Christopher Franklin: Yes. To some extent, you’re right. Although I’ll give Dan – Dan has been purchasing them and the procurement is under Dan’s purview of the company, given a lot of credit, they’ve already been out there in the market, negotiating some of these things. So maybe, Dan, do you want to talk a little bit about some of our success there?
Daniel Schuller: Yes. So we think about this, there are a couple of different scales here. So we’ve got small systems in states like North Carolina and in areas like Western Pennsylvania, where we’ve got relatively small things we’re going to put in, think throughput diameter canisters, we would look to buy those in math across the need there, which is as Chris said, we’ve got hundreds of these to do. You’ve got two tanks per installation, you have two vessels. So it is a lot of vessels, Ryan, as we think about it. So we will go out with bids that are for packages of those, if you will, not all at once obviously, but with enough volume to drive volume-based discounts, buying a lot of the same size vessels with multiple suppliers.
Now two is something that’s been discussed in the space is for those things that are funded by the federal government in some way, we’re getting a grant or a loan, we have to use American-made products – look we don’t have to use that everywhere. And I think the municipal and restaurant utilities, we all realize that they’ve got to go a little more broadly in terms of finding supply here. And to hold price down, we need to go to offshore manufacturers of these types of vessels that will do that. So I think we’ve got those small vessels, we’ve got larger vessels, I think kind of 12-foot diameter. Again, these are things that are fairly standard. There are multiple manufacturers of those. We’ll look for multiple bids and go with the best price.
I mean that’s really our objective here is to always put in the appropriate equipment at the appropriate price for the protection of our customers.
Christopher Franklin: Yes, capitalize on our economies of scale and be a big player in the purchases. And I do think, Ryan, we’re so much susceptible would be on the resin or on the carbon because it’s going to be ongoing purchases. But we’re hopeful that we can negotiate fair pricing.
Ryan Connors: Yes. Okay. No, I appreciate all the detail there. My other one was, Chris, you mentioned – so as this reform process plays out for Act 12, you mentioned that potential sellers have been kind of standing still. And I’m a little surprised, and I’m curious why it wouldn’t be the opposite. Why if I’m a city and I feel like there’s going to be a cap put on valuations, why I wouldn’t be rushing to sort of get my APA signed before that happens? Because presumably, there’ll be some grandfathering in of deals that have been signed. So can you discuss like why is that not the case? Why is there not sort of a rush to get things done and then sit on your hands and wait for a cap to be put in from a seller standpoint, doesn’t seem to make sense.
Christopher Franklin: I think the reality is, even if there’s a grandfathering that’s, as you know, part of the language that’s out there, just the base reality is here. These things are ending up in court. And so even if its grandfather and the commission was okay with it and the consumer advocate then challenges it, as they have in some cases for us and some of our peers, we end up in tie-up in court. And we want – I think we’re tired of it. Investors are tired up. We want to get deals that we can transact can actually to close. And so, that’s the important work with the (c) motion. And it’s the clarity of how do we get to close, what is affirmative public benefit, and what’s not challengeable in court. And I just think that municipals look at it, and we do too, at this point.
If we think that even if they’re grandfathered, probably they’re going to end up – tied up in court and then appealed to court and everything else, we can take a little bit of a wait-and-see attitude.
Ryan Connors: Yes. No, that’s a great point. It makes total sense when you put it that way. Yes. And then lastly, just on the PFAS thing, I remember you talked about treatment or testing rather and the fact that that’s not all these systems have been tested I remember visiting the Bryn Mawr, the brand-new Bryn Mawr kind of labs when it was constructed, I guess, a few years ago. And one of the things that Huwar talked about was how that facility can do testing for not only for our own stuff but for municipalities and so forth. I mean, is that going to be a commercial opportunity that would be meaningful if a lot of these systems just have to get samples tested? Or is that just kind of immaterial?
Christopher Franklin: Yes. I mean, you raised a very good point. We are still the only state-certified utility lab that PFAS in the State of Pennsylvania now. So there is opportunity there. Now – having said that, we want to get ourselves situated where we are in a position that we’re in full compliance within the five year period. So there’s substantial testing running through their lab before we would add another called shift, we would want to exploit opportunity a little bit. But I’m not saying that we’re not, Ryan. I’m just saying that at this point, we’re really focused on full compliance at Essential Utilities and then we’ll look for opportunities beyond. But you’re thinking about it the right way.
Ryan Connors: Yes. Okay. Thanks for your time.
Daniel Schuller: All right. Take care.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] We’ll now move to Gregg Orrill calling from UBS. Please go ahead, sir.
Christopher Franklin: Hi, Gregg.
Gregg Orrill: Yes, hi. Thank you. Hi, do you have anything to report on the DELCORA purchase agreement?
Christopher Franklin: Gregg, we couldn’t go on one call without the DELCORA question. But yes, we – I guess one bit of good news, I guess you can position it a good news. So we were due to be in court on May 8th to – and this was in a commonwealth of State Court. And then we’re going to hear the argument from the county, which essentially is appealing the decision of the lower County Court that said that the asset purchase agreement is valid and enforceable. And so, that oral argument was canceled, and the judges said that they were going to make the decision based on final briefs. Now typically, that’s good news. We won’t know until the decision is out. But I think the aspect of timing actually is probably helpful here too because as we’re told, often the Judge’s decision comes a little bit more quickly when they’re not digesting oral arguments and they’re just focused on the briefs that have already been filed because obviously, they’ve read them already.
