented for the scenario. Figures attributed to a public source are real, and the source is named.
Ryehill has 9,200 residents and its own reservoir and treatment plant. The plant is rated for 4.0 MGD, which means four million gallons a day. Since the town's textile mill closed, average demand has fallen to about 1.7 MGD. The plant's costs did not fall with it, because most of the cost of running a plant does not depend on how much water goes through it.
Pentrewick lies about six miles east and has 6,800 residents. It is growing. Its three wells are failing, and the state has ordered the town to find a new source by 2031.
Pentrewick has proposed a contract. Ryehill would sell up to 0.9 MGD for twenty years. Pentrewick would pay for the 5.6 miles of transmission main and would pay Ryehill about $1,150,000 a year, which is roughly 18 percent of what the Ryehill utility now collects. Ryehill's own customers would keep first call on the supply during a declared shortage.
A study commissioned by the fictional Ryehill utility found one more thing. If Ryehill's own demand grows as projected and the contract runs at its full amount, the reservoir's safe yield would be reached in about 25 years, which is five years after the contract ends.
Roles are assigned as follows. Two teams of four argue the resolution. Five students sit as the Ryehill council and vote at the end, each giving one sentence of reasoning. One student keeps time and reads the order aloud.
The order is fixed. Each team gives a four-minute opening. Each team asks the other three minutes of questions. Each team gives a three-minute rebuttal. The council asks six minutes of questions. Each team closes for two minutes. The council votes on the record.
Evidence File
Points marked as national figures come from the named public source. Points marked as scenario details are invented for the fictional towns.
Case for signing the contract
- Scenario detail: the fictional plant is rated for 4.0 MGD and treats about 1.7 MGD. Ryehill residents already pay for capacity nobody uses.
- Scenario detail: the contract would bring about $1,150,000 a year, roughly 18 percent of utility revenue, which the fictional utility could put into replacing mains without a rate increase.
- National figure, Bluefield Research and industry rate surveys: combined US water and sewer bills rose about 24 percent from 2019 to 2024 and about 5.1 percent in 2025, faster than inflation. Wholesale revenue is one of the few tools a small town has to slow that.
- National figure, EPA Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and Assessment: about $625 billion is needed nationally over 20 years, and distribution pipes are about two-thirds of it. Building a second plant in Pentrewick spends money on treatment the region already has.
- Scenario detail: the fictional contract lets Ryehill cut deliveries during a declared shortage. The town keeps first call on its own water.
- Scenario detail: Pentrewick pays for all 5.6 miles of transmission main. Ryehill gains a connection it could use in an emergency at no capital cost.
Case against signing the contract
- Scenario detail: the fictional safe yield study puts the reservoir at its limit in about 25 years if the contract runs full. That is only five years after the contract ends, so by the time the contract expires the town would have little margin left for its own growth.
- Scenario detail: once Pentrewick's homes and businesses depend on the line, ending the sale becomes a political and legal fight. A contract that can be cancelled on paper is rarely cancelled in practice.
- Scenario detail: Ryehill residents do not vote for the Pentrewick council. The growth that drives demand would be approved by people they cannot hold accountable.
- Scenario detail: 18 percent of revenue from a single customer is a risk of its own. If the contract ends or is renegotiated, the fictional utility faces a sudden rate increase.
- National figure, ASCE 2025 Report Card for America's Infrastructure: US drinking water was graded C- and wastewater D+. Ryehill's own system needs work too, and capacity sold is capacity not held for its own growth.
- Scenario detail: in a dry summer Ryehill households could face watering restrictions while a neighboring town, buying under contract, keeps its new subdivisions green. That is a burden the council would have to defend.
Each team must use at least two national figures and at least two scenario details. Teams may not introduce outside numbers.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Rubric
| Criterion | 1, Emerging | 2, Developing | 3, Proficient | 4, Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Use of evidence | Argues from opinion with no points from the file. | Cites one or two points and names sources inconsistently. | Cites at least four points, names each source, and uses both national figures and scenario details. | Cites the required points and explains why a national figure does or does not settle the fictional case. |
| Reasoning about the future | Treats the decision as a question about this year only. | Mentions the twenty-year term without using it. | Connects the contract term to the safe yield finding or to the revenue risk. | Connects both, and states which council, present or future, would bear the consequence. |
| Distinguishing fact from scenario | Treats invented figures as documented facts. | Mixes the two and corrects it only when challenged. | Labels every point correctly as a national figure or a scenario detail. | Labels every point correctly and turns an opponent's mislabeling into an argument. |
| Rebuttal and delivery | Repeats the opening and runs over time. | Answers the weakest opposing point, keeps time with reminders. | Answers the strongest opposing point and keeps time. | Answers the strongest point, concedes what is true in it, and adjusts under council questioning. |
Council members are scored on the second and third criteria (Reasoning about the future and Distinguishing fact from scenario), using the reasoning sentence each gives with the vote.
Differentiation
Support
Give students one evidence card per point, with the source printed and a blank line for a one-sentence explanation of why the point matters to the fictional town. Assign these students the opening speech, which can be written out in advance, rather than the rebuttal.
Extension
Ask students to write the four conditions they would attach to the fictional contract, such as a shortage clause, a term shorter than twenty years, a price that rises with cost, or a right to review at year ten. Students then identify which condition Pentrewick would refuse first and explain why.
ELL supports
Pre-teach "wholesale," "spare capacity," "safe yield," and "transmission main" with a labeled sketch showing the fictional reservoir, the plant, the 5.6 miles of transmission main, and the two towns. Provide sentence frames: "Our strongest point is ___, from ___," "They argue ___, but ___," and "I vote ___ because ___."
Extensions
Students find out whether their own water system buys water from or sells water to a neighboring system, using only the utility's published annual water quality report, and write a paragraph naming the partner and what the report says about the arrangement. A second option is to write the two-page staff report the fictional Ryehill town manager would send to the council after the debate, recommending a decision with conditions attached.