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Wolves in Colorado?

August 29, 2016
Fall, water sewer management, water supplies, wildlife
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According to a recent article in the Estes Park News (July 29, 20156), there are wolves in Colorado.  This can only be a good thing for the ecosystem and maybe water quality as well (Elk are the cause of giardia in the park streams).  If you spend much time in the Rockies, one of the issues rangers will note if the overabundance of elk. Which because there are no natural predators, graze meadows too cleanly, and graze right down to the streams in the middle of those meadows.  The result is that the aspen trees that would otherwise grow along those streams never get a foothold.  The aspens are needed for beavers.  The scenario is exactly that discussed in Yellowstone 20 years ago after the wolves were reintroduced that.  People thought we hunted the beavers out of Yellowstone, and while trappers did not help the situation, the lack of wolves and overgrazing by elk was the final straw.  Once the wolves returned, so did the aspens and beavers.

Now if you have ever been around a large heard of elk, they are majestic creatures.  I really enjoy seeing them, watching the young ones frolic in the fields, and the herd slowly craze its way across a meadow.  Fall activities are also enjoyable as the males try to find willing females.  Good luck with that guys!  So the thought has been that until wolves return to Colorado, people would have to create the barriers to overgrazing.  So, for example, o in Rocky Mountain National Park you will see tall fences around streams in meadows designed to keep the elk away.

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Most state agencies will report that wolves have been absent from Colorado for over 120 years (1896).  Actually lately they are reporting no dens, or packs versus no wolves.  The Estes Park News explains why.  Despite the fact that wolves are still protected under the Endangered Species Act in Colorado,   several have been killed in the last 12 years in the state.  The first one was in 2004 in Idaho Springs on I70.  In 2007 video captured on in the northern part of the state.  In 2009 a radio collared wolf was found dead in Rifle, CO and in April 2015 a trail cam captured a photo of one.  In April 2015 a third wolf was killed, this time by a hunter who though it was a coyote.  Shades of the Grand Canyon wolf that was killed in Utah because the hunter thought it was a coyote.

So that’s 5 wolves, 3 of which were dead.  It seems incursion are coming in from Wyoming, but not yet established.  The state is making preparations to deal with returning wolf populations.  But while the news may be good for the ecosystem, the biggest barrier to wildlife enthusiasts seeing one may be hunters and ranchers, just like Wyoming.  So I have a couple thoughts – a wolf is a lot bigger than a coyote.  Think German shepard versus 20 lb beagle.  Surely hunters should be able to tell the difference.  If not, do we want them out there with a gun hunting?  Next if there are radio collars, it suggests that the animal is being tracked.  Not too many coyotes are being tracked.  So let’s assume all collared creatures are off limits to anyone hunting.  Maybe then we will be able to see a wolf in Colorado one day.  Wouldn’t that be exciting?

 

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Colorado – Summer 2016

August 26, 2016
Colorado, water quality, water supplies, wildlife
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We got back recently from a week in Colorado.  The state is really pretty dry although toward the end of the week there was some light rain and much cooler temperatures.  Like the upper 50s for a high!  Nice hiking weather.  Even with the increased humidity, so much better than the heat and humidity in south Florida.  But still dry, especially east of the Rockies.  The western side was a little better – lots of green under the tree canopy.    The park reports that temperatures have averages 3.6 degrees F higher over the past century.  That is a lot.  Beetles need really cold weather to die.  That obvious did not happen and the beetles did a number on pine trees form New Mexico into Canada.  West slope snow was average, but the snow seems to come later and the melt earlier.  Sound familiar?  Lots of discussion about impacts on certain wildlife.  But Rocky Mountain National Park is the origin fore many streams, including the Colorado River.  These waters need to be pristine, which is a great reason to have them in a National Park.  It makes you wonder why we do not have more watersheds protected as opposed to developed.

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The Costs of SLR and Rainfall

August 23, 2016
asset management, engineering, finance, florida, Holistic Water Planning, infrastructure, Leadership, local government, management, Risk, Risk Management, sea level rise, stormwater, surface waters, sustainability, utilities, Water Funding, water sewer management
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The reliability of the assets within the area of interest starts with the design process in the asset management plan. Decision-making dictates how the assets will be maintained and effective means to assure the maximum return on investments. Through condition assessment, the probability of failure can be estimated. Assets can also fail due to a growing area that may contribute to exceeding its maximum capacity. Operation and maintenance of the assets are important in reassuring a longer life span as well as getting the most out of the money to be spent. Prioritizing the assets by a defined system will allow for the community to see what areas are most susceptible to vulnerability/failure, which assets need the most attention due to their condition, and where the critical assets are located in relation to major public areas (hospitals, schools, etc.) with a high population.

So what happens when conditions change?  Let’s say sea levels are rising and your land is low.  What would the potential costs be to address this?  Better yet, what happens if it rains? We looked at one south Florida community and the flood stage for each based on 3 storm events: the 1:10 used by FDOT (Assumes 2.75 inches in 24 hours), the Florida Building Code event that includes a 5 in in one hour event (7 in in 24 hrs), and the 3 day 25 year event (9.5-11 inches).

Of no surprise is that the flooding increases as rainfall increases.  Subsequent runs assumed revisions based on sea level rise. The current condition, 1, 2 and 3 ft sea level rise scenarios were run at the 99 percentile groundwater and tidal dates and levels.  Tables 2-5 depict the flood stage results for each scenarios.  The final task was designed to involve the development of scenarios whereby a toolbox options are utilized to address flooding in the community.  Scenarios were to be developed to identify vulnerabilities and cost effectiveness as discussed previously.

The modeling results were then evaluated based of the accompanying infrastructure that is typically associated with same.  A summary of the timelines and expected risk reductions were noted in the tables associated with storm and SLR scenarios.  This task was to create the costs for the recommended improvements and a schedule for upgrading infrastructure will be developed in conjunction with staff.  Two issues arise.  First, the community needs to define which event they are planning to address and the timelines as the costs vary form an initial need of $30 million to over $300 million long-term.  Figure 1 shows how these costs rise with respect to time.  The long-term needs of $5 million per 100 acres matches with a prior effort in Palm Beach County.

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Figure 1  Summary of Costs over the 3 ft of potential sea level Rise by 2011, under the 3 storm planning concepts.

Business vs Public Models

August 19, 2016
asset management, civil engineering, economy, Education, engineering, finance, infrastructure, innovation, Leadership, local government, management, Marketing water, planning, politics, public relations, Responsibility, sustainability, Water Funding, water sewer management
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“Or is running a local government like s business killing it?”

I had an interesting conversation at a conference recently.  The people I was talking to were advanced in their careers and the discussion moved toward the outlook on management in public settings. Once upon a time, most public works and utility managers were civil engineers, but often they were criticized because they were focused on the engineering aspects as opposed to the people aspects of the community.  Their focus was public health and making sure things operated correctly.  Most did whatever was needed to accomplish that.

This led to schools of public administration, which actually started educating some of those same engineers about management of large public organizations, organizational theory, human resource, accounting and planning  I did all that myself at UNC-Chapel Hill.  The goal was to understand finances, people, community outreach, the need to engage citizens and as well as public service.  The outcomes were providing good service.  That however tends to cost a little more than operations although there are opportunities to be a bit entrepreneurial.

So back to the people in the conversation.  They noted that sometime in the 1980s or early 1990s the MPAs were being replaced by MBAs as politicians were focusing on operating “like a business.”  Looking at the MBAs out there, the comment was that business schools do not focus on service, but profits to shareholders, and the training is to cut unproductive pieces that detract from the bottom line.   Hence investments do not get made if the payback is not immediate.  Service is not a priority unless it helps the bottom line.  In a monopoly (like a local government), there are no other option, so service becomes a lessor priority.

So it brought up an interesting, but unanswerable question for now: has the move to more business trained people in government created some of the ills we see?  The discussion included the following questions/observations (summarized here):

  1. Many water and sewer utilities are putting a lot of time and effort into customer service and outreach now after years of criticism for failing to communicate with customers. That appears symptomatic of the monopoly business model.
  2. Our investments in infrastructure decreased significantly after 1980, and many business people focus on payback – so if the investment does not payback quickly, they do not pursue them. How does that impact infrastructure investments which rarely pay back quickly (Note that I have heard this argument from several utility directors with business backgrounds in very recent years, so the comments are not unfounded).  It does beg the questions of whether the business focus compounds our current infrastructure problems.
  3. Likewise maintenance often gets cut as budgets are matched to revenues as opposed to revenues matched to costs, another business principle. Run to failure is a business model, not a public sector model. Utilities can increase rates and we note that phones, cable television, and computer access have all increased in costs at a far faster rate that water and sewer utilities.

Interestingly though was the one business piece that was missing:  Marketing the value of the product (which is different than customer service).  Marketing water seems foreign to the business manager in the public sector.  The question arising there is whether that is a political pressure as opposed to a forgotten part of the education.

I would love to hear some thoughts…

 

4% Doesn’t Sound Like Much….

August 12, 2016
asset management, civil engineering, engineering, Environment, ethics, finance, infrastructure, Leadership, local government, management, planning, Responsibility, stormwater, Transportation, water sewer management
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The average is 4% of visible infrastructure is in poor condition.  Actually 4-6% depending on the municipality.  And this was visible infrastructure, not buried, but there is not particular reason to believe the below ground infrastructure is somehow far worse off.  Or better.   That 4-6% is infrastructure that needs to be fixed immediately, which means that as system  deteriorate, there is catch –up to do.  The good news is many of the visible problems were broken meter boxes, damaged valve boxes, broken curbs and broken cleanouts- minor appearing issues, but ones that likely require more ongoing maintenance that a water main.  And the appearance may be somewhat symptomatic – people perceive that the system is rundown, unreliable or poorly maintained when they see these problems.  It raises a “Tipping Point” type discussion.  “Tipping Points” Is a book written by Malcolm Gladwell that I read last year (great book – my wife found it in a book exchange for free in Estes Park last summer).  It was along a similar vein of thought as the Freakanomics books – the consequences of certain situations may be less clear than one thinks.  The Tipping point that is most relevant is crime in New York in the early 1990s after Bernard Goetz shot several assailants in the subway.  The problem was significant and the subways were thought to be among the higher risk areas.  The new police chief and Mayor decided that rather that ignore the petty crimes (like many large cities do), they would pursue those vigorously.  So fare hopping on the train and the like were challenged immediately.  They decided that no graffiti would be visible on the subways and cleaned cars every night to insure this remained the case.  Cars with graffiti were immediately removed from service.  New subway cars were ordered.  Pride and public confidence improved.  Crime dropped.  The impact of their efforts was that people recognized that criminal behavior would not be tolerated and fairly quickly criminal activity decreased.  It was a big success story, but the underlying reasons were less discussed, but easily transferrable to our infrastructure.  If we have broken valve boxes, meters, cleanouts, storm drains etc., the same perceptions of a rundown community rise.  Rundown communities lead to a loss of public confidence and trust and pride.   And none of those help our mission or our efforts to increase infrastructure spending.  4% might not look like much, but it can drastically change the perception of the community.  So let’s start to fix those easy things; and document that we did in our asset management programs.

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21st Century Mapping

August 3, 2016
asset management, Education, engineering, infrastructure, innovation, Leadership, management, planning, power, Risk Management, stormwater, Transportation, water sewer management
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How many utilities have a 3D map of their infrastructure?  Not many I bet.  But FAU does.  Here is a recently completed project we did with students and the Facilities Maintenance staff at FAU (costs involved).  They needed better mapping and will tie this to their work order system.  It was an excellent opportunity for two groups within one organization that otherwise seem to have little in common wot work toward a great project.  We will be inputting this data into an online asset management system this summer along with some data for Dania Beach so they will have a portion of their utility system in 3D also.  This is part of a tiny project we did for their downtown area.

GIS is a powerful tool and one utilities should embrace wholeheartedly.  There is so much more than mapping to do.  Data gathering in critical, but with Leica and Trimble units, a lot of data can be gathered easily.  LiDAR can be expensive, but the value is tremendous.  You can see that the FAU system is laid on a 3D LiDAR topographic map (6 in vertical accuracy).  Asset condition assessments were also done concurrently, which adds a lot of information to the system (all assets were also photographed and linked).  Drawing files can be downloaded and extruded from 2D to 3D. Engineers know GIS or can learn it, which makes a fully expanded GIS system for the utility easy to derive if the time is spent.  This is a valuable tool when linked to work orders and asset management programs.

So is your utility in 3D?  Capture

 

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