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Defining Leadership – Who are leaders, and who is not?

January 6, 2013
communciations, Environment, finance, Leadership, management, Uncategorized, water sewer management
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One of the conundrums with leadership is actually trying to define what it is.  An analogy is ethics.  We know when we don’t see it.  The reverse is a little more of a challenge.  But trying to define ethics is quite a challenge.

I teach a class on ethics to professional engineers and to undergraduate students.  One of the more interesting exercises is trying to define ethical behavior.  Ethics is an issue that comes up on an ongoing basis, affecting politicians, engineers, consultants, and utility staff members.  But what are ethics?  To answer this question, or begin to, we can turn to philosophy to attempt to define ethics.  A cursory review indicates three potential definitions of ethical people:

  • A set of values and lives by them.
  • Any set of values which are shared by a group of people.
  • A set of values that are universally accepted.

Let’s take a look at each of these.  First is a person with a set of values and lives by them.  What do we make of this definition?  Do we accept it?  Or a person like this?  The first definition is pretty easy to explain away.  Few people buy into this as an ethical person because the values can vary and may include individuals with individual sets of ideals (Robin Hood) or people with frequently unaccepted behaviors (anti-social, etc.).

So obviously, a person with any set of values which are shared by a group of people set of values and lives by them must be better.  What do we make of this definition?  Do we accept it?  Or a person like this?  Seems ok.  These people share many of the same beliefs and conform to an accepted set of “rules” and acceptable behavior.  Engineers are among the groups with common values.  But alas, this definition is also pretty easy to explain away.  Few people buy into this as an ethical person because the values can vary and may include individuals with individual sets of ideals. Suggestions brought up by class members were:  cult members, terrorists, certain political regimes. etc.

So obviously, a person with a set of values that are universally accepted must be perfect? What do we make of this definition?  Do we accept it?  Or a person like this?  Name one example of a universally accepted value.  There are times when killing is ok.  Honesty sounds great, but honesty isn’t when it hurts someone deeply.  So actually none of these definitions is useful.

Another tactic is to look at professions to see if there are commonalities among our perception of ethical and unethical professions (ignoring whether or not the perception reflects reality or not).  There are some common examples that come up (sorry car salesmen, mechanics, lawyers and politicians).  The commonality with the professions perceived to be unethical is money – they perform a service for someone specific and expect to be paid for it.  There is limited quality control.

On the other hand, those professions viewed as ethical by most are things like public safety, education and technical people.  Generally speaking the perception is that these people serve the public.  There is a clear delineation in people’s minds about professions, money and public service that shape their view about ethics.  That makes it a lot easier to see who is and who is not ethical.

Ethics provides an analogy for leadership.  It is hard to define leadership, because it comes in many forms and is often specific to the approach to a situation.  A quarterback who is a great leader of the field, might not be the best choice to leader the reorganization of a major corporation.  Both positions require leadership, but the skill sets required for the positions is situational.  Because we cannot define the skill set for every situation, we tend to look at examples of people who are leaders or who have exhibited leadership in the past and try to draw from their experience, what made them a leader.

A problem is that we often don’t recognize leadership at the time it is occurring. It is so much easier to identify people who are not exhibiting good leadership, or who’s idea of leadership clearly is self-serving or narrowly focused; people will not follow these types of people for long because there is no shared benefit.  A person is not a leader if they do not display a consistent vision of where they want to take the organization. Changing direction constantly disrupts the efficient flow of work efforts and frustrates followers/employees.  People who do not add value to the organization, can only ”lead” by coercion, which is the antithesis of leadership.  Leadership requires no coercion.  We often come across people who cannot communicate their ideas clearly, another hallmark of a leadership failure. If people do not follow, the leader is failing to lead.

So perhaps, like ethics, we can find leadership by looking at the opposite of what we view as the failure to lead.  That means leaders should be able to communicate clearly, their vision.  And they need that vision or direction that people buy into.  We can evaluate leadership by those who follow, and their willingness to follow.  Leaders must bring value to the organization, as well as skills and knowledge.  Because leaders tend to know their limitations, they will bring in people to fill those gaps.  That means leaders will hire the best people they can, without worrying about whether they are vying for some future position. Leaders have confidence in their abilities, and strive to make everyone better in the organization.  Keep in mind, if you set someone up to fail, they will.  It is a failure of management and leadership to put people in the position to fail.  When provided a challenge, it is how the leader attacks it, and how they marshal resources to succeed.  As a result, leaders may exist at every level of the organization.  The challenge is seeking them out, and putting them in position to succeed.

If all this sound vaguely like football or the battlefield, well it should.  In the NFL, the skill sets are similar, it is the mental aspects, the vision, the ability to work together, the willingness to do the little things that do not always get noticed, and the ability to cover someone’s weaknesses by exploiting your strengths that wins football games.  You need talent, but you need leadership to be successful.  The teams with lots of great players that never win are legion.  Teams change coaches, and players, trying to find that tri9ght mix.  When the team finds the mix, success follows.  Lincoln found this during the Civil War.  He spent time with the troops.  He communicated his vision to them, expressed his appreciation for their efforts, supported them and they were enthusiastic supporters.  HIs generals, well another matter.  So Lincoln kept changing generals until he found Grant who would fight and end the war, his vision of the end game – to win.

Now the question is where are our water leaders.  Who are they and what is their vision…

Leadership Part 3 Examples?

December 24, 2012
Climate, Environment, finance, funding, infrastructure, Leadership, management, Marketing water, planning, sustainability, Uncategorized, water sewer management, water supplies
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Leadership Part 3

One of the themes in the prior two posts on leadership was that leaders are defined by a vision, the people who follow the leader and the ability to market the vision.  We often fail on the marketing end, especially in dealing with water and sewer infrastructure issues.  We know the infrastructure is in poor condition and that billions, perhaps trillions are needed to upgrade the system to serve our needs.  But pipes are hidden and parks are far more glamorous, so guess what gets funded?  At least until a failure occurs.

I teach an elected officials class for water/wastewater issues.  The all acknowledge that a failure o f the utility system is a huge issue and the electorate and elected officials are often looking for “the cause” or someone who is responsible.  In other words, someone to fire.  It is every utility director’s nightmare, and a nightmare for many elected officials as well.  Yet a 4 hour outage in a year is a 99.96% success rate.  My students would be raising hell with the dean and president if I failed them for only 99.96% correct answers.  And rightly so.  Why are utilities any different?  Public health sure, but the systems can fail, and the condition that many are in warrants far more attention to potential to fail unless we can market to the public the need to invest.  Yet how many city managers, elected officials and finance director acknowledge any accountability for failures?  The investigation into the Walkerton Ontario failure indicated that the employees who falsified records, the governing body, the water advisory body and other officials all the way to the province had culpability in the failure of the system that made half the town sick and killed a number of residents.  Utility folks need to market the need to protect public health better, to make the public understand.

Marketing is a difficult skill set.  I can tell you sales in not one of my skills.  Common among engineers who tend to be more technical in nature, letting the data guide us.  Even so, we have successes.  Think about the City of Los Angeles.  The only reason large numbers of people can live in LA is the aqueducts that were started back in 1900s by William Mulholland under the guidance of Mayor Fred Eaton.  The vision was to grow LA but the limitation was water supplies.  The aqueducts sparked water wars (think Chinatown, the movie), and developed through the 1930s.  Hetch Hetchy, over 100 miles east, was established as San Francisco’s water supply back in 1913 as well.  The reservoir system continues to supply San Francisco today.  Denver Water acquired and/or constructed reservoirs and tunnels to the west side of the Rockies for water supplies prior to 1940, realizing that sustained growth in the Denver area was not available east of the Rockies. .  Pinellas County and Orange County California started projects to reuse treated wastewater for irrigation of private yards, and aquifer recharge in the 1970s to sustain their supplies.  Sustainability of water supplies, management of water sources including wastewater and stormwater as a part of an integrated program and sustaining the financial and infrastructure condition of the utility are the long-term priorities.  We need to find those visionary projects and people today.

So here’s the assignment.  Let’s find where those leaders are today, and identify what makes them a leader.

Leadership Part 2

December 20, 2012
Climate, communciations, Environment, finance, funding, infrastructure, Leadership, management, Marketing water, planning, sea level rise, stormwater, sustainability, Uncategorized, water sewer management, water supplies
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Among the many things I do is work with college seniors as they get ready to graduate and hit the job market.  The changes you use in many of these students over that last year in school is often significant, and in some cases remarkable.  Different students grow differently and the potential starts to appear.  Some gain confidence in their skills and begin to grow into the profession.  Some of these students are likely to make good leaders in the field in the future.  But trying to guess which ones and why it is often a challenge.  However I want them all to have some concept of what leadership is all about.  For many of them, they will end up in the water/wastewater/stormwater field.  They are going to have to deal with tough issues like rebuilding deteriorating infrastructure, sea level rise, climate changes, stressed water supplies, energy demands and a more demanding electorate.  They will recommend increasing water and wastewater fees.  But will they have the skills to encourage decision-makers to move forward with the needs of the system.  You see, that’s where leadership comes into play.  Often it is little things that set things into motion.  Our engineers go into the world with a technical skills et, that ability to learn to solve problems with solutions.  We try to encourage them to be creative.  An assigned reading is “The Cult of the Mouse” by Henry Caroselli, who urges creativity above profits in the workplace.  Mr. Caroselli is right in that it is creativity that allows us to come up with innovative solutions, the ones that change how we live.  It is also where the patents and economic opportunities exist.  America rose to greatness in the 20th century in large part because of automobiles – we figured that out and it made some many things possible.  Computers became common place in the latter part of the century.  We use the technology for both in the water/wastewater/stormwater industry.  In fact they have made us so much more efficient that costs have not climbed as fast as they might have, which is why cable tv is normally more expensive than your water bill.  Which one do you need to live?  My hope is that today’s students figure out energy solutions that will carry us forward as a world leader in the 21st century.  Those alternative energy options, greater efficiency of current technology.  Each will allow the utility industry to improve it’s efficiency further.  The City of Dania Beach built the world’s first LEED Gold water plant.  That took a little vision on the part of the utility director Dominic Orlando.  And a cooperative team of consultants and students.  When we give these projects to young people we can be surprised because they often don’t know that “that’s not the way we do it.”  Well that’s exactly what Mr. Caroselli said.

So we look for leadership.  Creativity, innovation and the “Can-do” mentality are part of leadership, but not all.  There is that ability to set a vision, like Mr. Orlando did in Dania.  There is the ability to convince decision-makers of the wisdom of an idea, as opposed to doing like we always did to make the shareholder happy as Mr. Caroselli noted.   Selling innovation is often the hard part because that’s were the costs are.  But there is more.  Often the selling of a good idea is difficult.  You can be ridicules by the status quo.  Many ideas are just lost in the shuffle because they never receive a voice.

Leadership is often not understood at the time it is occurring.  Ok, maybe we figured this out when Lincoln was President, but if you read accounts of his Presidency, the early years are marked with indecision and backtracking before he got it right.  Most of that is forgotten in lieu of the ultimate results.  Many of the issues we face today need real leadership to create a long-term solution.  The “fiscal cliff” issue is a prime example, as it the long-term need for solutions for social security, Medicare and medical costs in general.  The need to fix the infrastructure that made our economy strong should be among those priorities also.  Remember, we don’t remember the councilman, mayor, legislator. manager, director or President who did not raise taxes or water bills.  They do remember those who solved problems

Creating Expectations

November 7, 2012
communciations, finance, funding, infrastructure, Leadership, management, Marketing water, planning, sustainability, water sewer management, water supplies
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We hear the moniker about getting the most out of your employees and staff.  Business books will talk about accountability, as will politicians, but creating accountability requires a first step on the art of management.  In any organization there needs to be a vision of where the organization wants to be in 5, 10 or 20 years.  Then there needs to be  a team of managers who buy into the vision, and implement it by securing employees who can implement it.  But it does not stop there.  You need to set  expectations.  Sounds, easy, but it is one of the issues professional employees especially complain about.  Assigning work tasks and saying “get it done” is not an expectation.  That’s a command.  Commands work in the military, but not so much in private practice.  The command and control types are notoriously difficult to work with, especially in professional and/or creative environments.  Micro-managers fall into this same mode.  The creative/professionals are intelligent and are looking for freedom to solve problems, usually more effectively that they can be told.  Instead, what needs to be done is to create a set of expectations of what will be accomplished and timelines.  Let the creative types and professionals figure out how. Provide them with the resources they need.  If employees understand the expectations, and are given the ability to accomplish the goals, accomplishing them becomes an end in itself – that becomes the goal and their satisfaction.  But does it work?  Well, yes.  I have been in organizations where the stars aligned to have a small group of manager who created and bought into a vision. We set expectations and let people accomplish them.  Always faster, always less cost, and always effectively.  A degree of recognition follows them. The group was easy to spot because they were accomplishing things (I should note that this does come with the price of jealousy among those who prefer to sit on the sidelines and can create some degree of subterfuge there which requires a strong leader to deal with that problem).  Students work the same way – set expectations of the delivery and allow them to develop the methods to solve the problem.  It is easy to see who the good engineers are, and who perhaps will be less successful.

Even easier are city and county managers, general managers and the like.  New officials come into office and six month later they are complaining that the staff and manager don’t communicate with them.  First response is to give them more information, which compounds the problem.  Still not communicating.  Every manager has one of these stories. The problem is that the new folks never revised the expectations from the past.  As a result everyone operates on the last set of expectations, until new ones are established.  If that never happens, well, the conflict escalates.  Someone has to take the leadership role, which creates a quandary with governing boards like the ones utilities commonly deal with because these folks are generally not educated in the intricacies of the operation of the utility, and rarely have any management experience.  They simply do not understand how to set reasonable expectations, to identify what is important to them and what is not, how to delegate, etc.  Until a sitdown discussion of expectations of both manager and the board is developed, the potential for friction will exist.  Some managers are good at recognizing and making adaptation, but most governing bodies are not.  This is why it is important to develop education programs that will encourage the community, which often has better connections to the governing members than staff.  So as utilities, our infrastructure is vital to the long-term development of our communities and to the public health and productivity of our residents.  So how do we make governing bodies understand the need to invest in utility infrastructure when emergencies are not happening?  Realizing we are all busy, we need to keep in mind that outreach is a key to creating that coalition of leadership in the community to advance the utility agenda.  Again a leadership issue and the need to engage the community, something we all too often forget to do.

Cutting costs while keeping the stormwater out

November 3, 2012
finance, funding, groundwater, infiltration, inflow to sanitary sewer, infrastructure, management, sanitary sewer, stormwater, sustainability, water sewer management
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Storms highlight the need to reduce infiltration and inflow into the collection system so as not to overwhelm the piping system causing plant damage or sewage overflows into streets, so much of the focus has been on dealing with removal of infiltration and inflow through televising the sewer system and sealing or lining sections where leaks are noted.  However, many miles of videotape show virtually nothing, so significant money is spent to find “nothing.”  Part of this is because “infiltration” and “inflow” are not the same, and storm events do not highlight infiltration nearly as much inflow.

The manholes and clean-outs are required for access and removal of material that may build up in the piping system and for changes in direction of the pipe.  Manholes are traditionally pre-cast concrete or brick, with brick being the method of choice until the 1960s.  Brick manholes suffer from the same problems as vitrified clay sewer lines – the grout is not waterproof so the grout can leak significant amounts of groundwater.  The manhole cover may not seal perfectly, becoming another source of infiltration.  Pre-cast concrete manholes resolve part this problem, but concrete is not impervious either.  While elastomeric or bituminous seals are placed between successive manhole rings, the concrete is still exposed.  Many utilities will require the exterior of the manholes to have a coal-tar or epoxy covering the exterior which helps to keep water out.

Inflow results form a direct connection between the sewer system and the surface.  The removal or accidental breaking of a cleanout, unsealed manhole covers, laterals on private property, connected gutters or storm ponds, damaged chimneys from paving roads, or cracking of the pipe may be a significant source of inflow to the system.  All are potential sources of inflow which can be identified easily during storm events.  The peaking that correlates with the rainfall is inflow, not infiltration since infiltration is part of the base flow that creeps upward with time.  When operators see peaks, this is not indicative of infiltration which is groundwater.  Think inflow.   Inflow causes peaks in run time on lift station pumps, and create potential overflows at the plant.  The good news is that simple, low tech methods can be used to detect inflow, which should be the precursor to any infiltration investigation.

The following outlines a basic program for inflow detection and correction for any utility system.  The order is important, and pursuing all steps will resolve the majority of issues.  The first step is inspection of all sanitary sewer manholes for damage, leakage or other problems, which while seeming obvious, usually surprises.  The manhole inspection should include documentation of condition, GPS location, and some form of numbering if not currently available.  Most manholes have limited condition issues, but where the bench or walls are in poor conditions, that should be repaired with an impregnating resin.

Next is repair/sealing of chimneys in all manholes to reduce inflow from the street during flooding events.  The chimney includes the ring, cement extensions, lift rings, brick or cement used to raise the manhole ring.  Manhole covers are often disturbed during paving or as a result of traffic.  The crack between the ring and cover can leak a lot of water.  The intent of the chimney seal is to prevent inflow from the area beneath the rim of the manhole, but above the cone.

The next step is to put dishes into the manholes.  One might think that only manholes in low lying areas get water into them, but surprisingly every manhole dish that is properly installed has water in it.  Hence assume that all manholes leak water between the rim and cover.  Most collection system workers are familiar with dishes at the bottom of the manhole where they are of limited use.  This is because the dish deforms when filled with water or is knocked in when the cover is flipped.  The solution is a deeper dish with reinforcing ribs.  No ribs, don’t use it.  A gasket is required.

Once the manholes are sealed, smoke testing can identify obvious surface connections.  The normal notifications, inspection and documentation will identify broken or missing cleanout caps, surface breaks on public and private property, connection of gutters to the sewer system, and stormwater connections.  All should be documented via photograph, by associated address and public or private location. The public openings at cleanouts can be corrected immediately.  However, if the cleanout is broken, it may indicate mower or vehicle damage, that can occur again.  If missing, the resident may be using the cleanout to drain the yard.  In either case the collection system needs to be protected.  USSI (http://www.elastaseal.com/about_us.html), located in Venice, FL developed a solution, called the LDL plug to correct those commonly broken or commonly opened cleanouts to reduce inflow.

Notices should then be sent to property owners with documentation of the inflow connections to their property.  This is sometimes the most difficult part of the program due to political will, but it is necessary.  This finishes the inflow correction portion of the project, but one more step will help focus efforts for the second “i”.

The final step is a low flow investigation, which is intended to focus on the infiltration piece of the problem.  Such an event will take several days and must be planned to determine priority manhole to start with and sequencing.

Based on a projected plan and route:

  • Open the manholes
  • Inspecting them for flow
  • Determining if flow is significant.  If investigation of basin will end and new basin will be started.  If flow exists, open consecutive manholes upstream to determine where flow is derived from.  Generally a 2 inch wide bead of water is a limit of “significant” infiltration.

Documentation of all problems and corrections in a report to utility that identifies problem, location and recommended repair.  Identification of sewer system leaks, including those on private property (via location of smoke on private property).

The example in Dania Beach, FL was that the last step indicated that only 15% of the sewer system needed to be televised.  This saved the City almost $1.2 million.  Their total costs is under $1.4 million for all parts of the project, spread over several years and contracts.  Overall the hope is that the inflow and infiltration programs together will save $400,000/yr, a five year payback.  But the key is to insure you get the inflow as well as the infiltration… Otherwise storms will continue to overwhelm plants, creating public health concerns and ruining your reuse program.

Construction industry says it’s looking up? What does that say for utilities?

October 27, 2012
communciations, finance, funding, infrastructure, Leadership, management, Marketing water, sustainability, water sewer management
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The most recent discussions in trade journals, on-line and within the industry is that construction starts have begun to trend upward, a good sign that the economy is moving forward.  Since 2008 when the market crashed just after the election as a result of 2005/2006 packaged loan deals (read The Big Short by Michael Lewis if you really want to understand what happened, but be prepared to be irritated that no one has yet to go to jail), the stock market has crept steadily upward.  The problem is that the returns on investments have not trickled down to the majority of Americans except in low wage jobs (no wonder people can’t pay their mortgage and the IRS collects no income taxes from so many people).  But the tide does seem to be turning according to the construction journals.  In part we can thank low interest rates, but more perhaps more importantly it seems that much of the excess housing and commercial space may be decreasing so investors and owners that are looking to a spurt in economic growth in the coming years.  We see rising house prices in hard hit areas like south Florida.  With luck that will translate to jobs (maybe even decent wage jobs), increased tax revenues for local governments, and increased water revenues form of new or redeveloped users.  While the trend may not hold everywhere, the fact that the construction industry is talking about increases in new starts in the coming year, is a clear sign of things to come.  But are we ready?  That’s the big question.

Down here where I live, the 2007-2009 period was one where utilities ere struggling to find water supplies, with many investing in expensive alternative supplies.  Then reality struck and the 2020 demands are more like 2030 or 2040 demands.  The impetus for investment went away (it did not help that the burden was on the current ratepayers).  Those who invested in the 2008-2011 period got the benefit of much lower construction costs (typically about 70% of 2007 costs), but many sat on the sidelines as a result of political demands not to increase rates on current residents, resulting in lots of deferred maintenance.  While few utilities invested on growth related infrastructure, how many invested on replacement and rehabilitation at the lower costs?  Unfortunately, catching up on the backlog did not happen for many of us, which is why ASCE’s annual report card for water and sewer infrastructure continues to show very low grades (D- in 2009 for water and wastewater, a grade that has not improved).  As a result the legacy of the 2008 recession is that an opportunity to improve the condition of our infrastructure while creating local jobs was lost.  Now we will play catch up at higher prices, and higher interest rates (0.25% since June).

So where is the failure?  We complain about leadership at the federal level, but leadership starts at home (to use a cliché).  Local officials were not persuaded by utility personnel to invest in their future.  Aren’t these the same officials that often move to state and then the federal level?  Our failure to persuade them is an indication that our marketing approach to built consensus is not working.  Our ability to coalesce the community to improve itself is lacking, which readily translate to elected officials.  We can cast the blame upon them, but it starts much earlier than the time they make decisions.  In difficult economic times, we need a better approach to selling our product and the need to maintain the systems that deliver our product.  We need our customer to demand the improvements to protect their health.  People just don’t understand the link.  Water is there, so all is good.  When I flush it goes away.  No problem.  But what separates the US form the Third World is our infrastructure, especially our water and power infrastructure.  Maintaining our place in the world requires that we continuously upgrade and maintain this infrastructure.  That means planning ahead, building reserves, and taking advantage of economic conditions favorable to getting the most for our money.  How many of us missed this last opportunity?  We should be looking in the mirror and asking why…

 

PS  Today would be my Dad’s 90th.  We miss you!!

Marketing Water – Why Don’t we do this?!

September 12, 2012
communciations, finance, funding, infrastructure, management, Marketing water, sustainability, water sewer management, water supplies
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A comment I heard recently from an elected official was that it was inappropriate to use public dollars for their water agency to market their water product.  Interesting, and it suggests a major barrier to the development of local utility systems.  The cell phone companies, cable television, bottled water companies and security agencies all market constantly to our customers.  Virtually all of them charge more for their service than we do for water and wastewater.  The costs for all have increased faster than water and sewer.  But try surviving in the desert with only cable tv and no water.

Utilities compete with every other vendor for the same dollars.  They want our customers to value their products more.  They want our customers to divert dollars to them, so they need to increase the value of their products in the minds of our customers.  This is what marketing is all about.  If you cannot show the value of your product, the value diminishes in comparison to other products.  So while the needs for water and sewer systems increase, we see more of our customers’ dollars go elsewhere and the accompanying  demands to control our rates.

Water and wastewater systems must market their product.  Clean healthy water is available to virtually everyone.  People expect their faucet will turn on and provide good quality water, and that the toilet will flush.  They take it for granted, yet much of the world does not enjoy the same quality of consistency in service.  Water service is a commodity, and comes with a cost.

We say we want to operate the utility like a business, and many systems are run this way.  Most charge based on usage (or should).  But we fail to pursue one of the basic tenets of running a business:  marketing our product.  The annual CCR is not a marketing tool.  Water bills can convey messages, but they do not really function as marketing either.  Water conservation programs can help, but here the message is use less, not the benefit of the product.  We simply do not market water.  It is why the bottle water industry continues to grow, despite the fact that public water systems offer water at least as safe and healthy as bottled water, subject to more regulatory oversight, at a fraction of the cost.

So given that utilities, the majority of which are owned by local governments, are operated like a business, why shouldn’t we spend money on marketing the benefits of clean, safe water?  Why not market the benefits of 24/7 service?  Why not highlight the efforts of dedicated employees that ensure the system operates 24/7?  Why not raise consciousness of the water commodity to increase its value in the public’s eye?  The only reason not to market is the benefit competing services.  That does not benefit the public good, nor support the need to recover the costs of service and repair and replacement needs of the system.

Creating a marketing plan, or branding program for your utility is a major undertaking.  DC Water spent year re-branding their system to raise consciousness.  Creating marketing programs to engender success requires multi-media outlets, consistent messages, and vision.  It requires that employees and elected officials be on the same page with their customers.  We need to understand customer expectations of the service to raise value in their minds.  If marketing can sell pet rocks, we can market the value of water.  It is in our best interests to do so.

Communication, like water is a need

September 9, 2012
communciations, Environment, finance, funding, infrastructure, management, Marketing water, sustainability, water sewer management, water supplies
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Water management is a fundamental need for the development of civilizations. Always has been.  If you have any question about this, ask yourself what differentiates the developed world from the undeveloped.  Water supply, sewage management and flood control rank 1-3 among the differences.  Safe drinking water and good sanitation go back beyond the Romans, and is a necessity to insure that the populace, and those performing work are productive as opposed to sick all the time.  At present there are agencies that operate to manage water supplies and drainage, and a few that do both.  Mostly these are regional agencies, which belies the need for local decision making to respond to local conditions.

An example – in 2007/2008 the State of Florida was in the midst of “sever drought.”  The water management agencies spent considerable time and political capital working on water conservation strategies, limiting utility withdrawals, cutting permit allocations and demanding conversions to alternative supplies in the future.  The southern half of the state was hard hit.  Utility customers cut their demands significantly.  Unfortunately the customers’ reward was surcharges to make up lost revenues to overcome large operating shortfalls and potential defaults on borrowing documents.  The short-term implementation was designed regionally, but had significant local consequences that were not considered.

But more interesting was the actual “drought” conditions.  It seems that the hard hit areas were in the central part of the state, not the southeastern coast.   The central part of the state, including the Everglades had received about 60% of the average rainfall, but along the coast, the two year shortage averaged less than 10%, and most residents realized that their rainfall accumulations were not as severe as inland.  Since most of the southeast coast’s water supplies were local, not based on the central part, the local question rose, “why were the water conservation measures required of these utilities and residents? and  Why was this not a locally driven issue?”

The case highlights the fact that while most water resource planning efforts are regional, the impacts occur locally, and often local impacts are not fully considered.   Credibility of the utilities is critical for emergencies or difficult situations.  During this condition, a survey of coastal utility customers found that the customers were better informed on rainfall totals than the regional information provided, which undercut the credibility the local utilities were trying to build with their customers, which impacts future needs for cooperation at the local level.  Something about crying wolf…

Our Disappearing Groundwater

July 21, 2012
Climate, Environment, finance, funding, groundwater, infrastructure, management, sustainability, water sewer management, water supplies
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The need for more water for urban and agricultural uses has drive even more competition for limited supplies in stressed basins.  The effects of urbanization and agriculture on surface water supplies are obvious to most people.  We have also seemed the ecosystem impacts from surface water diversions and pollution.  As a result, many areas have pursued groundwater, the unseen resource.

I have been touting a USGS report (#1323 by Reilly, et al, 2009) to many in the water industry.  It is an important report that gives us a little insight on state of groundwater supplies in the US.  As we have developed arid regions and developed better pumps to irrigate in dry places, groundwater has been the obvious choice.  And it is not regulated in some states.  However the extensive and in many cases excessive use of groundwater creates the long-term potential for loss of water supplies in many jurisdictions.  Determining groundwater availability involves more than calculating the volume of groundwater within any given aquifer:  it requires a consideration of recharge, water quality, the economics of recovery or of poor quality, interconnectedness with the hydrologic system and ecosystem/user demands.  Rarely is a consultant paid to determine that sustainable water supplies are not available.  The result is the potential for aquifer drawdown that are accompanied by aquifer mining and land subsidence.  The result is declining water levels in aquifers.

Confounding the situation are confined aquifers that are disconnected for localized recharge and often have overestimated recharge.  The common practice to evaluate aquifer productivity is pump wells that have a significant drawdown for only a few hours each day, allowing an extended period for the aquifer to recover.  Reilly et al, 2009 estimates that the pumpage of fresh ground water in the United States is approximately 83 billion gallons per day (Hutson et al, 2004), which is about 8 percent of the estimated 1 trillion gallons per day of natural recharge to the Nation’s ground-water systems (Nace, 1960), which sounds like it is not a serious issue.  However, Reilly et al, 2009 found that the loss of groundwater supplies in many areas will be catastrophic, affecting economic viability of communities and potentially disrupting lives and ecological viability.

Drilling deeper is not a solution.  Deeper waters tend to have poorer water quality as a result of having been in contact with the rock formation longer and dissolving the minerals in the rock into the water. Additional power will be required to further treat limited, lower quality supplies.  Therefore, while some deep aquifers may be prolific, the quality of water obtained from a well may not be desirable or even usable for drinking water without substantial amounts of treatment.  In addition, most deeper aquifers are confined and therefore do not recharge significantly locally.  The withdrawal of water may appear to be a permanent loss of the resource in the long-term. For example, portions of the aquifer in eastern North and South Carolina were virtually denuded in due to pumpage because there is no local recharge.  As a result the aquifer was mined, exceeding its safe yield, and the large utilities converted to surface water. Likewise, most of the aquifer use in the western states of the U.S. are poised similarly since they have minimal potential for recharge.  In parts of the western plains state and Great Basin, the aquifers have dropped hundreds of feet, but with an average of 13-18 inches per year of rainfall, and high evaporation rates throughout the summer, little of this water has potential to recharge the aquifer (Bloetscher and Muniz, 2008).

 

Rarely will permit writers or consultants tell you there is no more water available, but if groundwater levels keep declining, clearly the groundwater is over allocated.  It also appears that we have misjudged recharge to most confined aquifers.  They simply do not recharge at the rates estimated creating a long-term decline.  In some cases, maybe many cases, recapturing the water needed to recharge the aquifer will not happen in our lifetimes without specific capital to do otherwise.  Nature just doesn’t recharge confined aquifers quickly.  One reason we like them for water supply.
So the questions are these:

Are many confined aquifers better suited to be drought protection, backup supplies to surface supplies, as opposed to primary water supplies?

  • What is the solution for agricultural operations and utilities where groundwater is quickly diminishing?
  • When can we start the dialogue to manage groundwater resources better in the US without all the legal and political constraints that currently work against protecting our nation’s groundwater supplies?

Clearly we won’t make everyone happy, and may make a lot of people very unhappy.  But better to make those decisions now, than in 20 or 30 years when the groundwater runs out?

Changing Attitudes about Government Infrastructure?

July 17, 2012
Environment, finance, funding, infrastructure, management, Uncategorized, water sewer management
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A recent comment on the blog posts reminded me of this discussion of a community on the beach that was populated by mostly retired executives from Chicago, Cleveland, Toronto, Louisville, Indianapolis and Detroit.  This was the 1970s and 1980s.  The community was wealthy, and had very low taxes.  It’s water and sewer rates were similarly low, while the community was starting to grow fairly quickly.    The mayor was on of these retired CEOs.  He was asked what helped his community be so successful.  His answer was simple:  they had a vision for the community that they all agreed on – a retiree utopia of beach, golf and dining.  They wanted to hire the best and brightest younger people to manage their community, hoping they would bring with them new ideas to improve efficiency.  They were willing to pay people at the 25th percentile to bring them to an out-of-the-way community, where medians and yards were heavily landscaped, where beach access was granted to all, where taxes remained low and housing values continued to rise, with the expectation that the community would continue to prosper.  Their experience had taught them to hire the best and brightest to increase their productivity and introduce new ideas.  By all measures, the strategy was successful.

But all good things come to an end.  By the mid 1990s, most of these old CEO had departed, replaced by newer people.  While many were also executives, there were more of them, and their focus was changing.  They were retiring from companies where profits were far more short-term and the politics were different.  They did not have the same experience in hiring people, and they did not see the need to pay higher salaries to attract employees. Unlike the prior generation, they wanted their kids close-by, which meant that there needed to be lower cost housing because most of their children were not making CEO salaries.  This also meant more services, and higher costs.  Cost control because the them, and cuts to government, to keep the low taxes low, became the norm.  So where were all those “best and brightest” hired 10-15 years earlier?  Gone.  When the attack on government workers started, who was the first to leave?  Those who were easiest to employ elsewhere of course, which does not help the professionalism of government.  It’s like another community where the Mayor said that the town was needed to provide employment for the otherwise unemployable!  Really?

This attitude does not help our industry at a time when reinvestment needs are in the hundreds of billions of dollars in the US alone.  Public investment has been billions because government was the solution for many needs of society, because it could not cost effectively or fairly be delivered by the private sector.  It’s like owning a multi-billion house and deciding not to fix the roof!  The leak can only get worse and delay the (much higher) cost of repairs to the next person.  So what about our infrastructure?  Who pays those costs?

And of course thisis all true….