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water sewer management

REVISING OUR VIEW OF INFILTRATION GALLERIES IS SOUTH FLORIDA

July 13, 2013
Climate, Environment, groundwater, infiltration, infiltration gallery, infrastructure, innovation, Leadership, management, sea level rise, sustainability, Tidal flooding, water sewer management, water supplies
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A recent Rolling Stone article outlines a potentially dismal future for south Florida.  I was quoted in the article and give the author a bunch of information.  It is hard to write articles that “pop” in the popular press while conveying facts and figures.  But I would suggest that the future is not quite as dismal as the article depicts.  The sea level rise has been ongoing for at least 140 years as indicated by the Key West tidal station, the longest running tidal gauge in the world, but the amount has been 9 inches since 1920.  True it appears that the sea level rise may be accelerating as a result of warming temperatures in the atmosphere that causes the oceans to expend, plus the loss of ice that runs off from glaciers, but 3 feet by 2100 seems the average or maybe the high average.  That is unlikely to inundate all of south Florida, but keeping the water table low will be a challenge.  I suggest that the challenge can be met and accomplish two goals.  In low lying areas the impact of sea level rise is really manifested as increasing groundwater tables.  An increased groundwater table means less soil storage capacity, which means smaller rainstorms will cause flooding.  The increased flooding is already creating a demand by residents for solutions from local public officials.  We have used exfiltration trenches (French drains) for many years, but increasing water tables will mean many of these systems will not function as they may be currently.  But what if we reverse the concept?  Instead of exfiltration, what if we allowed the water to infiltrate the pipe and go to a central wet well, and then pump the water out of the wet well?  I further suggest that the dumping large quantities of groundwater to the ocean or canals may not be permittable as a result of high nutrients, so what if this water is instead pumped to a water plant as a raw water supply?  Wouldn’t that solve two problems at once? Lots of excess fresh water supplies in an era where there are significant limitations in fresh water supplies?  Just thinking….. 

 

 

GROWTH CORRIDORS MISSING THE WATER COMPONENT?

June 30, 2013
Development loans, Environment, funding, Holistic Water Planning, infrastructure, innovation, management, planning, Risk, water sewer management
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A recent Manhatten Institute for Policy Research report titled “America’s Growth Corridor: The Key to National Revisal” noted that the future economy in the US will tend to growth in certain corridors, which echos a prior report that identified “super-regions” where population, manufacturing, education and economic growth were likely to be concentrated. Both reports suggest that the super-regions will prosper, with the rest of the country lagging behind. The seven high growth areas in the Mnahatten Institute report are the Pacific Coast, the Northeast, the Front Range, Great Lakes, the southeast/piedmont, Florida/Gulf Coast, and Texas/southern plains. This new report focuses more on the politics of the region, noting that each region is politically fairly consistent internally, indicating there is more than one way to do business. The current business climate, driven primarily by energy favors the Plains, with the southeast starting to import jobs from Japan and Korean as a result of low wage rates. The report goes on to draw a series of political conclusions about business climates and the politics of why growth is occurring in certain areas. But let’s look at a different view of the report. Each of these regions has had “ it’s day in the sun” so to speak, and some a couple of days, like California. Business cycles are cyclical so shifts in growth corridors is not unexpected. However there are some potential limiting issues that are not addressed in the report that are of significant interest or concern.

First, where is the water? Texas and the Plains have significant water limitations, as does much of the southeast. Trying to build an economy when you lack a major resource becomes difficult. That is why the Northeast, Great Lakes and later the Pacific grew earlier than the south, mountain and Gulf states. The Northeast and Great Lakes had water for industrial use and transport of goods, a real key historically for industry. Those regions also had (and still have) better embedded transportation facilities (rail, roads, airports).

The next question is where is the power coming from? The answer that will be given is that the Plains states and Texas have created 40 % of the jobs in the energy sector in the past 4 years so that is where the energy comes from, but having energy and being able to convert it efficiently to power that is useful to people or industry is a different issue. You need water to cool natural gas plants, unless you want to sacrifice a lot of efficiency. Back to water again. Moving the gas to other parts of the country to convert coal or oil plants to natural gas would work, but getting the electricity back does not come without 6% losses and a real need to make major improvements to the electrical grid. Not a small job.

So while the Manhatten Institute reprort suggest that all seven corridors will grow, but that the southern corridors are growing faster, the sustainability of this growth is at question. I recall a similar prediction when I graduated from college in the early 1980s, when the jobs for engineers were limited to the energy fields in Texas and Louisiana and the prediction was that al the industrial growth would be in the south. And then Silicon Valley happened, and then the housing boom in California, Nevada and Florida happened, and a few things in between. Oh and that energy economy collapsed in the late 1980s …. You get the picture. This is not to say that some marketing the power, water and transportation benefits of the historical industrial areas of the north are not needed – they are, but the fact is that there is significant available water, power, transportation and people capacity that is unused. If I am an industry, I may want to look at the power/water issue a little more closely.

Sustainability and Risk Managers as Future Water Manager Obligations?

June 27, 2013
Climate, communciations, Environment, finance, funding, groundwater, Holistic Water Planning, infrastructure, innovation, Leadership, management, Marketing water, planning, Risk, Risk Management, sustainability, water sewer management
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In the past week I have had the opportunity to experience the extremes with water – heavy rains/tropical weather in SE Florida, and dry weather in Denver at America Water Works Association’s Annual Conferences and Exposition. Two months ago with was snowing in Denver and there had been limited rain in SE Florida. Six months ago we were both dry and there was significant concern about drought in both places. How quickly fortunes change and the associated attitudes as well. It is part of a perception problem – looking at the near term – instant gratification, as opposed the long-term consequences. In truth neither set of conditions is historically different or should have created major panic or much shift in attitudes, but it is the potential to predict conditions that require the water manager’s scrutiny. We have all become risk managers.

Managing risk is not in the job description of most water and sewer personnel (risk managers aside, and they are focused on liability risks from incidents caused by or incurred by the utility like accidents, not water supply risks). We spend a lot of effort on the engineering, operation and business side, but less on planning or risk/vulnerability assessments. EPA has required vulnerability assessments in the past, but having seen some of those exercises, most are fairly superficial and many put on a shelf and forgotten. I have had clients ask me if I still had copies because they did not. Clearly we need a renewed commitment to vulnerability assessment.

Vulnerability starts with water supplies. Groundwater is particularly tricky. A new USGS study reports significant decreases in water levels in many aquifers across the US, especially confined aquifers in the west. That situation is not improving, and the situation will not correct itself. Loss of your water supply is a huge vulnerability for a community. Finding a new supply is not nearly as simple as it sounds or as many are led to believe. Confined aquifers do not recharge quickly and therefore have finite amounts of water in them. Remove too much water and all too often land subsidence occurs, which means the aquifer collapses and will never hold the same amount of water. USGS has mapped this and it matches up well with the drawn down aquifers. More data needs to be collected, but Congress is looking to cut USGS funds for such purposes, just when conditions suggest the data is needed most.

Many watershed basins and many aquifers are over allocated and overdrawn, and not just in the west. New England and the Carolinas have examples. Overallocation means competition for water will increase with time and it will be utilities that everyone will look at to solve the problem. Afterall the utilities have money as opposed to agriculture and other users, right? To protect themselves, water utility managers will need to look beyond their “slice of the pie” to start discussions on the holistic benefits to water users throughout the watershed, which will extend to understanding economic and social impacts of water use decisions. It is not just about us, and paradigm shift that is coming and one that we as an industry need to be the leading edge for. Our use impacts others and vice versa. Every basin wants to grow and prosper, but decisions today may reduce our future potential. Klamath River is a great example of misallocated water priorities. The biggest potential economy in the basin is Salmon ($5B/yr), followed by tourism ($750 M and growing), which relies on fishing and hiking. But agriculture ($0.2 B/yr) get the water first. Then power, which warms the water (salmon like cold water). Then a few people (a few 100,000 at the most in the basin). The result, the salmon industry gets reduced to $50 M/yr. Now how could we create more jobs, which would result in more income and a bigger economy? The easy answer is encourage the salmon industry, but that doesn’t sit well with the other, smaller users that will become more vulnerable to losses.

I suggest that to harden our water future in any given basin, we need to start looking a little more holistically at the future. This type of analysis is clearly not in the job description of the utility or its managers, utility managers may have the best access to technical expertise and information. As a result to protect their interests and manage risk, we may need to shift that paradigm and become holistic water managers.

Radio Program last week

June 5, 2013
Environment, funding, groundwater, infiltration gallery, infrastructure, innovation, Leadership, management, planning, sustainability, water sewer management, water supplies
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Radio Program last week

Hi all.  Here is another radio show I did last week talking about  my company Public Utility Management and Planning Services Inc. and water sustainability. Take a listen. Let me know what you think.  Thanks

Fred

Infiltration Trenches for Storm water and Water Supply? 2 for 1?

June 2, 2013
Climate, economy, Environment, groundwater, infiltration, infiltration gallery, infrastructure, innovation, management, riverbank filtrations, Tidal flooding, Uncategorized, water sewer management, water supplies
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The concept of horizontal wells arises from riverbank filtration concepts.  Riverbank filtration has been practiced for nearly 200 year in Europe, where the concept was to remove debris form polluted waters by drawing through the banks of rivers.  Much of the concepts for groundwater flow are related to the filtration ability of water to move through a porous media.  The concept was to dig trenches along the river and draw water from the trenches as opposed to the polluted rivers.  The concept worked relatively well.  The result is an abundant, dependable supply of high-quality water with a constant temperature, low turbidity, and low levels of undesirable constituents such as viruses and bacteria. Riverbank filtration also provides an additional barrier to reduce precursors that might form disinfection byproducts during treatment.

Now let’s look at this from another perspective, and we’ll pick on southeast Florida as is provides a great case study.  Sea level rise will inundate coastal property, both via coastal flooding and from a rise in groundwater. Since most stormwater drainage depends on gravity flow, drainage capacity will suffer as sea level rises reducing the head differential between interior surface waters and tide. Saltwater intrusion will be exacerbated. Furthermore, reduced soil storage capacity, groundwater flow and stormwater drainage capacity will contribute to increased flooding during heavy rain events in low-lying areas.  In low lying areas, current practices like exfiltration trenches will become impractical, as will dry retention will become wet retention.

Stormwater utilities will be faced with dramatic, currently unanticipated increases in capital expenditures and operating costs, and time will be needed for planning, design, securing permits and compliance. Additional local pumping stations on secondary canals will be needed to supplant the storm drainage system in order to prevent unacceptable ponding. Design capacities of these stations will depend on local rain patterns, drainage basin size and secondary canal system design.  Many will operate continuously, which means ongoing operations will increase substantially. Hundreds of pumping stations may be needed in some communities.

Permits will be a major challenge due to contaminants in the runoff as regulated by MS 4 Stormwater permits, and the inability to treat this water under the current structure. The cost and energy required for stormwater treatment would be a major concern going forward. But what if we sent this continuous flow to water plants as raw water?  All of a sudden we have a solution to two problems – stormwater and raw water supplies.  How often do you see a 2 for 1 solution?

How Long should the Leadership vision be?

April 29, 2013
Climate, Environment, finance, groundwater, infrastructure, Leadership, management, planning, sustainability, Uncategorized, water sewer management, water supplies
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We do 5, 10 and 20 year plans for infrastructure.  But how long do we expect to this infrastructure to last?  For example, how many roads only last 10 or 20 years?  Most roads only seem to grow with time.  Ancient Roman roads are the basis for many current roads.  We keep adding roads – few are ever abandoned. They simply do not go away.   So a 5, 10 or 20 year planning period makes little sense.

Roads are not the only limit.  The WPA-era water mains are approaching 80 years old, and still providing good service, and our Clean Water Act-era sewer improvements are approaching 40.  Sewer lines are similarly situated.  Many water plants are over 70; we celebrate 100 years on many.  Again, planning for only 20 years makes little sense in the context of the larger length of time.

More interesting, we rarely borrow money to pay for these projects for less than 20, 30 or 40 years.  So our infrastructure outlives our plans and our borrowing.  Often permits are less that the borrowing for infrastructure, which can cause stranded capacity in plants that may never be used.  Miami-Dade County has such a situation – they are not alone.

Let’s look at this in the context of groundwater withdrawals.  There are areas across the US where groundwater levels have fallen. They have fallen because of human activity to pump them for crops and water use.  Colorado has a 100 year management plan in the Denver basin which is basically make the water last 100 years.  Then what?  Texas has shorter plans.  The eastern Carolina drained parts of the Black Creek already, so this is not a theoretical western state issue only.  How do we address this?

Or let’s go back to Miami-Dade County the outer banks of North Carolina, historical downtown Charleston, SC, and many other venues where sea level rise could impact water, sewer, storm water and roadway infrastructure. As we redevelop those area, should plans look at the true life of those assets (100 years) vs. the 20 year plan?

Both issues involve the sustainability of infrastructure systems, which means the ability to adapt them to changing future conditions.  We have known for 10-15 years that stationarity is no longer accepted for future projections.  But we need leadership to move the infrastructure planning to the future changing conditions.

Barriers to Public Sector Leaders? Part 3

April 11, 2013
communciations, finance, infrastructure, Leadership, management, planning, sustainability, Uncategorized, water sewer management
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In the last two blogs we discussed the three issues were associated with risk tolerance in the public sector which stifles innovation, application of business principles to public sector efforts, and the lack of vision and understanding of consequences.  In this blog we will explore the third issue – the lack of vision.  This is perhaps the hardest of the three parameters discussed.  One would think that applying private sector business principles would help with the vision process, but it does not because the terms for elected officials are comparatively short term.  In addition, our demands on the private sector are short term profits which has hurt the long-term vision of both public and private sectors.

What is a vision?  It is supposed to be a concept of where you want your organization to be in a longer-term future.  It is an agent for change and those developing the vision are outlining the change they want in the organization.  What services are to be provided, what water sources are to be used, energy self sufficiency, wastewater reuse opportunities, incorporation of storm water to sources waters, etc.? All possible ideas, but they only scratch the surface of the universe of opportunities that might exist.  The key is change, which normally requires thinking outside the proverbial box.  Change rarely comes from doing the same thing over and over.  Change requires innovation. So by its very nature, the status quo is not leadership because no change is required.  Managers who “don’t rock the boat” may be excellent managers, but they are not leaders.  Elected officials who’s mantra is not to raise rates, are not leaders either.

Your customers often are a great source for defining vision.  They will tell you what services they want.  I recall a meeting went to where I was talking about leadership to some elected officials.  The public was present in force.  I brought up the concept of developing a vision.  The public was encouraged.   They spoke out about ideas.  All very good.  Then one of the Board members informed everyone that vision statements were the job of the attorney and he would just write one up.  That did not go over nearly as well as that Board member had hoped.  He was abdicating his roles in overseeing the utility as well as any leadership role he might have hoped to have.  The public knew what they wanted, and it was clearly change, something the Board member clearly did not want.

So the question is “are we that afraid of change that we cannot tolerate leadership?” Are managers and elected officials so concerned about change that they actively suppress it despite public outcry?  I often raise the following question when talking to elected officials – how many statues have been raised for politicians who did not raise rates?  We’ll talk about that next time…

Barriers to Public Sector Leaders? Part 2

April 5, 2013
Environment, infrastructure, innovation, Leadership, management, planning, sustainability, Uncategorized, water sewer management
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In the last blog we discussed the three issues were associated with risk tolerance in the public sector which stifles innovation, application of business principles to public sector efforts, and the lack of vision and understanding of consequences.  In this blog we will explore the second issue – application of business issue into the public sector.  The public and private sectors are different.  We need to recognize this.  For the most part, the public sector does those things that the private sector deems to be averse toward profits.  Clearly everyone needs water, but if you can’t get people to pay for it, you can’t make a business out of it.  Enter government, which has the ability to lein and condemn houses for failure to be connected.  A bit more incentive.

Or take fire service.  Fire service in New York was once a private affair.  You paid and the fire company would respond.  If your house caught fire and you had not paid, then what.  No one shows.  This was illustrated nicely in the movie “Gangs of New York” and was the catalyst for creating the NYC fire department.  And many others.  It simply is not acceptable to have some people but not all, because of the risk to everyone.  Vaccinations are the same way.  Much easier to implement by government.  And historically this is what has happened.

But we often hear the commentary about how we should be “running government like a business.” However I suggest this is an oversimplified argument that ignores true differences in the objectives of the public and private sector.   The two sectors are different and let’s look at an example.  If you were in charge of Ford Motor Company and let’s say you had only two vehicles, the F150 pickup (largest selling vehicle in the US) which has a high profit margin, or a passenger vehicle which does not have a high profit margin and does not sell nearly as well.  If you determine that your revenues are likely to decrease as a result of the economy, where do you make cuts?  There is an easy metric – cutting costs and reducing production of the passenger vehicle might actually maintain or improve your profit margin.  So that manager looks like a brilliant leader.

He (generic) now gets hired to run a City because of his success at Ford.  The City of course has a revenue shortfall, so what does he do? Much more difficult.  He has police, fire, parks and recreation, planning, etc. so where do you cut.  None of them are profit centers; they are all services, the value of which cannot easily be measured.  He could evaluate the risk of higher losses if he cuts the fire department, but that likely has other issues.  Hence there is a distinct different in the metrics between the sectors.  So he cuts all services the same amount – sharing the pain because there is no means to measure the impact of success of cutting costs. Every government employee recognizes this method to reduce the budget.  So how would that have worked at Ford?  Well, cutting back on the F150 and the passenger vehicle the same percent would likely make the overall situation worse, not better.  A Ford executive making that type of decision would be roundly criticized and likely dismissed, but that same person is viewed as a successful manager in the public sector.  Nonesense.  He’s still an idiot and deserves to be fired.  Ditto the other officials that go along with such simplistic decision-making.

The public and private sectors are different, and while there are commonalities, the inability to directly measure impacts on the public sector make private sector applications suspect in many situations.  Curtaining services that have much larger, unanticipated consequences, a risk that dissuades innovation because of the inherent risks and the risk of impacting some powerful constituency. Simplistic solutions that are commonly offered up simply mean that these “leaders” simply do not understand what their “products” are nor which ones are a priority.  And hence they abdicate their decision-making for simplistic solutions that seem “fair.”  Successful leaders in business and government will tell you lesson #1 is life is not fair. We need leadership to help us make better decisions.

Barriers to Public Sector Leaders?

April 1, 2013
infrastructure, innovation, Leadership, management, Uncategorized, water sewer management
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One of the issues that arises in the public water utility sector is where are the leaders?  A recent online discussion of the issue identified a number of barriers to public sector leadership, which differentiates the public sector from the private sector.  The three issues were associated with risk tolerance in the public sector which stifles innovation, application of business principles to public sector efforts, and the lack of vision and understanding of consequences.  Related to the latter is the understanding of the various types and perspectives of expertise within the industry.  Over the next three blogs, we will talk about each.  Comments welcome of course.

So the first one.  For the most part, public officials, city managers, finance directors and elected officials, are particularly risk averse individuals as a group.  For one thing, their tenure in any given job is relatively short (city manager are aground 2-3 years).  Elected officials spend much of their time trying to stay in office, so clearly their leadership is guided by public opinion, never a strong point for leadership. Regulatory agencies can only be criticized, so why be innovative? For all three, plus the employees working beneath these folks, their performance is in the public eye and the public is rarely forgiving of continued or significant failures.  However, innovation is often correlated with risk, which suggests that the risk associated with failure may limit the pursuit or acceptance of innovation – instead keep doing what you have been doing because that creates no waves.  Nevermind that the same old way may be inefficient or outdated, the concern is the risk if a new idea fails.  The reality is to “stick with what works,” a mantra that has existed in the industry for many yeas, does not accept innovation easily.  Particularly of issue is organizations where many mid- and often upper division managers avoid decision-making, but may be particularly poignant in pointing out decision failures of others as a means to improve their own stock – “I’ve never made a bad decision.”  But as in baseball, sitting on the bench 0 for 0, means you have never had an at bat, so you have accomplished nothing, while the person who is 6/10 may have accomplished a lot.  It is successful risk taking that may lead to changes in the organization, changes in doing business, improvements in efficiency and new means to accomplish tasks or deliver services.  You need to think “outside the box,” to use an overused euphemism.

So the question is how do we get the public and the public officials to accept risk taking, and to relax their risk averseness?  For innovation to grow, we need leadership, which means risk tolerance.  After all doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results is the definition of insanity isn’t it?

WHAT MAKES A GREAT LEADER?

March 25, 2013
communciations, infrastructure, innovation, Leadership, management, sustainability, Uncategorized, water sewer management
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WHAT MAKES A GREAT LEADER?

This a question that has puzzled researchers for some time.  Back in the 19th century we looked to enlightenment among people – mostly oriented to new ideas and processes that would move civilization forward.  That helped but did not provide full answers.  Of course we were still in the throes of the start of the industrial revolution.  We looked at psychology to show us how to find leaders at the turn of the 20th century, but that faded in favor of trying to determine traits that made good leaders in the 1920s.  The idea of traits faded as we started looking the style by which people managed (think all those tests out there), but soon found that management style, leadership perception and results were often not correlated.  In the 1990s we started looking at adaptation, but as Jim Collins points out the great companies seem to have leaders that are the opposite of the charismatic leadership many seek or seek to become.  It’s the plodders, who can adapt to changing facts or situations on the front lines, that seem to get results.  And we only tend to notice after the fact, or well into their leadership reign, not at the beginning.  In fact many of the best success stories received much criticism early on.

What this all seems to indicate is that leadership evolves, just as civilization evolves.  Those that can evolve and adapt to changing conditions appear to lead the most successful organizations, but are not often recognized as the best leaders.  No one set of characteristics in a person will fit each situation or challenge, but you need the ability to understand the context of the facts in order to chart a course and engage people in solutions.  Without buy-in, the problem will not be solved and most challenges require thought on the part of others who are committed to the same goals as the leader.  The leadership team concepts allows for the ability to delegate to those closest to the situation, or with the best skill set to resolve it, will achieve the best result and create personal accountability by creating a personal stake in the solution.

Engagement identifies another emerging hallmark of leadership which is that we all want to succeed and leaders tend to nudge their followers toward that success.  Good leaders always backstop their charges, and understand that not all situations will be resolved ideally and that there may be multiple means to resolve the problem.  That gives the followers the ability to “gamble” on innovative solutions without the fear of reprisals.  The fear of reprisals will eliminate innovation.  What you want is to lead your organization to be innovative.  Organizations that foster innovation can become more effective in their industry.  Isn’t that what we want?  Fostering innovation is how Google develops a lot of its applications.  They call it 20% time, where employees get to work on anything they want, with anyone they want, except their own projects.  Think GoogleEarth, gmail, and many others.  Dan Pink did an excellent discussion in his best seller “Drive.”  I recommend you check it out.  But then we need to ask, “When was the last time we tried something like 20% time in the utility industry?”