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Interesting Question about Reuse

February 26, 2015
direct potable reuse, engineering, groundwater, Leadership, Marketing water, resource depletion, utilities
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If you are a wastewater utility, and you create a high quality effluent product that can be used for industrial purposes, irrigation or aquifer recharge, who “owns” the water?  If the utility is sending to a golf course pond for discharge, the answer seems obvious – the golf course owns it.  Not so fast.

Now let’s day you are recharging and aquifer.  You pump it into the ground with the intention of recharging the aquifer to benefit your wellfield.   Or you pump it into an aquifer storage and recovery system with the intent of recovering it when you need it.  Quick impression is that you should own it, but what about the people that sink walls along the way?  Or have existing wells in the vicinity that can tap your injected water?  Can you keep people from pumping it out?  Not as clear.

What about discharge to a stream with the idea of capturing it downstream in an intake system for your water system?  Much less clear.  The ecosystem, farmers, irrigation users, etc. along the stream could use the increased flows.  Can you keep them out?  Very unclear.

Now assume you are a water rights state and there are people who have rights to the aquifer or stream that are more senior to yours.  Can you clip their claim to the water by claiming the water is yours?  Really not clear and the subject of ongoing regulatory discussion and legal proceedings.

There are no clear answers to these questions but they have major long-term impacts of water resource planning in much of the US.  The problem is the rules assume facts not in evidence at the time of the permit (or claim).  Conditions can change – permits and rules may not (or have not).  Maybe the water regulations and that the changed condition should perhaps obviate the prior claim?  A very tough legal issue and one bound to make a bunch of people unhappy.  The concept of reclaiming water from waste was not a consideration in the past, so clearly the rules that cover reclaimed water need to be revised.  I can’t wait to see the results.

Fires and Climate Change

February 22, 2015
Climate, Colorado, Environment, Fires, Leadership, local government, management
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The Union of Concerned Scientists reviewed recent wildfires in the west. One of the concerns they raised was that increased forest fires are both a climate change and a man-induced issue.  Wildfires on federal land has increased 75% on federally owned land.  Fire impacted areas are larger and impact more development which encroaches on those federal holdings.  We spend over $1 billion in fire fighting on federal lands each year.  But why?

Because many of the forest are in mountainous areas, fire season starts earlier in year with less mountain snowfall.  And that is  most years as snowfall accumulation decrease.  Temperatures are warmer, earlier with shortens the snow season.   Water runs off faster.  Of course the fact that we altered management philosophies to prevent all forest fires didn’t help because some burning is natural each year. As a result there is a huge reserve of unburned land out west.  The beetles did not help either as they left millions of acres of dead trees on mountain sides from Canada to New Mexico. Beetle infestation is clearly climate change driven.

The solutions are more difficult.  Building up next to federal land needs to be restricted.  Regulations in dealing with trees, bushes and underbrush in fire prone areas need to be enacted and enforced. Early spring fires set as control burns need to happen more frequently. But these are all local responses to a global climate problem.  That response is currently lacking.  These are leadership issues.

From a utility perspective, this issue may be significant.  We like those high, clean mountain streams.  But after a forest fire, those streams are often warmer and less clean.  The soot, ash and runoff from now barren land can create significant impacts on water plant, create major treatment alterations, increase costs, and risk contamination.  A friend some years ago suggested that utilities were instruments of social change.  The fact that we have treated water and sewer creates social change.  We need to protect water supplies and therefore we should be a part of the conversation on land use.  That requires some leadership.

 

Highest Risk States for Losses

August 28, 2014
Climate, Colorado, economy, Flooding, infrastructure, sea level rise, sustainability
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As those of you who follow this blog know, we periodically touch on climate issues.  Sea level rise is a particularly acute issue here at ground zero – southeast Florida.  But as I have said for some time, this is not an immediate crisis, but a slow steady creep that gives us time to adapt to the changes related to sea level rise.  I am optimistic that while we will spend a lot more money to engineer water management so we will need more engineers, there are solutions that will allow us to thrive here for a long time – probably a lot longer than we have been here, which is just over 100 years.

Our bigger, current challenge is the temporal but catastrophic impact of tropical storm activity that can create immediate consequences that last for years, much as Hurricane Andrew did in 1992 and Hurricane Wilma almost ten years ago.  Of course there have been others, like Donna in 1960 which were worse.  I mention this because the peak of hurricane season in Sept 10 – only two weeks away.  We have been lucky for years now, and of course we are all hoping it remains that way.

But I found another interesting article this weekend hat talked about the states with the most weather losses since 2006 (and in a subsequent blog I will look back further for comparison). is New Jersey.  OK, no huge surprise given the recent experience of Sandy.  But who is number 2?  Or for that matter 2-10?  Would you believe that Florida is not on the list at all.  Neither is California despite the fires.  Or North Carolina another hurricane prone state.

No, according to the Tribune, the states  (in order:after  New Jersey) are: Texas, Tennessee, Missouri, Alabama, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana, Colorado and Arizona.  The most common causes: thunderstorms, heavy rain, flash flood and tornados.  And the impacts range from $24 billion in New Jersey to $3.5 billion in Arizona.  An interesting factoid as we approach the peak of hurricane season.  May Florida stay off the list.

Where did the predators go?

July 19, 2014
Environment, Leadership, predators, Uncategorized
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I thought I would post an amusing, but thought-provoking blog today.  In a recent class of mine we started talking about sentinel species and surrogate contaminants as a means to track public health impacts, or the potential for same, in people.  The discussion got into the commonality of wolves, sharks, alligators and snail kites as role players for ecosystem health.  In each case the top predator control the other species.  The most obvious example is wolves.  When returned to Yellowstone National park, the beavers returned.  AS opposed to hunting the beavers to extermination, it appears that the lack of predators cause the elk to feed closer to streams, thereby depriving the beavers of the aspens needed for beaver dames.  And thus the wetland ponds virtually disappeared as well.  A recent Sun Sentinel article noted that the Fish and Wildlife Service has shot an amazing 75,000 coyotes in the US last year!  Biologists noted that the coyote has expended into areas that wolves used to inhabit (including Alaska!).  They did it because there are no wolves – the wolves did not tolerate that competition. Without the wolves, there is not stopping them or their associated destruction of small animals.   We see hardhead catfish, a scourge of coastal fishermen, abundance now that baby shark populations have diminished.  The sharks consume the same stuff the catfish to, then move on.  The catfish, not so much and OW!!!  We change the top predator and the system changes, often irreversibly.  Which raises the question about the deadliest predator -us.  We’ve moved in everywhere we wanted after eliminating the competition.  The question is:  Are we wolves, or hardhead catfish?

 

Sea Level Rise Planning Part 2

June 26, 2014
Climate, communciations, economy, engineering, Environment, Flooding, infrastructure, innovation, Leadership, local government, management, planning, politics, Risk, Risk Management, sea level rise, stormwater, Uncategorized, utilities, water sewer management
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In the last blog we discussed 10 planning steps for sea level rises.  When planning 50-100 years other factors can come into play as well.  As a result, 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 is suggested.  Hence infrastructure is built to meet milestones, not arbitrary dates lessening the potential for stranded assets.. The increments can work as threshold values in planning considerations in terms of allowing planners the ability to know ahead of time where the next set of vulnerable areas will be to allow a for proactive response approach that can be matched to the observed future sea levels.

But prior to developing infrastructure plans, the local community needs to define an acceptable level of service (LOS) for the community. A level service would indicate how often it is acceptable for flooding to occur in a community on an annual basis.  1% is 4 days per years and for a place like Miami Beach, this is nearly 2 ft NAVD88, well above the mean high tide.  The failure to establish an acceptable LOS is often the cause of failure or loss of confidence in a plan at a later point in time.  The effects of SLR of the level of service should be used to update the mapping to demonstrate how the level of service changes, so that a long-term LOS can be defined and used for near-term planning.

With the LOS known, the vulnerability assessment is developed using a GIS based map of topography and the groundwater levels associated with wet and dry season water levels.  LiDAR is a useful tool that may be available at very high resolution in coastal areas.  Topographic maps must be “ground-truthed” by tying it to local benchmarks and transportation plans.  USGS groundwater and NOAA tidal data from local monitoring stations to correlate with the groundwater information. Based on the results of these efforts, the GIS-based mapping will provide areas of likely flooding.

GIS map should be updated with layers of information for water mains, sewer mains, canals, catch basins, weirs and stormwater facilities.  Updating with critical infrastructure will provide a view of vulnerability of critical infrastructure that will be funded by the public sector. Ultimately policy makers will need more information to prioritize the needed improvements.  For example, a major goal may be to reduce Economic Vulnerability.  This means identifying where economic activity occurs and potential jobs.  At-risk populations, valuable property (tax base) and emergency response may be drivers, which means data from other sources should be added.

The next step is to analyze vulnerability spatially, by overlaying development priorities with expected climate change on GIS maps to identify hotspots where adaptation activities should be focused. This effort includes identification of the critical data gaps which, when filled, will enable more precise identification of at risk infrastructure and predictions of impacts on physical infrastructure and on communities. The final deliverable will include descriptions of the recommended concepts including schematics, cost estimates, and implementation plan.

So why go through all this.  Let’s go back to the beginning.  It has to do with community confidence in its leaders.  Resident look at whether their property will be protected.  Businesses look at long-term viability when making decisions about relocating enterprises.  The insurance industry, which has traditionally been focused on a one year vision of risk, is beginning to discuss long-term risks and not insuring property rebuild is risk-prone areas.  That will affect how bankers look at lending practices, which likely will decrease property values.  Hence it is in the community’s interests to develop a planning framework to adapt to sea level rise and protect vulnerable infrastructure through a long-term plan.  Plan or….

Sea Level Rise Planning – Part 1

June 22, 2014
Climate, communciations, Education, finance, Flooding, infrastructure, Insurance, JObs, Leadership, local government, planning, Water Funding, water sewer management
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The rainy season has sort-of started in south Florida and with it comes flooding and discussions of the falls end of season and concurrent high, high tides for the year, flooding and the impact of sea level rise on low-lying areas.  Much focus has been spent on the causes of sea level rise and the potential flooding caused by same.  However the flooding can be used as a surrogate to impacts to the social and economic base of the community.  By performing vulnerability assessments, coastal areas can begin planning for the impacts of climate change in order to safeguard their community’s social, cultural, environmental and economic resources. Policies need to focus on both mitigation and adaptation strategies, essentially, the causes and effects of climate change. Policy formulation should be based on sound science, realizing that policy decisions will be made and administered at the local level to better engage the community and formulate local decisions.

Making long-term decisions will be important.  Businesses look at long-term viability when making decisions about relocating enterprises.  The insurance industry, which has traditionally been focused on a one year vision of risk, is beginning to discuss long-term risks and not insuring property rebuild is risk-prone areas.  That will affect how bankers look at lending practices, which likely will decrease property values.  Hence it is in the community’s interests to develop a planning framework to adapt to sea level rise and protect vulnerable infrastructure through a long-term plan.

While uncertainties in the scale, timing and location of climate change impacts can make decision-making difficult, response strategies can be effective if planning is initiated early on. Because vulnerability can never be estimated with great accuracy due to uncertainty in the rate of warming, deglaciation and other factors, the conventional anticipation approach should be replaced or supplemented with one that recognizes the importance of building resiliency.  The objectives of the research were to develop a method for planning for sea level rise, and providing a means to prioritize improvements at the appropriate time.  In addition the goals were to provide guidance in developing a means to prioritize infrastructure to maximize benefit to the community by prioritizing economic and social impacts.

Adaptation planning must merge scientific understanding with political and intuitional capacity on an appropriate scale and horizon.  According to Mukheibir and Ziervogel (2007), there are 10 steps to consider when creating an adaptation strategy on the municipal level.  To summarize, these are as follows:

  1. Assess current climate trends and future projections for the region (defining the science).
  2. Undertake a preliminary vulnerability assessment of the community and communicate results through vulnerability maps (using GIS and other tools).
  3. Analyze vulnerability spatially, by overlaying development priorities with expected climate change on GIS maps to identify hotspots where adaptation activities should be focused.
  4. Survey current strategic plans and development priorities to reduce redundancy and understand institutional capacity.
  5. Develop an adaptation strategy that focuses on highly vulnerable areas. Make sure the strategy offers a range of adaptation actions that are appropriate to the local context.
  6. Prioritize adaptation actions using tools such as multi-criteria analysis (MCA), cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and/or social accounting matrices (SAM).
  7. Develop a document which covers the scope, design and budget of such actions (what they call a Municipal Adaptation Plan (MAP)).
  8. Engage stakeholders and decision-makers to build political support. Implement the interventions prioritized in the MAP.
  9. Monitor and evaluate the interventions on an ongoing basis.
  10. Regularly review and modify the plans at predefined intervals.

 

The strengths of this framework are the initial focus on location-specific science, the use of both economic and social evaluation criteria, and the notion that the plan is not a fixed document, but rather a process that evolves in harmony with a changing environment.  The final two steps occur at regular intervals by the community with associated adjustments made.  The next question is how to develop the data and priorities.

BOOMS AND BUSTS IN RURAL AMERICA

June 5, 2014
communciations, Economic Bubbles, economy, energy, fracking, infrastructure, Leadership, local government, management, planning, politics, power, Rural Utilities, Uncategorized, underwriters, utilities
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In a prior blog we talked about the difference between urban and rural counties and the impact of the differences between incomes and how that would affect utilities.  Keep in mind that the 40 largest urban counties in the US contain nearly half the US population as do the 50 largest utilities.  So in a recent article in Governing, the focus was on the few counties where income was higher than average.  In fact, in looking at counties, within the top 20 in per capita income are 10 counties in North and South Dakota.  Interesting until you review why.  All are in areas where fracking is ongoing and corporate farming is prevelant.  It is no surprise that the fracking boom has created wealth in rural areas that have limited populations, limited regulations and state and local officials who are desperate to reduce unemployment and stimulate laggard economies.  We noted before that rural counties are often desperate for jobs, so they often ignore what could possibly go wrong when jobs and development are the only priorities for a community.  Governing used the example of Wells County, ND where the per capita income has doubled since 1997 and is 75% above the national average.  Yet the local governments are looking at which roads they will allow to go back to gravel.  How is this possible? 

The issue is not relegated to just Wells, ND.  Despite the fact that many rural communities in areas with intensive farming or fracking have grown 10-15% since 2007, local officials are finding it difficult to raise taxes to pay for infrastructure.  Roads are the most obvious and pressing issue because of the impact from fracking traffic.  As new wells are constructed, the frackers build new dirt roads and use the existing roadways.  Some believe the need to fix many of the roads is temporary so why bother, but it neglects the need to infrastructure improvements in general.  The same argument could be used for water and sewer infrastructure as well, but these wealthy rural communities do not want to increase governmental spending to improve any infrastructure, so the opportunity to address the community needs is being lost.  

What is more interesting is that the states where these rural counties exist, including the Dakotas, along with Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, and most of the southeastern states are among the states that rely most heavily on federal funding.  So when incomes increase, the dependency remains.  These are the same states that tax residents the least, spend the least on education, have the poorest health care (and the fewest people signed up for the Affordable Care Act and few have state exchanges) and have the most people in poverty.  The dichotomy between reality and the political perception is interesting in these states, which leads one to wonder if the residents of these states like their situation and keep electing representatives that reflect this desire, or they have fallen victim to political interests that cause them to vote consistently against their better interests, or for the interests of a limited few that deny them access to the education, infrastructure, medical care and other benefits their urban and wealthier neighbors enjoy. 

That is a tough question but the bigger question is how to infrastructure agencies like utilities attempt to overcome either of these perceptions?  Neglecting infrastructure, education, medical and the like does not promote local economies, does not create jobs and more likely causes the migration of the best and brightest young people out of the community in search of better prospects, which further imperils their rural situation.  Keep in mind that most cities are relatively permanent, but fracking, like mining, oil and timber before them, have been booms and busts.  The situation if far more dire after the boomtown than it was before.  After all, what could possibly go wrong when 50,000 miners, or frackers, descend upon a community of 1,500 people?  They will consume all the resources, then leave.  Locally those well paying jobs are imported due to the lack of skills and education, and then they leave with the bust.  This has played out many times in the past.  It is not sustainable.  We need to learn from the past – when the boom hits, make the investments you need in infrastructure, education, medicine, etc. so that the future is better after the bust. 

Hog Wild – TMDLs Affecting You?

May 29, 2014
Environment, Monitoring Water, politics, TMDLs, Uncategorized, water quality, water supplies
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So I am reading an article in OneEarth, which is a publication of one of the environmental groups.  The pretext is the issues with the movement of hog farm operations into Iowa and the problems it is causing.  They note that the state has cut the regulatory enforcement budget and the number of inspectors while more incidents of contaminated water are found.  The contamination threatens the raw water supply of  downstream water utilities which must do more treatment and monitoring.  Sorry, I had to giggle because I have heard this story before. 

Going back about decade many will recall the “pfiesteria hysteria” as it was called in North Carolina.  The issue was that the Department of Environmental Management had found fish kills where the fish had these weird sores on their bodies, and then a number of people were diagnosed as being infected with the same condition, some of whom died.  The cause was this pfiesteria, which is a flesh-eating organism that enters the nervous system.  Crazy is one of the side effects but it mostly leads to death.  DEM determined that the organism thrived in waters with significant loading from nutrients that they could trace to…..  wait for it…. hog farms!! 

That was not the first time hog farms were implicated in water quality issues, but due to the significant, political influence of the industry, the transgressions were largely ignored due to a lack of enforcement personnel.  Actually when I was in North Carolina we had a hog farm upstream of our wastewater plant.  Periodically the DEM would test the waters downstream of our plant and find bacteria counts to high and they would want to tag us for the violation.  But we never had any indication of violations at our plant (which we tested daily and reported).  You can’t “make” nutrients appear out of thin air – they come from somewhere.  We told DEM that it was a hog farm that periodically dumped the manure pit n the river when it got full.  No treatment was going on.  Then hog farms exploded in North Carolina which led the pfiesteria event.  Finally the State decided enough was enough and imposed a lot of regulations on hog farms which magically …. moved to Iowa where there are no regulations in place.  I guess there is nothing like a good crisis that kills a few people to get past the political influence of the lobbyists (unless you are the NRA).

But here’s the problem for Iowa, which is what North Carolina found.  The regulations actually are in place.  The Clean Water Act prohibits the contribution of pollutants that will impair the quality of water bodies.  Clearly hog farm effluent clearly falls into this category, but the historical focus of the Clean water Act has been on wastewater treatment plants, and lately stormwater, but not agriculture, which is largely exempted in many, rural states.  Yet agriculture is and has always been a major contributor to water quality degradation in watershed for two reasons.  First they disturb the earth by plowing and planting, so rainfall leads to runoff of material (silt) into streams.  With that runoff is herbicides, pesticides, fertilizer (nutrients), and of course in animal husbandry or CAFO operations, bacteria and other pathogens.  Do not forget that the two most significant examples of water quality impacts on water utilities, Milwaukee and Walkerton, were both agricultural runoff problems.

Agricultural runoff impacts the downstream users which are typically developed areas which use the streams for water supply.  So agricultural practices move land based contaminants to the utility intake, which means more treatment cost to customers.  Sometimes these contaminants are a significant health risk.  It took a significant incident for North Carolina to act. The question is what will it take for Iowa to act, and once they do where do the hog farms go next? 

What needs to happen is that the hog farms develop the treatment systems needed to clean up their act.  It would be great for them to pay the cost but history says they won’t.  So maybe the political leadership needs to participate in that solution to maintain the employment base, and maybe utilities and other source water protection agencies, and there are many of them like the US Water Endowment, can help as well.  Politicians want jobs, while ratepayers do not want to pay all the costs.  A collaborative solution seems reasonable, so we will see what Iowa comes up with.  

FOLLOW THE MONEY

May 16, 2014
Climate, communciations, economy, energy, engineering, Environment, finance, fracking, funding, infrastructure, management, renewable power, Revenues, Uncategorized, utilities, Water Funding
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A week ago the new National Climate Assessment came out.  It basically says things we already expected – temperatures are warmer, there will be more droughts, less rainfall, less available water, more intense storms and sea level rise.  What the study did in its 800+ pages was outline examples of climate change phenomena that are already occurring including flooded streets in coastal areas, severe weather (Colorado, New Jersey), and changes in the arctic air currents that may be affecting northeastern and Midwestern winter storm frequency.  All things that those who have been around for a while and have been even minimally observant have already noticed for themselves.  What was also not surprising was the vitriol on the internet about how this assessment was a “fascist plot” perpetrated by a variety of people to impose some yet undetermined regulations on “patriotic Americans.”  And then Senator Marco Rubio comes out this week and says he does not believe it is possible for people to cause climate change.  No facts, just belief.  In Florida.  In Miami.  Wow…

Those who live in coastal areas, earn their living in agriculture, manage water utilities relying on water supplies, and drought planners know the truth.  Denying that the climate is changing simply ignores reality and delays the ability to respond to its impacts.  I realize that those impacts might be 20 or 40 or more years out, but planning is needed because we expect our infrastructure, factories, hoses and economies to last longer than that.  Science says change is occurring.  We can argue why and how fast, but the reality is that there is change and there are many people that will confront he need to adapt to the situation sooner than later (like us the Fort Lauderdale/Miami area!).  So why deny climate change?

As we noted in a prior blog, there are several reasons, but many involved business issues.  So follow the money. Let’s start with the Koch brothers.  The Koch brothers manage Koch Industries, the second largest privately owned company in the United States revenues exceeding $100 billion/year.  Many Americans have no idea who they are but they are billionaires who have made their living in the oil business – their father Fred C. Koch developed a new the method for the refining of heavy oil into gasoline.  They rely on oil to maintain their wealth and are politically active with conservative organizations including the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, all organizations the dismiss any impact of man on climate change.  Why?  Well one of the tenets of dealing with climate change is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions which means less reliance on fossil fuels – oil.  Whoops – that would be a problem for the Koch brothers because if they say “sure climate change is a problem,” well then that would mean that their entire business model and their wealth is a contributor to climate change, which means they are the “bad guys.”  Can’t have that.  So following the money tells you that we can’t make our money with oil and support climate change.

Let’s look at the other side.  Those acknowledging climate change are fully supportive of renewables, which in theory will help climate change by reducing carbon dioxide.  But the concept of renewables though is fraught with the problem that few of these technologies are ripe for wide-scale implementation.  For example natural gas vehicles or natural gas/hybrids are doable, but where do you buy the natural gas for the vehicle?  The technology and distribution networks is 10 or more years out at best and of course if you are in the oil business, why would you be interested in installing the natural gas fuel pumps?  So technology and need do not match when you follow the money.

How about the Keystone pipeline that would bring oil and gas from these remote areas to refineries in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico states.  You can guess the Koch brothers are in favor of the pipeline as they will benefit.  So are most oil and gas entities.  There are many environmentalists and other opposed to the pipeline because of impacts on water supplies (and other issues).  But the railroads are making money by hailing oil and gas from Canada and the Dakotas.  Guess which side the railroads are on?  The pipeline would take business away from the railroads.  Follow the money. 

Let’s look at our industry.  In the utility business, there is a lot of money with the telephone, power, cable and other utilities.  These private entities, although regulated, make huge sums of money for their investors.  You can follow that money. 

So who supports water and sewer utilities?  We do!  We supply over 85% of Americans.  But why do we have so much trouble getting funding when 85% of people would benefit.  One would think that given how many people we support, we have the money, but we are primarily not-for-profit entities, so we don’t make money for anyone.  You can’t follow that money because there is no money.  That tells us more about the difficulties we have in securing funding that anything.    

Fixing it is a little bigger challenge because our representatives and constituents do not understand the financial investment they have in our industry.  Their public health and economies are linked to water and sewer.  Our services make these other enterprises doable but there is no direct monetary connection to facilitate lobbying on our behalf.  I am not sure how to fix this, but we need a better marketing strategy for our services.  That’s one thing we know.