After 25 years of helping people manage water use and paying their monthly water bills, Pennsylvania American Water says its Help to Others Program (H2O) is ready to take on another 25 years.

The company launched H2O in 1991, and in the years since it has provided more than $3.8 million in assistance to disadvantaged families across Pennsylvania, helping more than 17,000 households with free water-saving devices, conservation advice and plumbing repairs.

In Butler County the program has helped about 250 households in the last decade, said Pat Lovelace, program coordinator. Three different types of assistance are offered: hardship grants, monthly service charge discounts and conservation measures and water use education.

The program is based on financial eligibility, which begins at 200 percent of the federal poverty level for those receiving hardship grants and 150 percent of the federal poverty level for people receiving service charge discounts or education and conservation measures.

Lovelace said that the conservation and education arms of the programs often prove to be its most popular aspects. The program provides devices like high efficiency showerheads, faucet aerators, and water displacement bags for toilets.

The hardware often cuts water use dramatically, Lovelace said. For example, some showerheads use as much as seven gallons of water per minute, while a high-efficiency showerhead through H2O uses around 2½ gallons per minute. For toilets the savings can be even greater: older models can use up to 7 gallons of water per flush, while newer models use as little as 1.2 gallons.

Gary Lobaugh, a Pennsylvania American Water spokesman, called efficiency a top concern for many families, whose water bills are rising faster than their ability to pay them.

“Water affordability is an increasingly important issue to low-income customers,” Lobaugh said. “In many parts of the country, water rates are rising faster than the rate of inflation, and the need to shield low-income customers from (the disparity) is growing.”

And while other public utility companies, such as natural gas and electricity providers, have been required to provide assistance programs since the 1990s, water companies haven’t been forced to do the same.

“It’s pretty much just our program,” Lovelace said. “We’re the only assistance out there.”

Jody Robertson, director of communications for Dollar Energy, a nonprofit organization that administers the H2O program, said the program has pumped more than $72,000 in grants and other water service assistance into Butler County homes. Most of it goes to single-parent homes, as well as elderly or disabled residents living on fixed incomes.

“A lot of our working families, some are even working two jobs and are still eligible for the program,” Lovelace said.

For more information on the program people can visit Dollar Energy Fund online at www.dollarenergy.org, or speak with a Pennsylvania American Water customer service representative.