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Explaining Surpluses

February 21, 2014
communciations, economy, finance, funding, Leadership, management, Marketing water, planning, Reserve Funding, Revenues, Surpluses, sustainability, Uncategorized, Water Funding
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My last blog was a discussion about surpluses.  The State of Florida will have a $1.3 billion surplus this year and a host of politically expedient answers for where that money goes (tax cuts, pork projects, projects to help election results), but little mention of replenishing trust funds and reserves that were emptied to balance the budget amid tax cuts from 2010 – 2012.  But perhaps it is not the legislators or their constituents that we should blame for not understanding the need for reserves because the truth is that most people are not used to saving.  A recent article I read noted that 72 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and would have difficulty putting $2000 together if needed.  $2000 is not a lot of money these days – it won’t buy you a transmission for example or a new engine for your car.  It won’t cover first, last and a deposit on a rental.  And it won’t cover the down payment on a house or most cars.  There are people who do not receive enough income to achieve some degree of savings, but not 72% of us.  We have come to perceive that having little savings is normal, but it wasn’t always this way and it is not this way everywhere in the world.  Back in the day, American saved more than they do now.  The reason is not that they had more money (they didn’t) or that they had less to spend money on (as things cost more proportionately).  But it was that “rainy day” they all knew would come and when they would need money.  They had been through depressions, recession and losses of industries (remember those Concord coachmakers did not get a federal bailout in trying to compete with Henry Ford).  They knew that there would be times when they needed to rely on themselves to survive and savings was the key.

There are two major differences from the past.  The most important is the fact is that credit was a lot harder to come by back in the day, so you needed cash for those big purchases.  That has changed dramatically in 50 years.  Today we get advertisements for credit cards – in the mail, instant credit at stores, easy credit for cars, and in the early 2000s, no-money-down-no-income-verification loans on real estate.  The need to save evaporated.  The access to easy credit has eliminated much of the need to save for those big expenses.  We can borrow to acquire them.  If we have a job problem, we borrow against the house or life insurance policy.  These are good backstops that help us maintain our way of life.

At the same time as we are being extended opportunities to secure funds to spend, we are barraged by advertisements and flyers and pitches to spend that money on products and services, many of which we probably don’t need, but are “cool” to have.  We are encouraged to compete to have better “stuff” than the other guy, and make sure we have the newest technology.  We all do it.  Just look at all phones can do, while keeping in mind that the old Bell phone I bought in college still works regardless of the situation and still sounds good.  No cool ringtones however, nor photo capability.  All that means we spend less on “needs” and more on “stuff.” 

Given this backdrop it is no surprise the attitude of decision-makers in government toward revenues and expenses.  Re-education of the public is needed as opposed to rhetoric.  We need to move the public discussion away from the concept of a balanced budget being expenses equal revenues to the correct concept of revenues + reserve expenses = expenses plus savings.  At times you use reserves (and savings =0) while other times reserve expenses are 0, while savings are positive. When big expenses come, borrow, but recurring expenses should not be funded through borrowing (credit).  We should seek to avoid is the desire to cut taxes (akin to cutting our salaries) to bring the budget back into balance that if we run a surplus, or spend it on “stuff.”  Such a system leaves room for those lean times when revenues may fluctuate but expenses do not (or increase).  

Surpluses?

February 16, 2014
economy, finance, funding, Holistic Water Planning, infrastructure, Leadership, local government, management, planning, politics, Revenues, sustainability, Water Funding
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It was not so long ago that we were talking about local and state governments suffering major shortfalls in their revenues as a result of the downturn in the economy.  Cuts were being made to police, fire, education and parks.  Politicians were fussing over the need to cut taxes and cut government expenditures in the process.  Employees lost jobs and benefits were cut.   In a prior blog we discussed the fact that economic upticks and downturns were cyclical, and unlike people, there is a tendency for local and state government policy makers to “hang with the curve” so to speak and have government expenses track the economy as opposed to try to stabilize spending by taking advantage of the ups to create reserves in order to take advantage of the downs.  They ignore the old adage that their grandparents told them – save for a rainy day.  And we don’t recognize those rainy days approaching!  It is not a lot different unfortunately than many citizens who spend when they have money, and are short when they don’t.  We are not a country of savers and it hurts us often.

There is however a major benefit for government to have reserves.  When government has reserves, it can take advantage of lower competition to construct or invest in infrastructure in lean times. There are many examples of governments getting construction done at discounted rates based on timing their projects to economic downturns.  A side benefit is that those governments are spending money at the time when they need to keep people employed.  FDR did this during the Great Depression.  Obama attempted to copy him in 2009 with the AARA monies.  In both cases they may not have invested enough, but both were faced with deficits on the federal level and a Congress that was reluctant to spend. 

The economy has rebounded and state and local governments are starting to run surpluses. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel recently reported that the big “challenge” for the Florida Legislature and many other state and local governments, is they are running surpluses.  Recall the last time the federal government ran a surplus, we got tax cuts that immediately put the feds back in the red because they had not built up any reserves, and won’t even with a balanced budget anytime soon.  Well Florida has $1.3 billion extra on hand and guess what we hear in this election year  – tax cuts, more money for special projects, extended sales tax exemption dates, etc.  Those running for office are thrilled with the surplus because it helps their platform but we hear nothing about restocking the trust funds that were raided during the 2009, 2010 and to some extent the 2011 budgets! 

Expect this to be the norm, and the rhetoric should be troubling to fiscally responsible people.   If we have surpluses, times must be better.  In good times we should be encouraging decision-makers to sock money away in reserves, savings and other solid investments, and at the same time restocking those accounts drained to pay the bills during the down time of the Great Recession.   In Florida, our highway trust fund, environmental trust funds and education funds were drained.  They have not been restocked.  In fact the cuts to most of those programs has not been restored either. The next economic downturn will come – will we be prepared to weather storm by spending our savings as opposed to cutting services which magnifies the impact of residents?

As times get better, utilities owned by local governments should pay particular attention to General Fund revenues.  Many of those General Funds increased contributions from the water and sewer funds to make up the difference in losses of property and sales tax dollars.  That prevented utilities from making investments, or forced them to borrow money to cover investments that might otherwise have been paid for in cash.  Time for the General Fund to pay the utility back!  Time to restock the reserves and time to spend money to catch-up with the deferred maintenance and capital.  Of course the costs are not what they were 3 or 4 years ago, and neither are the interest rates, so we all pay more for the same projects because we could not spend the reserves in the down period.

Utilities should always have significant reserves.  Nothing we do is inexpensive, so having reserves makes it possible to fix things that inevitably go wrong.  Reserves are a part of a well operated, fiscally sound utility. Taking money from the utility during down times hurts both the utility and the local government.  Total reserves diminish of the entity, making it less possible to deal with emergencies, cover the loss of revenues, or take advantage of lower costs for construction projects.  Meanwhile, creating reserves and a pay-as-you-go system for ongoing replacement of pipes and pumps is good business.  It insures that ongoing money is spent to prevent deterioration of the utility system.  The reserves allow for accelerated expenditures when times are tough, prices are down and people need work.  When utilities spend money, it translates to local jobs.  But the only way to do this is make convincing argument of the benefits of reserves and spending.  

SEA LEVEL RISE AND FLOOD PROTECTION

February 12, 2014
communciations, Flooding, funding, infrastructure, Leadership, local government, management, planning, politics, Revenues, sea level rise, stormwater, sustainability, Tidal flooding, Uncategorized, utilities
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Regardless of the causes, southeast Florida, with a population of 5.6 million (one-third of the State’s population), is among the most vulnerable areas in the world for climate change due its coastal proximity and low elevation (OECD, 2008; Murley et al. 2008), so assessing sea level rise (SLR) scenarios is needed to accurately project vulnerable infrastructure (Heimlich and Bloetscher, 2011). Sea level has been rising for over 100 years in Florida (Bloetscher, 2010, 2011; IPCC, 2007).  Various studies (Bindoff et al., 2007; Domingues et al., 2008; Edwards, 2007; Gregory, 2008; Vermeer and Rahmstorf, 2009; Jevrejeva, Moore and Grinsted, 2010; Heimlich, et al. 2009) indicate large uncertainty in projections of sea level rise by 2100. Gregory et al. (2012) note the last two decades, the global rate of SLR has been larger than the 20th-century time-mean, and Church et al. (2011) suggested further that the cause was increased rates of thermal expansion, glacier mass loss, and ice discharge from both ice-sheets. Gregory et al. (2012) suggested that there may also be increasing contributions to global SLR from the effects of groundwater depletion, reservoir impoundment and loss of storage capacity in surface waters due to siltation.

Why is this relevant?  The City of Fort Lauderdale reported last week that $1 billion will need to be spent to deal with the effect of sea level rise in Fort Lauderdale alone.  Fort Lauderdale is a coastal city with canals and ocean property, but it is not so different from much of Miami-Dade County, Hollywood, Hallandale Beach, Dania Beach and host of other coastal cities in southeast Florida.  Their costs may be a harbinger of costs to these other communities. Doing a “back of the napkin”  projection of Fort Lauderdale’s cost for 200,000 people to the additional million people in similar proximity to Fort Lauderdale means that $5 billion could easily be spent over the next 100 years for costal impoundments like flap gates, pumping stations, recharge wells, storm water preserves, exfiltration trenches and as discussed in this blog before, infiltration galleries. Keep in mind that would be the coastal number and we often ignore ancillary issues.  At the same time, an addition $5 to 10 billion may be needed for inland flooding problems due to the rise of groundwater as a result of SLR.

The question raised in conjunction with the announcement was “is it worth it?”  I suggest the answer is yes, and not just because local politicians may be willing to spend money to protect their constituents.  The reality is that $178 billion of the $750 billion economy of Florida, and a quarter of its population, is in the southeast. With nearly $4 trillion property values, raising a few billion for coastal improvements over 100 years is not an insurmountable task.  It is billions in local engineering and construction jobs, while only impacting taxpayers to the tune of less than 1/10 of a mill per year on property taxes. This is still not an insurmountable problem.

I think with good leadership, we can see our way.  However, that leadership will need to overcome a host of potential local community conflicts as some communities will “get more” than others, yet everyone benefits across the region.  New approaches to working together will need to be tried.  But the problem is not insurmountable, for now…

INVESTING IN INFRASTRUCTURE

January 15, 2014
economy, Education, engineering, finance, funding, infrastructure, Leadership, planning, politics, Rural Utilities, Uncategorized, utilities, water sewer management
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When we ask what the biggest issues facing water and sewer are in the next 20 years, the number one answer is usually getting a handle on failing infrastructure.  Related to infrastructure is sustainability of supplies and revenue needs.  Resolving the infrastructure problem will require money, which means revenues, and overcoming the resistance to fully fund water and sewer system by local officials, the potential for significant costs or shortfalls for small, rural systems and the increasing concern about economically disadvantaged people. 

The US built fantastic infrastructure systems in the mid-20th century that allowed our economy to grow and for us to be productive.  But like all tools and equipment, it degrades, or wears out with time.  Our economy and our way of life requires access to high quality water and waste water. So this will continue to be critical. 

ASCE and USEPA have both noted the deteriorated condition of the water and wastewater systems.  In the US, we used to spend 4% of the gross GNP on infrastructure.  Currently is it 2%.  Based on the needs and spending, there is a clear need to reconstruct system to maintain our way of life.  This decrease in funding comes at a time when ASCE rates water and wastewater system condition as a D+ and estimates over $3 trillion in infrastructure investment will be needed by 2020.  USEPA believes infrastructure funding for water and sewer should be increased by over $500 billion per year versus the proposed federal decrease of similar amounts or more. 

Keep in mind much of what has made the US a major economic force in the middle 20th century is the same infrastructure we are using today. Clearly there is research to indicate there is greater need to invest in infrastructure while the politicians move the other way.  The public, caught in the middle, hears the two sides and prefers less to pay on their bills, so sides with the politicians as opposed to the data.  Make no mistake, our way of life results from extensive, highly efficient and economic infrastructure systems. 

In many ways we are victims of our own success.  The systems have run so well, the public takes them for granted.  It is hard to make the public understand that our cities are sitting on crumbling systems that have suffered from lack of adequate funding to consistently maintain and upgrade.  Public agencies are almost always reactive, as opposed to pro-active, which is why we continuously end up in defensive positions and at the lower end of the spending priorities. So we keep deferring needed maintenance. The life cycle analysis concepts used in business would help. A 20 year old truck, pump, backhoe, etc. just aren’t cost effective to operate and maintain.

Another part this problem is that people have grown used to the fact that water is abundant, cheap, and safe. Open the tap and here it comes; flush the toilet and there it goes, without a thought as to what is involved to produce, treat and distribute potable water as well as to collect, treat, and discharge wastewater.

Water and Sewer utilities are being funded at less than half the level needed to meet the 30 year demands.  Meanwhile relying on the federal government, which is trying to reduce funding for infrastructure for local utilities is not a good plan either. We need education, research and demonstrations to show those that control funding of the needs. The education many be the toughest part because making the those that control funding agree to increase rates carries a potential risk to them personally.  But there are no statues to those that don’t raise rates – only those with vision.  We need to instill vision in our decision-makers.

Rural Utilities Part 2

December 21, 2013
economy, engineering, finance, funding, infrastructure, Leadership, Rural Utilities, Small systems, sustainability, Uncategorized, utilities, Water Funding, water sewer management
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In the last blog I talked about the challenge to rural utilities, many of which serve relatively few people and have used federal monies to pay for a lot of their infrastructure.  In this blog we will take a look at the trends for community water systems which are defined as systems that serve at least 15 service connections or serve an average of at least 25 people for at least 60 days a year. EPA breaks the size of systems down as follows:

  • Very Small water systems serve 25-500 people
  • Small water systems serve 501-3,300 people
  • Medium water systems serve 3,301-10,000 people
  • Large water systems serve 10,001-100,000 people
  • Very Large water systems serve 100,001+ people

Now let’s take a look at the breakdown (from NRC 1997).  In 1960, there were about 19,000 community water utilities in the US according to a National Research Council report published in 1997.  80% of the US population was served.  in 1963 there were approximately 16,700 water systems serving communities with populations of fewer than 10,000; by 1993 this number had more than tripled—to 54,200 such systems. Approximately 1,000 new small community water systems are formed each year (EPA, 1995). In 2007 there were over 52,000 community water systems according to EPA, and by 2010 the number was 54,000.  85% of the population is served. So the growth is in those small systems with incidental increases in the total number of people served (although the full numbers are more significant). 

 

TABLE 1 – U.S. Community Water Systems: Size Distribution and Population Served

 

Number of Community Systems Serving This Size Community a

Total Number of U.S. Residents Served by Systems This Size b>

Population Served

1963

1993

1963

1993

Under 500

5,433 (28%)

35,598 (62%)

1,725,000 (1%)

5,534,000 (2%)

501-10,000

11,308 (59%)

18,573 (32%)

27,322,000 (18%)

44,579,000 (19%)

More than 10,000

2,495 (13%)

3,390 (6%)

121,555,000 (81%)

192,566,000 (79%)

Total

19,236

57,561

150,602,000

242,679,000

a Percentage indicates the fraction of total U.S. community water supply systems in this category.

b Percentage is relative to the total population served by community water systems, which is less than the size of the U.S. population as a whole.

SOURCES: EPA, 1994; Public Health Service, 1965.

 

Updating these numbers, there are over 54,000 systems in the US, and growth is almost exclusively in the very small sector.  93% are considered to be small or very small systems—serving fewer than 10,000 people. Even though these small systems are numerous, they serve only a small fraction of the population. Very small systems, those that serve 3,300 people or fewer make up 84 percent of systems, yet serve 10 percent of the population.  Most critical is the 30,000 new very small systems that serve only 5 million people (averaging 170 per system).  In contrast, the very large systems currently serve 45% of the population.  Large plus very large make it 80%.  The 800 largest systems (1.6%) serve more than 56 percent of the population. 900 new systems were added, but large systems served an additional 90 million people.

What this information suggests if that the large and very large sector has the ability to raise funds to deal with infrastructure needs (as they have historically), but that there may be a significant issue for smaller, rural system that have grown up with federal funds over the past 50 years.  As these system start to come to the end of their useful life, rural customers are in for a significant rate shock. Pipeline average $100 per foot to install.  In and urban area with say, 60 ft lots, that is $3000/household.  In rural communities, the residents may be far more spread out.  As an example, a system I am familiar with in the Carolinas, a two mile loop served 100 houses.  That is a $1.05 million pipeline for 100 hours or $10,500 per house.  With dwindling federal funds, rural customers, who are already making 20% less than their urban counterparts, and who are used to very low rates, that generally do not account for replacement funding, will find major sticker shock. 

This large number of relatively small utilities may not have the operating expertise, financial and technological capability or economies of scale to provide services or raise capital to upgrade or maintain their infrastructure.  Keep in mind that small systems have less resources and less available expertise.  In contrast the record of large and very large utilities, EPA reports that 3.5 percent of all U.S. community water systems violated Safe Drinking Water Act microbiological standards one or more times between October 1992 and January 1995, and 1.3 percent violated chemical standards, according to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).. 

EPA and professionals have long argued that centralized infrastructure for water and sewer utilities makes sense form an economy of scale perspective.  Centralized drinking water supply infrastructure in the United States consists dams, wells, treatment plants, reservoirs, tanks, pumps and 2 million miles of pipe and appurtenances.   In total this infrastructure asset value is in the multi-trillion dollar range.  Likewise centralized sanitation infrastructure in the U.S. consists of 1.2 million miles of sewers and 22 million manholes, along with pump stations, treatment plants and disposal solutions in 16,024 systems.  It is difficult to build small reservoirs, dams, and treatment plants as they each cast far more per gallon to construct than larger systems.  Likewise operations, despite the allowance to have less on-site supervision, is far less per thousand gallons for large utilities when compared to small ones.  The following data shows that the economy-of-scale argument is true:

  • For water treatment, water distribution, sewer collection and wastewater treatment, the graphics clearly demonstrated the economy-of-scale of the larger utility operations versus small scale operations (see Figures 2-5). 
  • The administrative costs as a percentage of the.total budget parameter also demonstrated the economy-of-scale argument that larger utilities can perform tasks at a lesser cost per unit than the smaller utilities (see Figure 6).

Having reviewed the operations costs, the next step was to review the existing rates.  Given the economy-of-scale apparent in Figures 2 to 6, it was expected that there would be a tendency for smaller system to have higher rates.  Figures 2-6 demonstrate this phenomena. 

So what to do?  This is the challenge.  Rate hikes are the first issue, a tough sell in areas generally opposed to increases in taxes, rates and charges and who use voting to impose their desires.  Consolidation is anothe5r answer, but this is on contrast to the independent nature of many rural communities.  Onslow County, NC  figured out this was the only way to serve people efficiently 10 years ago, but it is a rougher sell in many, more rural communities.  Infrastructure banks might help, the question is who will create them and will the small system be able to afford to access them.  Commercial financing will be difficult because there is simply not enough income to offset the risk.  The key is to start planning now for the coming issue and realize that water is more valuable than your iPhone, internet, and cable tv.  In most cases we pay more for each of them than water (see Figure 7).  There is something wrong with that…

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Figure 1  Breakdown of Size of Systems

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Fig 2 Cost of Water Treatment

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Fig 3 Cost of Water Distribution

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Fig 4 Cost of Sewer Collection

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Fig 5 Cost of Sewer Treatment

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Fig 6 Cost of Administration as a percent of total budget

 

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FIgure 7 Water vs other utilities

 

Rural Utilities To Feel The Squeeze

December 17, 2013
Climate, communciations, Congress, economy, engineering, funding, Holistic Water Planning, infrastructure, innovation, Leadership, management, Marketing water, politics, Revenues, Risk, Water Funding, water sewer management
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Several weeks ago we looked at the phenomenon of population, income, education and unemployment.  The impact to from the combination of these factors in certain communities can be difficult.  Let’s explore a little further as there is more, interesting data every day.  The US Department of Agriculture is releasing its report of rural America.  The findings are interesting and counter-intuitive to the understanding of voters in many of those communities.  Their findings include:

  • The rural areas grew 0.5 % vs 1.6% in urban areas from mid-2011-mid 2012
  • Rural incomes are 17% lower than urban incomes.
  • The highest income rural works (95th percentile) earn 27% less than their urban counterparts
  • 17.7% of rural constituents live in poverty vs 14.5% in urban areas
  • 80% of the high poverty rate counties were rural
  • All the high income counties are urban.

Wow!  So the ghetto has move to the country? According to these statistics there is truth in that statement.  Let’s look a little further using some on-line mapping. 

First let’s look at where these rural counties are.  Figure 1 is a map from www.dailyyonder.com  that shows (in green) the rural counties in the US.  Wikipaedia shows the 100 lowest income counties in Figure 2.  For the most part, these counties are rural, with the exceptions being a few areas in south Texas and in the Albuquerque/Santa Fe area of New Mexico. Raceonline.com shows the populations in poverty by county.  The red areas are the highest poverty rates.  The red areas in Figure 3 expand Figure 2 to include much of the rural deep south, Appalachia, more of Texas and New Mexico and part of the central valley in California.

Figure 4 shows how the number of young people has changed between 2000 and 2009 in rural counties (urban counties are white and not included – red means a decrease).  Figure 5 shows population growth (or not) by county. What you see in these two maps is that the young people are moving to the rocky mountain states and vacating the high poverty counties in Figure 3.  Yong people do not see jobs in the rural area – unemployment is 20% higher in rural America and the jobs that are there pay less.  Figures 6 and 7 show unemployment by County in 2008 after the start of the Great Recession and in 2013.  What these figures show is that with exception of the Plains states and Rockies, is that many of the areas with high poverty also had high unemployment, and that the unemployment has remains stubbornly high in many rural areas in the Deep South, Appalachia and New Mexico, plus high unemployment in parts to  the Great Lakes, but the poverty rates are still lower.  Education may by a factor in why the Plains states and Rocky Mountains have less unemployment – despite being rural their students are far more likely to graduate from high school than those in the deep South, Appalachia where unemployment remains high and incomes low. 

So what does this possibly have to do with utilities?  Utilities need to understand this problem as is demands some real, on-the-ground leadership.  Small and rural utilities are more costly to operate per thousand gallons than larger utilities.  A 1997 study by the author showed that economy-of-scale manifested itself to a great extent with water and wastewater operations.  The differences were not close – it is a lot less costly to operate large utilities vs small ones.  Rural utilities complicate the issue further because not only is the number of customers limited, but the pipe per customer is less so the capital investment per customer is far higher than in urban areas.  The impact is that utilities are under pressure to reduce rates to customers, or create a set of lower cost rates for those in poverty, while at the same time their costs are increasing and infrastructure demands are incrementally higher than their larger neighbors.  The scenario cannot be sustained, especially when large portions of rural infrastructure was installed with FHA grants, meaning the customers never paid for the capital cost in the first place.  There was no or lower debt, than what larger utility customers have.  The rural rates since these investments have been set artificially lower than they should as a result. But with Congress talking about reducing SRF and FHA programs, FHA is unlikely to step in to replace their initial investment, meaning that the billions of rural investment dollars that will be needed in the coming years will need to be locally derived, and rate shock will become a major source of controversy in areas that are largely very conservative politically and tend to vote against projects that will increase costs to them.

The good news is that much of the rural infrastructure may be newer when compared to much of the urban infrastructure.  So there is time to build the argument that local investment is needed.  The community needs to be engaged in this discussion sooner as opposed to when problems occur.  Saving for the infrastructure may be the best course since rural utilities will have limited access to the borrowing market because of their size, but that means raising rates now and keeping those saved funds as opposed to using them to deer rate increases.  If ongoing efforts in the House deplete federal funding further, the pinch will be felt sooner by rural customers who will lose the federal dollars from SRF and FHA programs. 

 

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Figures 1 – Rural Counties

The United States: By Rural, Urban and Exurban Counties

 

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Figure 2.  100 lowest income Counties in the US

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lowest-income_counties_in_the_United_States

 

 

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Figure 3.  Estimated population in poverty

http://www.raconline.org/racmaps/mapfiles/poverty.jpg

 

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Figure 4.  Where the Young People Are

http://www.raconline.org/maps/topic_details.php?topic=55

 

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Figure 5.  Where people are moving to http://www.raconline.org/maps

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Figure 6  Unemployment 2008

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment

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Figure 7  Unemployment 2013 http://www.huduser.org/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_article_040

 

Power to the Utilities?

December 13, 2013
communciations, Education, engineering, finance, funding, Holistic Water Planning, infrastructure, innovation, Leadership, local government, management, Marketing water, planning, power demands, power-water nexus, renewable power, solar power, utilities, Water Funding, water sewer management, wind power
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Local utilities are among the largest power users in their communities.  This is why power companies make agreements with utilities at reduced cost if the utilities will install backup power supplies.  The peak power generation capacity as well as backup capacity is at the local utilities and other large users.  Power companies can delegate this capital cost to large users without the investment concerns.  It works for both parties.  In addition, power companies spend effort to be more efficient with current power supplies, because recovering the costs for new, large plants is difficult, and in ways, cost prohibitive.  Hence small increment options are attractive, especially when they are within high demand areas (distributed power).  The use of localized wind, solar and on-site energy options like biogas are cost effective investments if sites can be found.  That is where the utilities come in.  Many utilities have sites.  Large water utilities may have large reservoirs and tank sites that might be conducive to wind or solar arrays.  Wind potential exists where there are thermal gradients or topography like mountains.  Plant sites with many buildings and impervious areas could also be candidates for solar arrays and mini-wind turbines.  Wastewater plants are gold mines for digester gas that is usually of high enough quantity to drive turbines directly.  So utilities offer potential to increase distributed power supplies, but many water/wastewater utilities lack the expertise to develop and maintain these new options, and the greatest benefit is really to power companies that may be willing to provide as much money in “rent” to the utilities as they can save.   Power entities obviously have the expertise and embedded experience to run distributed options optimally.  So why don’t we do this?

I would speculate several reasons.  First, the water/wastewater utilities have not really considered the option, and if they do there is the fear of having other folks on secure treatment sites.  That can be overcome.  The power entities have not really looked at this either.  The focus in the power industry is to move from oil-based fuels to natural gas to accumulate carbon credit futures, the potential for lower operating costs and better efficiency of current facilities to reduce the need for capital investments.  Power entities operate in a tight margin just like water/wastewater utilities do so saving where you can is a benefit.  There are limited dollars to invest on both sectors and political and/or public service commission issues to overcome to invest in distributed power options at water/wastewater facilities. 

But a longer-term view is needed.  While fossil fuels have worked for us for the last 100 years, the supply is finite.  We are finding that all that fracking might not give us 200 years, but more like 20-40 years of fuel.  We have not solved the vehicle fuel issue and fossil fuels appear to be the best solution for vehicles for the foreseeable future which means they will compete directly with power demands.  Natural gas can be used for vehicles fairly easily as evidenced by the many transit and local government fleets that have already converted to CNG. 

The long-term future demands a more sustainable green power solution.  We can get to full renewable power in the next 100 years, but the low hanging fruit need to be implemented early on so that the optimization of the equipment and figuring out the variables that impact efficiency can be better understood than they are now.  For example, Leadville, CO has a solar array, but the foot of snow that was on it last September didn’t allow it to work very well.  And solar arrays do use water to clean the panels.  Dirty panels are nowhere near as efficient as clean ones.  We need to understand these variables.

Area that are self sufficient with respect to power will benefit as the 21st century moves forward.  There are opportunities that have largely been ignored with respect to renewable power at water and wastewater facilities, and with wastewater plants there is a renewable fuel that is created constantly.  Wastewater plants are also perfect places to receive sludge, grease, septage, etc which increase the gas productions.  There are examples of this concept at work, but so far the effort is generally led by the wastewater utilities.  An example is East Bay Municipal Utility District (Oakland, CA) which produces 120% of its power needs at its wastewater plant, so sells the excess power back to the power company.  There are many large wastewater plants that use digester gas to create power on-site to heat digesters or operate equipment.  Others burn sludge in on-site incinerators to produce power.  But so far the utilities are only reducing their cost as opposed to increasing total renewable power supplies.  A project is needed to understand the dynamics further.  If you are interested, email me as I have several parties wishing to participate in such a venture. 

Communication in to Often Under-rated with Utilities

December 1, 2013
communciations, economy, Education, engineering, funding, graduation, innovation, Leadership, local government, management, Marketing water, water sewer management
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Communicating effectively in both written form and public speaking is critical for the success of the utility.  I have been reading several books on leadership and communication remains an ongoing issue throughout.  We see many schools trying to incorporate this into the engineering curriculum, but that leaves far too many outside the training “program.”  The problem is that many people think they communicate well, when in fact they do not.  Nothing is  more of a reality check than college students, too many of which write in “text message form” as opposed to real written words.  Presenting utility concepts and ideas to different audiences is an integral part of the profession and unfortunately the technical nature of many of our issues requires technical people to communicate concepts to non-technical audiences.  This s far more difficult than it appears, which is part of why the message may be lost.  .Knowing this fact, aspiring utility employees must become familiar with using visual aids and computer-based tools to convey the important design details, so that, the client, regulators, politicians, the public and even other engineers can envision what the final product will look like and evaluate their ability to successfully execute the project. 

We tell our students that technical communication for civil engineers is essential to the profession and is a prerequisite for a successful engineering career. It assists in conveying information, serves as a thought process tool, and is arguably just as essential as excellent analytical or computational skills. For some, writing well comes naturally, for others, it can be a struggle. The difference can be experience, confidence, and proper planning. Planning makes writing easier. A good place to start would be to make an outline of topics to adequately cover the necessary content and in the appropriate order that allows the reader to follow along in a logical fashion. Of course too many of them resist outlines and read very little.  

Reading and writing go hand in hand.  If you read a lot, you have a better chance of being a good writer than those o do not.  The saving grace of the vampire books, Hunger Games, Game of thrones and 50 Shades series is that someone is actually reading the books. That is a first step.  Of course the news is another matter.  History, of course no so much.  For utility folks, it is technical materials that must be read, digested and conveyed to the ratepayers.  People are naturally suspicious of those they cannot understand, a huge barrier for the industry to overcome. I remind our students than when the general public is asked what engineers do, more than half answer:  drive trains.  Wow.  the disconnect!

It is important to avoid overly long documents with too much technical detail, jargon or specialized terms, distractions and tangents.The consequences of poor communications clearly justify the amount of time and effort required to write well because, for example, the written word in a document is permanent; therefore, the bad impression left with the reader of sloppy work can be extremely damaging.  We need to engage the public in a positive way.  Communication needs to be a more robust goal for all of us than it currently is to engender that needed support.

SUSTAINABILITY OF UTILITIES – PART 2

October 11, 2013
Environment, finance, funding, infrastructure, Leadership, local government, management, planning, politics, Risk Management, sanitary sewer, sustainability, Uncategorized, water sewer management
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SUSTAINABILITY OF UTILITIES – PART 2

Let’s take a look at some scenarios. Let’s assume you are a utility that serves 20,000 people (8000 customers), with 60 miles of water pipe, 60 miles of sewer pipe, 17 lift stations, and a water and wastewater plant.  Replacing this infrastructure might be valued at $90 million for pipe, $35 million for treatment plants, water supply and pumping equipment (current day dollars).  Let’s also assume that their annual budget is $11 million and the typical demands are 3 MGD yielding a monthly bill of $115/mo (water and sewer).

Let’s make some general assumptions like that the pipe infrastructure might last 100 years, but clearly the treatment and mechanical parts would mot.  They would need ongoing maintenance and replacement.  50 years is probably too long, but let’s go with it.  If the overall costs increase at 3% per year and money is set aside for repair and replacement. The utility will see fairly steady rates if the customer base grows 2-3% per year.  Ten years out, the budget will be $16 million.  Now for the scenarios.

If the customer base has grown at 3% per year, the customers will increase to almost 27,000.  More of an issue is what happens if that increase in demand (from 3 to over 3.4 MGD) needs to come from a new water source and requires new capacity.  Many utilities will use impact fees to offset this cost to current customers so as not to adversely impact current customers too severely .That’s the current assumption.  The result looks like this at 10 and 20 years:

 

Component

  

Value today

10 years

20 years

Customers

  

20000

26878

36122

 

Accounts

  

8000

10751

14449

 

Water  Pipe

60 mi

 $   45,000,000

 $     98,509,418

 $215,646,786

Sewer Pipe

60 mi

 $   45,000,000

 $     98,509,418

 $215,646,786

Treatment Plants and Pumping

3 MGD

 $   35,000,000

 $     76,618,436

 $167,725,278

Operations budget

  

 $     9,000,000

 $     16,255,001

 $  29,358,340

Capital Budget

  

 $     1,600,000

 $       3,502,557

 $    7,667,441

Debt

  

 $        400,000

 $         400,000

 $      400,000

Monthly Amount

  

 $              115

 $                156

 $             216

Increase per year

    

5%

5%

 
         

 

Assume 1% of pipe Replacement Costs +2% Plant

    

 

Assume operating budget inc 3%/yr but construction increases 5%/yr

  

 
                     

 

But what if the new treatment and supply are 50% more costly and impact fees assume the lower investment (typical)?  The cost for the budget and for the infrastructure replacement increases (with the delta from debt).  Cost are 50% higher:

 

Component

  

Value today

10 years

20 years

Customers

  

20000

26878

36122

Accounts

  

8000

10751

14449

Water  Pipe

60 mi

 $   45,000,000

 $     98,509,418

 $215,646,786

Sewer Pipe

60 mi

 $   45,000,000

 $     98,509,418

 $215,646,786

Treatment Plants and Pumping

3 MGD

 $   35,000,000

 $     92,289,117

 $202,029,937

Operations budget

  

 $     9,000,000

 $     23,731,487

 $  42,861,706

Capital Budget

  

 $     1,600,000

 $       3,815,971

 $    8,353,534

Debt

  

 $        400,000

 $       1,325,000

 $    2,825,000

Monthly Amount

  

 $              115

 $                224

 $             312

Increase per year

    

8%

7%

 

The normal assumptions are that growth will continue, but what if it does not?

 

What can be gleaned as a result of a non-growth or net decrease scenario?  How does sustainability get affected?  Let’s look at the no growth scenario.  In this light, rates will need to increase at least 5% per year to insure that the utility remains rate neutral.  If there is significant deferred maintenance, which is typical of may utilities, that cost will be added to the bill.  There are examples of utilities in Florida who finally caught up with deferred obligations which doubled their customers’ bill.  This scenario is doable, but the only real assumption changes that can be made are related to the lack of growth.  Deferring maintenance will once exacerbate the problem as there is not guarantee that growth will return.  Rate neutrality becomes a public relations issue, but not insurmountable.

 

Component

  

Value today

10 years

20 years

 

Customers

  

20000

20000

20000

Accounts

  

8000

8000

8000

Water  Pipe

60 mi

 $   45,000,000

 $     73,300,258

 $119,398,397

Sewer Pipe

60 mi

 $   45,000,000

 $     73,300,258

 $119,398,397

Treatment Plants and Pumping

3 MGD

 $   35,000,000

 $     57,011,312

 $  92,865,420

Operations budget

  

 $     9,000,000

 $     12,095,247

 $  16,255,001

Capital Budget

  

 $     1,600,000

 $       2,606,231

 $    4,245,276

Debt

  

 $        400,000

 $         400,000

 $      400,000

Monthly Amount

  

 $              115

 $                157

 $             218

Increase per year

    

5%

5%
               

Now let’s look at the decline issue.  If the population decreases by 25% over the ten year horizon, what does this say?  The costs will remain relatively constant, but the number of customers and demands for water will drive the rates up significantly. In ten years the rates could double in a community that is likely economically disadvantaged.  The higher rates may begin to discourage economic development, rate neutrality exacerbate the problem and may increase in costs for regulatory or deferred maintenance obligation becomes a significant issue:

 

Component

  

Value today

10 years

20 years

Customers

  

20000

16341

13352

 

Accounts

  

8000

6537

5341

 

Water  Pipe

60 mi

 $   45,000,000

 $     73,300,258

 $119,398,397

 

Sewer Pipe

60 mi

 $   45,000,000

 $     73,300,258

 $119,398,397

 

Treatment Plants and Pumping

3 MGD

 $   35,000,000

 $     57,011,312

 $  92,865,420

 

Operations budget

  

 $     9,000,000

 $     12,095,247

 $  16,255,001

 

Capital Budget

  

 $     1,600,000

 $       2,606,231

 $    4,245,276

 

Debt

  

 $        400,000

 $         400,000

 $      400,000

 

Monthly Amount

  

 $              115

 $                193

 $             326

 
     

7%

7%

 
         

 

Assume 1% of pipe Replacement Costs +2% Plant

    

 

Assume operating budget inc 3%/yr but construction increases 5%/yr

  

 
                         

 What can we glean from this?  Interestingly the failure to accumulate costs for growth, and the declining rate base end up with similar monthly costs.  Only by the no growth and collecting appropriate impact fees will costs be controlled, and even in that case, costs will double every 20 years or less.  The reality is that the failure to follow proper revenue collection protocols will severely limit the utility in future years.  High capital costs impact rates significantly.  Leaving it to some future commissioner to raise the rates is unfair to both the future decision-makers and customers.  It does not make you a leader either. 

WATER SEWER GARBAGE FEES

October 4, 2013
economy, finance, funding, Leadership, local government, management, Uncategorized
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A recent article in the South Florida SunSentinel newspaper raised an interesting question.  What they did was line up all the cities in the county and identify the total fees paid to the City by residents.  They took the tax rates, plus water, sewer, storm water, fire, garbage and any other fees.  The article raised an interesting question.  For example, Hollywood, West Park and Lauderdale Lakes had the highest cost per household – in excess of $3500/year.  The other end of the spectrum was Hillsboro Beach, Sea Ranch Lakes and Southwest Ranches, each under $2000/household.  Of note is that Southwest Ranches provides no water or sewer service (all wells and septic tanks on large lots), so a direct comparison is not really appropriate.  Property taxes were low, but fire fees were really high.  Sea Ranch Lakes is a tiny community with no sewer, so again, not really a good comparison.  Hillsboro Beach is among the wealthiest communities, but also tiny. 

 Most communities had total fees between $2100 and 3200/resident.  Why the difference? First, the value of property varies widely.  West Park and Lauderdale lakes have among the lowest values per household, so their taxes must be higher to provide the same level of service.  Hollywood, and Dania Beach (#4 on the list) had higher water, sewer and storm water costs.  While both have recent, ongoing infrastructure programs, both have large transfers from the water and sewer fund to the general fund, and in both cases the water and sewer customer base does not match the property tax base.  In Dania Beach’s case, the service area is half the City, so those residents are supporting the property tax funded services at a higher rate than their neighbors.  Hollywood struggled with major budget issues to used water and sewer funds to balance the budget.

The problem that this article did not address, but should have was that where water, sewer and storm water costs were high, what was driving this? Was in infrastructure investments that others simply have yet to make?  That’s ok and the fact that these utilities invested now may be more timing.  If the result is due to transfers to the general fund, that is an entirely different, and somewhat disconcerting problem.  First since the service areas are not the same. There is a fairness issue.  Some residents pay more for the same services.  It means the water and sewer system is not really an enterprise, with rates based on service costs.  Instead it is being used as a tax source.