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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?”

Groundwater Accelerates Sea Level Rise

March 14, 2013
Climate, communciations, Development loans, Environment, funding, groundwater, infrastructure, Insurance, Leadership, management, planning, sea level rise, stormwater, sustainability, Tidal flooding, Uncategorized
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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). We know that 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. The loss of groundwater, mainly from confined aquifers, is troubling, and currently completely unknown. The contribution of carbon dioxide, commonly occurring in deep groundwater is also unknown. To gauge the risk to property in southeast Florida, Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact and Florida Atlantic University reviewed twelve different projections of SLR and its timing. The consensus was 3” to 7” by 2030 and 9” to 24” by 2060. From the literature review and analysis, it was concluded that approximately 3 ft. of sea level rise by 2100 would a suitable scenario and time frame to illustrate the methodology presented in this article. To allow flexibility in the analysis due to the range of increases within the different time periods, an approach that uses incremental increases of 1, 2, and 3 feet of SLR was considered for risk scenarios. An issue normally ignored in sea level rise projections is groundwater. The importance of the groundwater table in the model is that it is responsible for determining the soil storage capacity. Soil is composed of solids, water, and air (voids). Soil storage capacity depends on physical and chemical properties, water content of the soil, and depth to the water table or confining unit (Gregory et al 1999). As the rain infiltrates the soil, unsaturated pores quickly fill up, effectively raising the water table (Gregory et al 1999). For example efforts, a groundwater surface elevation map was derived based well site information available from the USGS (http://groundwaterwatch.usgs.gov) that had a minimum of 35 years of continuous data. Using GIS, an inundation model was created in GIS by subtracting the groundwater surface model from the digital elevation model with the difference in elevation being the soil storage capacity. The photo shows the evolution of these features as applied to a section of northwestern Miami-Dade County. What this indicates it that the impact of sea level rise on low-lying inland areas may be far different that the projections using the bathtub models. It also means that wellfields, sewer mains, roadways and storm water systems will be affected far more quickly than projected from bathtub models. The method used here suggested that the estimated may be off by a factor of two of three.

Market or be Outmarketed

March 10, 2013
communciations, finance, funding, Leadership, Marketing water, sustainability, Uncategorized, water supplies
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Municipal drinking water is strictly regulated by the USEPA.  We spend a lot of time testing our water, producing reports, and providing our customers with information on our results.  The results show it works, because the number of incidents of contaminated water are few, and rarely affect larger utility systems.  We are so good at providing water that the public expects their water to be safe, yet the buy bottled water?  Wait, huh?  Bottled water? Bottled water is not regulated by the USEPA and is not subject to the same requirements as potable water.  There are less than three full time people at FDA inspecting bottled water facilities, versus thousands reviewing public water supplies.  Water utilities run millions of analyses per year and must publish the results.  So why do they buy bottled water when our water is safe?

Keep in mind that in many areas of the world, the bottled water industries move in and compete for the same supplies as we currently use.  North Florida is rife with arguments over flows to springs as are other areas.  Some of the water is simply repackaged tap water.  So in addition to competing for our customers, they are competing with the sustainability of our drinking water supplies.  Then there are the hundreds of thousands of bottles that end up in landfills.  More impact on sustainability.  At the same time, bottled water is more costly that gasoline, which everyone complains about, but that does not stop the purchases?  So what’s up?

Marketing that’s what.  We don’t market water.  I noted in an earlier blog that we simply don’t market our product, which has allowed others to compete for the same dollars.  Customers complain about rate hikes, (averaging about 5% per year for the past 10 years according to the new AWWA study), yet they happily pay over $4/gallons for many of the popular bottled waters, more and more cable channels, fancy phones, etc.  Not that any of these commercial products are per se bad, but none are required for survival like water.

Interestingly when we do market, it reaps positive results.  New York and San Francisco have seen the wisdom of marketing for year.  They ship New York tap water to Florida to make Brooklyn style bagel because Florida Water doesn’t taste the same.  DC Water changed its name, and began a marketing campaign that changed public perception of the utility and has allowed it to start dealing with its infrastructure backlog.  Some of their ideas include branding the water, and having restaurants serve it in marked glasses, paid for by the utility.  Signs on drinking fountains, in schools and even sales of tap water in stores are options some utilities have started.  But the key is started.  Marketing takes dollars, to reap benefits.  Who knows, maybe tap water is the next bottled water….

What do you believe are the three biggest water challenges in the U.S.? Part 2

February 20, 2013
Climate, Environment, finance, funding, groundwater, infrastructure, Leadership, management, Marketing water, sustainability, Uncategorized, water sewer management, water supplies
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This question has been asked a couple times on on-line discussion groups.  It usually results in a short list of answers.  In the last post, I outlined the number one answer –  getting a handle on failing infrastructure.  The next issue has to do with water supplies.  You hear the argument that we need to get people to respect that drinking water as a limited resource, develop where water supplies are plentiful as opposed to arid regions that are water poor and protecting water sources instead of rendering it unusable in the process of using it. People (and their jobs) are moving to “more favorable” (read: warmer, more arid) climates, so people are now actually trying to grow rice and develop golf courses in the deserts of the Southwest US and complaining about “drought” conditions. The sustainability of groundwater supplies is often noted as a problem because much of the west relies on groundwater for agricultural irrigation. Having a 50 or 100 year management plan for an aquifer, which is how to insure there is water to last 50 or 100 years, is shortsighted, even though it doesn’t sound like it. Long term these areas could run out of water which will create significant economic impacts to these communities. More professionals should be involved in this discussion: regional growth planners; federal and state funders that offer ‘incentives’ to businesses to relocate their workers; city and county governments that accept these ‘incentives’ to beef up their budgets.

But just as cities market their community to developers and industry, it is interesting that marketing services is another issue.  I had a conversation where an elected official said it was inappropriate for government to market. Yet the bottled water industry does, power companies do, and cell phone companies do. Utilities ignore the people that put fliers on houses asking our residents to take a sample of their water, and then attacking the quality of our drinking water by explaining that having calcium and chlorine in the water is bad, should have been addressed long ago. Of course calcium and chlorine are in the water! Chlorine disinfects the water and then keeps the distribution system clean (especially an issue in warmer climates with TOC in the water). Our public is uneducated and we have been out-marketed for scare dollars for 40 years. That is an elected official, but also a water official problem.

What do you believe are the three biggest water challenges in the U.S.?

February 15, 2013
Climate, communciations, Environment, finance, funding, infrastructure, Leadership, management, Marketing water, planning, Uncategorized, water sewer management, water supplies
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This question has been asked a couple times on on-line discussion groups.  It usually results in a short list of answers.  The number one answer is usually getting a handle on failing infrastructure.  The US built fantastic infrastructure systems that allowed our economy to grow and use to be productive, but like all tools and equipment, it degrades, or wears out with time.  In addition, newer infrastructure is more efficient and works better. In many ways we are victims of our own success. 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. Looking to the future, we should take education as one of our challenges.  Our economy and out way of life requires access to high quality water and waste water. So this will continue to be critical.  But utilities have not been proactive in explaining the condition of buried infrastructure in particular, and need more data. The same goes for roadways and many buildings.

Cities are sitting on crumbling systems that have suffered from lack of adequate funding to consistently maintain and upgrade.  In part this is because some believe that clean drinking water is a right instead of a privilege to be paid for. We gladly pay hundreds of dollars per month for cable television and cell phones, but scream at the costs for water delivered to out tap. The discussion usually continues along the lines of utilities are funding at less than half the level needed to meet the 30 year demands while relying on the federal government, which is trying to get out of funding for infrastructure for local utilities. Utilities are a local issue which is some ways makes this easier. Our local leaders to send help with the education (after we educate them), send less money going to the general funds and more retained by utilities.

Perhaps where we have failed is in educating the public. 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. We are not very successful at getting this point across.

Money is an issue, and will always be, but the fact that local officials are not stressed about infrastructure is in part because utility personnel are very good at our jobs, minimizing disruptions and keeping the public safe. We are not “squeaky wheels” and we don’t market our product at all. Afterall, is cable or your phone really more valuable that water and sewer?

The Way of the Wolverine

January 30, 2013
Climate, communciations, Environment, finance, funding, infrastructure, Leadership, management, Marketing water, planning, sustainability, water sewer management
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Last week, the headline in the morning newspaper and on-line news outlets report the most recent suggestions from the House of Representatives to cut the federal budget deficit involves major cuts to domestic programs.  No surprise there.  Among those that are proposed to be cut significantly is infrastructure investments.  Infrastructure is what allows our country to thrive.  Without water, sewer, roads, airports, ports, etc, the economy could not be as robust as it has been, and will not achieve its greatest output.  The fact that our elected leaders don’t see infrastructure investment as a high priority is problematic.  More problematic is that this appears to be an ongoing position of some in Congress, meaning there is likely more of this view at other levels of government.  But it ignores that facts.  This country has always grown after investments in infrastructure, not before.  The federal government has been involved in infrastructure since the beginning of the country, and actually accelerated its involvement after WWII, including water and wastewater upgrades starting immediately after WWII.  The monies to improve water and sewer systems increased after the passage of the Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts.  Recall that President Nixon, a conservative republican, sponsored the new federalism concept that greatly expanded the amount of federal block grants to local governments. In part this was due to the perceived need to help local governments catch up with improvements needed in connection with new federal rules, like the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water act.  The high point in federal aid for infrastructure.

The trend was reversed in mid-1980s, when most of the grant programs were converted to loan programs, with the idea that the federal government would wean the utility industry off federal entitlements within 30 years.  The current concern over budget deficits and taxes further weakens the prospects of large scale federal flow –throughs to assist local governments with infrastructure upgrades, water and sewer included.  Given that the current water and sewer needs exceed over $1 billion in the next 30 years, and current funding levels are expected to derive half that amount, the infrastructure needs gaps will continue to widen, with potentially more common failures in piping systems, and impacts to local economies.  It is a viscous circle that needs to end, and one that can only have negative long-term effects for us.   In part the issue is political will, but also the failure of non-elected executives to fully grasp the issue, and adopting the way of the wolverine – to fight and scrap, climb, scramble and investigate new means to defend what is their’s.  The analogy is that utility personnel, and the upper management they report to, need to take “ownership” of their utilities infrastructure, and urge the decision-makers to do the same.  We need to defend our infrastructure, and we have the means to do it.  The time may be right to push this issue locally.  The economy is looking up.  Property values are starting to climb, and commercial activity is slowly creeping back.  The result will be more tax money available to general funds, many of which have been living large off the utility system.  Seems like this would be a good time to reverse that trend.

The failure to do so creates difficulties, not unlike those faced by wolverines today.  The wolverine suffers from effects placed on it by others.  There are only 500-1000 in the United States as opposed to the many that were here before hunting, farming and other development.  A second “way of the wolverine” is decline because they cannot fix the problems caused by others.  Unlike the wolverine, we have the power to prevent our decline.  We need to do so.

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

The Benefit of Conferences

December 4, 2012
communciations, infrastructure, Leadership, management, Marketing water, water sewer management
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I am currently at the Florida Section of AWWA’s annual conference.  One of the discussion items has been the need to increase the number of people attending the conference (and conferences in general), and in particular, the number of young people attending.  Most of the people attending conferences are older management personnel, who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience.  However budget constraints is a constant issue that limits attendance by younger personnel.  This lack of expenses ties with the lack of understanding of the benefits that these get togethers can have.

Conferences mimic civilization.  The reason should be obvious.  As civilization has growth, the advancements in our technology, means and methods have occurred in cities where many people can gather in one place, meet, discuss issues, and arrive at solutions based on others experience, something that cannot be done in rural areas.   Conferences are intended to achieve a similar goal as – bring people with common interests and problems together to discus their issues and find new ideas to improve service delivery.  As a result, there are three basic things that happen at these conferences:  talking to vendors who have products that might help the utility or meet certain needs, sitting in on technical sessions, and talking with other utility and engineering personnel that about common problems.  All have great potential for ideas to help utilities.  A good discussion can yield a solution or idea that can solve an ongoing issue.  How others approach the problem may shed light on how your utility can accomplish this.  What we need to do is make officials in charge of budgets understand that the savings of just one good idea can easily exceed the cost of attendance.

Unfortunately the germination and growth of these ideas is rarely conveyed to the officials who have control of the budget or attributed to attendance at conferences.  Conveying this data is a form of marketing the benefits of learning new things that we often miss.  Same issue with civil engineers who do not do a good job conveying to the public what they accomplish (and I am one).  Most civil engineering projects are simply taken for granted, especially water and sewer projects.  We need to do a better job of marketing these benefits.  The movement of the industry forward relies on it.

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!!