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Planning or Just Shots in the dark…

October 31, 2012
Climate, communciations, Environment, infrastructure, Leadership, management, planning, sea level rise, sustainability, water sewer management, water supplies
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I had an interesting email exchange with a guy in north Florida who was trying to educate the Legislature on why planners are always wrong with their projections and their studies should be ignored as a result.  His specific issue was water supply, but it could have been any number of issues.  His argument was that the projections for water use made in 1976 were incorrect and in fact total water demands in the State had been basically flat over that period.  He’d be unhappy to know that Florida mimics the rest of the country.

Ok, I admit that in addition to being an engineer, I have a minor in planning and a degree in public administration.  I attempted to communicate with him about the purpose of planning, not that it helped.  Planners outline projections of what things will likely be IF not changes are made.  The reason is to prompt policy or behavioral changes prior to reaching critical tipping points.  The argument in 1976 was that Florida would run out of cheap water if current trends continued.  In the intervening years, there have been major efforts toward water conservation, low flow bathroom fixture and major changes to irrigation practices.  All of which made the water picture far better than the 1976 projection.  See the planners were not wrong – the projections indicated the problem if nothing was done, and acted in part as a catalyst for change.  This is what planners dealing with water supply needs, sea level rise and a host of other planning issues are supposed to do.  If we understand what the potential problems are, maybe we can take action to avoid tipping points.  This is not to say all projections are perfect or even correct, but the idea is to avoid reaching a point of no return.  Isn’t that what smart people should do?  Apparently not to the guy on the other end of the email.  Happy Halloween.  Er, no this was just scary because it was real!!

Sea Level Rise? Or Rising?

October 23, 2012
Astronomical tides, Climate, Environment, groundwater, infrastructure, Leadership, management, sea level rise, stormwater, sustainability, Tidal flooding, water sewer management, water supplies
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October is the month that brings us the astronomical tides, or locally to the coasts, the annual high, high tide.  The position of the moon relative the Earth creates a slight alteration in the gravitational pull of the moon on the oceans so high tide, is, well high!  If you lived in a coastal areas, what did you see?  Or experience?  Southeast Florida was rife with email chatter and photographs of flooded streets, yards, and canals.  The City of Fort Lauderdale sent notices to residents warning them about the tides.  We had no rain, just the tide coming in.  These are low lying areas that 20 years ago did not flood except during storms.  This is just a phenomenon that has been monitored in coastal areas over the past 5-10 years, depending on the complaints that have come into local officials.

One of the more interesting complaints I received in my career was in Hollywood Florida where a resident complained about the “fish in the street.”  Sure enough, the storm drain in front of his house was connected directly to the Intracoastal waterway and the October tides had pushed the saltwater up through the catch basin into the street.  Now these weren’t snook or redfish, they were little fish escaping the snook and redfish, about 3-5 inches long.  Pretty funny stuff if you think about it.  Realizing the problem, I called him 3 hours later and asked if the problem had been solved.  He said told me I was a genius to fix that so fast.  My boss told me to take advantage of luck and drop the explanation, but to design a solution (which we did).  My boss was right, but the call made me more cognizant of the issue.

15 years later, I have a student developing models of what happens during the annual high and average tides, especially with respect to the potential for flooding in low lying areas where groundwater is just below the surface.  His work is impressive.  A lot more land, especially inland, may flood as a result of the annual tides, which are a precursor to the long term trend of rising seas.  See the groundwater has a slight upward gradient as you move inland.  As a result, you cannot use the tide levels to predict inland flooding, you need to add the tides on top of historical groundwater levels.  Of course the wet season is the summer in Florida, so the October tides come just at the time groundwater levels are highest.  But at least we can determine where the stormwater pumping improvements need to go.

Determining where stormwater pumping is needed is only part of the problem.  As sea levels rise, more stormwater management will be needed and a place to put the water will become a problem.  Discharging nutrient laden stormwater to tide is not a good answer when you have fragile reefs offshore.  NOAA’s Florida Area Coastal Environment  (FACE) Initiative outline this (see intensives study – http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/themes/CoastalRegional/projects/FACE/Publications.htm).  Instead, perhaps at some point we may develop infiltration systems to capture this high water table “problem” and convert it to water supplies, solving two issues for southeast Florida.  Might be 2030, but we probably should be doing some planning….

 

What is the Risk of Expanding Groundwater Irrigation?

September 26, 2012
Climate, Environment, groundwater, infrastructure, management, sustainability, water supplies
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The demand for more food crops to feed a hungry world has expanded the need for irrigable lands.  Few want to risk the 1930s dust bowl or the droughts of the 1950s, especially with ongoing recurrent drought periods across much of North America on a regular basis.  The access to electricity and modern submersible pumps over the past 80 years has permitted a huge expansion in the amount of irrigation performed with groundwater.  Fly over the western United States and look for “crop-circles” where center wells act as the spoke for rotating irrigation systems.  They are obvious.  But virtually all of them are located in areas where surface water is not available and groundwater is the only source of water available for irrigation.  This might work where the groundwater is surficial, but if the groundwater were surficial and found in large quantities, wouldn’t there be surface waters that intercept the groundwater?  The groundwater would feed rivers, lakes and streams.  But in most places with center pivot irrigation, the groundwater is located well below the surface, and low rainfall means that recharge to these deeper aquifer systems is limited.

Irrigation use accounts for 40% of total water use in the United States.  USGS reports that in Arkansas and Nebraska, 90% of irrigation is groundwater.  These states are two largest groundwater users in the country.  California and Texas are right behind them in total use, with groundwater accounting for 80% of irrigation use.  Idaho, Oregon, South Dakota and Washington are among the states with irrigation accounting for in excess of 90%+ of total groundwater use, although their total use is much less than that of the other four states.  The areas irrigating with groundwater in all of these states competes directly with rural potable users, both individual and small cities, and with ecosystems that may support tourism, fishing, hunting and other outdoor activities.  Unfortunately USGS also reports that in all of these states, there are areas with severe declines in aquifer levels.  For example in South Dakota, USGS estimates that 70% of the water has been withdrawn in 30 years.  So the answer in 20 years will be……  There is no answer at the moment.  Some think we should just drill deeper, but this normally comes with added costs, assuming aquifers actually exist at these deeper levels.  But agriculture can’t afford to pay for treatment, meaning they it will be difficult for them participate in a solution.  Too few people in cities means alternative supplies like reclaimed water are not available.

The irrigation from deeper aquifer that do not recharge readily is indicative of a resource management paradigm that suggests we manage water supplies for a certain period of time (usually our lifetime or work period).  The consequences beyond that timeline are not considered because it is “beyond our lifetime” or planning periods, or we assume “someone will come up with something…”  Non-surficial groundwater supplies throughout the United States and probably the world should be viewed like a scratch-off lottery card.  Once in a while you have a winner, but it’s never enough to sustain you for the long-term, let alone pass it to your kids. And once it is spent, it’s gone.  Likewise once deeper aquifers are drained….  Bryan Fagan suggests most civilizations ultimately failed as a result of water woes.   If we want our civilization to survive well beyond our time, perhaps we should revisit history.

The long-term civilization model suggests we should consider a paradigm shift with respect to non-surficial groundwater.   Non-surficial groundwater is a resource that is finite – water that is stored, but once depleted, cannot be readily replaced.  That is not a sustainable solution and suggests that these types of groundwater sources should not be looked at as primary water supplies for irrigation, or for power or urban or domestic use for that matter – they should be considered back-up sources to protect us from surficial droughts that occur periodically.  The dust bowl impacts would have been lessened if we had back-up irrigation supplies from wells.  But in the future, if the aquifers are dry, and surficial droughts occur, the impact directly affects our food supplies and our economy.  We are often caught in defining the “long-term” as 20 years, but the US is 235 years old, but still considered young.  Our perspective of 20 years as long-term is only a quarter of a lifetime, which clearly falls short of long-term from the perspective of civilization.   Something to think about….

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SUSTAINABILITY THROUGHOUT TIME – BUT NOW WHAT?

September 6, 2012
Climate, Environment, groundwater, infrastructure, management, sustainability, water supplies
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I was cruising through Glacier Bay National Park when I wrote this.  Just an inspirational moment.  If you have never seen it, you should, especially as a water professional.  The entire park is a testament to the power of water and the result of changes in climate cycles that affect the hydrologic cycle.  I will post video of the journey separately, but suffice it to say that the inherent beauty of the place is difficult to describe.  Needless to say with a large concentration of glaciers in the area (most retreating), there is copious amounts of water (for now).  The Pacific Glacier has retreated 65 miles, yes MILES, in 300 years in part because of changes in oceanic moisture and evaporation.  The native people, Tlingets, moved and survived based on glacier flows end ebbs.  But that’s not my point.  Seeing this much water leads to an entirely different perspective, one that is helped by Brian Fagan’s book, Elixir which outlines the history of civilizations as they were affected by harnessing of water, or the lack of ability to do so.  Same thing applies to the Tlingets here.

Historically the key was to rely on surface waters where they were consistent, to manage water locally and carefully for the benefit of all, and when surface waters were not consistent enough to be reliable year after year, quanats, shallow wells and other mechanisms were used to extract water from glacial till or adjacent to rivers (riverbank filtration or infiltration galleries in today’s vernacular).  Or people moved or died out. The ancient people did not have the ability to dig too deep, but were creative in means to manage available supplies.

Contrast this to today where over the last 50 years we have been able to extract water from ever expanding, generally deeper sources, but to what end?  Certainly we have “managed “ surface waters, by building dams, diversions and offstream reservoirs.  These supply half the potable water use in the United States and Canada as well as a lot of irrigation.  But groundwater has been an increasing component.  Fagan makes the point that deep groundwater sources are rarely sustainable for any period of time, and that many in the past have recognized this limitation.  But have we?

Maybe not so much.  A couple years ago I was at a conference out west.  The session I was speaking at involved sustainable groundwater, a major issue for AWWA, ASCE, NGWA and the utilities and agricultural folks around the world.  One of the speakers was a geologist with the State of Utah.  Her paper concerned the issues with decreasing groundwater levels in the St. George and Cedar City, areas in southwestern Utah, where population growth is a major issue.  Her point was that despite the State efforts, they had significant drawdowns across the area.  Keep in mind that the USGS (Reilly, et al, 2009) had identified southwestern Utah as one of many areas across the US where long term decreasing groundwater levels.  My paper was a similar issue for Florida, so I stopped partway into my paper and asked her a question:  has any hydrogeologist or engineer trying to permit water in the area ever said the water supply was not sustainable?”  The room got really quiet.  She looked at me and said, “well, no.”  In fact the audience chimed in that they had never heard this from their consultants either.  The discussion was informative and interesting.  Not sure I really finished my presentation because of the discussion.

To be fair, consultants are paid to solve problems, and for water supplies, this means finding groundwater and surface water limited areas like Utah when their clients request it.  So you don’t expect to pay your consultant to find “no water.”  But where does that lead us?  The concept of sustainable yield from confined aquifer systems is based on step drawdown tests.  Ignoring the details, what this constitutes is a series of short term tests of the amount of drawdown that occurs at different pumping levels. AWWA’s manual on Groundwater can give you the details, but the results are short-term and modeling long-term results requires a series of assumptions based on the step drawdown test.  This is that had been submitted in support of permits in Utah (and many other places).  As discussed in the conference session, clearly there is something wrong with this method of modeling and calculation because, well, the results did not match the reality.  The drawdowns increased despite modeling and step drawdown tests showing the demands were sustainable.  Clearly wrong.  Competing interests, the need to cast a wider net, and many other issues are often not considered.  The results play out throughout the world.  Confined aquifers are often not sustainable, a potential problem for much of agriculture in the farm belt of the US.  Are we headed the same direction as ancient people?

The good news is that these same hydrogeologists and engineers have the ability to help solve the sustainability problem.  We need a new definition for “safe yield.”  We need a better means to estimate leakance in aquifers.  A project I did with injection wells indicated that leakance was overestimated by a factor of 1000 to 10,000, which would drastically alter the results of any model.  More work needs to be undertaken here.  The overdraw of confined groundwater is a potential long-term catastrophe waiting to happen.  And the consequences are significant.  The question is can we adapt?

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE. GAS TOO. WHAT TO DO?

August 13, 2012
Climate, Environment, groundwater, sustainability
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I recently spent time in Denali National Park and surrounding area.  60 in the day, 45 at night, and this time of year, rain.  Lots of rain.  Denali creates its own weather, so precipitation and clouds are common for much of the year.  But it was not all the water in the Denali area that interested me as much as some local discussions about methane release from the permafrost.  I was told that many of the native populations rely on storage below ground in the permafrost to freeze winter provisions.  But a curious thing has occurred in recent years – some of the provisions spoiled.  It seems the permafrost relied upon for generations as a natural freezer is no longer permanent in some areas and the soil, frozen for generations, is now suddenly soggy.  Once unfrozen, the soil appears to release copious amounts of methane that has been trapped for years (no smoking on the tunda!).  The issue is further complicated by the fact that some of the methane could potentially get into surface water supplies and without power, and with limited funds, the treatment becomes far more difficult.

WATER PLANTS CAN BECOME LEED CERTIFIED!

August 8, 2012
Environment, funding, infrastructure, sustainability, water sewer management, water supplies
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Faced with continuing growth and re-development, an aging lime softening plant, and regulatory issues with disinfection by-products, the City of Dania Beach, FL pursued the construction of a new 2.0 mgd nanofiltration process to complement the City’s existing 3.0 mgd conventional lime softening water treatment plant. Efforts to develop a plant that would improve water quality, meet long term needs and raise community awareness involved CDM Smith engineering and construction teams, the City and FloridaAtlanticUniversity.  This paper presents the innovative membrane treatment plant design that was developed to maximize system recovery while providing a high degree of operating flexibility.  This design includes a two stage nanofiltration unit followed by a convertible third and fourth stage reverse osmosis unit to provide the City with the flexibility to meet their concentrate discharge limits when operating at recoveries up to 95 percent by operating in a four stage configuration.  Operating at this higher recovery was tested by FloridaAtlanticUniversity faculty and students, and preliminary design concepts were gained from student design projects, including meeting LEED certification goals.  This plant secured enough credits  to become the first LEED Gold certified water plant in the world.

So what does this mean to a community?  Is this work pursuing?  Why is this type of certification useful for local governments?  In  many cases it sets a public policy example.  It may cut long-term costs (something many utilities do not focus on), and it may improve sustainabilitiy?  What are your thoughts?  Read more in an upcoming JAWWA article.

Interesting…for those of you who are interested in climate change, either side, read this

August 2, 2012
Climate, Environment, management, sustainability
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2012-07-28 conversion-of-climate-change-skeptic  from the New York Times

July 28, 2012
The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic
By RICHARD A. MULLER
Berkeley, Calif.
CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the
very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global
warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost
entirely the cause.
My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature
project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two
and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years.
Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.
These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group that defines the
scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming. In its 2007 report, the I.P.C.C. concluded only that most of the warming of the
prior 50 years could be attributed to humans. It was possible, according to the I.P.C.C. consensus statement, that the warming before
1956 could be because of changes in solar activity, and that even a substantial part of the more recent warming could be natural.
Our Berkeley Earth approach used sophisticated statistical methods developed largely by our lead scientist, Robert Rohde, which
allowed us to determine earth land temperature much further back in time. We carefully studied issues raised by skeptics: biases from
urban heating (we duplicated our results using rural data alone), from data selection (prior groups selected fewer than 20 percent of the
available temperature stations; we used virtually 100 percent), from poor station quality (we separately analyzed good stations and poor
ones) and from human intervention and data adjustment (our work is completely automated and hands-off). In our papers we
demonstrate that none of these potentially troublesome effects unduly biased our conclusions.
The historic temperature pattern we observed has abrupt dips that match the emissions of known explosive volcanic eruptions; the
particulates from such events reflect sunlight, make for beautiful sunsets and cool the earth’s surface for a few years. There are small,
rapid variations attributable to El Niño and other ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream; because of such oscillations, the “flattening”
of the recent temperature rise that some people claim is not, in our view, statistically significant. What has caused the gradual but
systematic rise of two and a half degrees? We tried fitting the shape to simple math functions (exponentials, polynomials), to solar
activity and even to rising functions like world population. By far the best match was to the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide,
measured from atmospheric samples and air trapped in polar ice.
Just as important, our record is long enough that we could search for the fingerprint of solar variability, based on the historical record of
sunspots. That fingerprint is absent. Although the I.P.C.C. allowed for the possibility that variations in sunlight could have ended the
“Little Ice Age,” a period of cooling from the 14th century to about 1850, our data argues strongly that the temperature rise of the past
250 years cannot be attributed to solar changes. This conclusion is, in retrospect, not too surprising; we’ve learned from satellite
measurements that solar activity changes the brightness of the sun very little.
How definite is the attribution to humans? The carbon dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else we’ve tried. Its magnitude
is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect — extra warming from trapped heat radiation. These facts don’t prove causality and
they shouldn’t end skepticism, but they raise the bar: to be considered seriously, an alternative explanation must match the data at least
as well as carbon dioxide does. Adding methane, a second greenhouse gas, to our analysis doesn’t change the results. Moreover, our
analysis does not depend on large, complex global climate models, the huge computer programs that are notorious for their hidden
assumptions and adjustable parameters. Our result is based simply on the close agreement between the shape of the observed
temperature rise and the known greenhouse gas increase.
It’s a scientist’s duty to be properly skeptical. I still find that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate change is speculative,
exaggerated or just plain wrong. I’ve analyzed some of the most alarmist claims, and my skepticism about them hasn’t changed.
Hurricane Katrina cannot be attributed to global warming. The number of hurricanes hitting the United States has been going down,
not up; likewise for intense tornadoes. Polar bears aren’t dying from receding ice, and the Himalayan glaciers aren’t going to melt by
2035. And it’s possible that we are currently no warmer than we were a thousand years ago, during the “Medieval Warm Period” or
“Medieval Optimum,” an interval of warm conditions known from historical records and indirect evidence like tree rings. And the recent
warm spell in the United States happens to be more than offset by cooling elsewhere in the world, so its link to “global” warming is
weaker than tenuous.
The careful analysis by our team is laid out in five scientific papers now online at BerkeleyEarth.org. That site also shows our chart of
temperature from 1753 to the present, with its clear fingerprint of volcanoes and carbon dioxide, but containing no component that
matches solar activity. Four of our papers have undergone extensive scrutiny by the scientific community, and the newest, a paper with
the analysis of the human component, is now posted, along with the data and computer programs used. Such transparency is the heart
of the scientific method; if you find our conclusions implausible, tell us of any errors of data or analysis.
What about the future? As carbon dioxide emissions increase, the temperature should continue to rise. I expect the rate of warming to
proceed at a steady pace, about one and a half degrees over land in the next 50 years, less if the oceans are included. But if China
continues its rapid economic growth (it has averaged 10 percent per year over the last 20 years) and its vast use of coal (it typically adds
one new gigawatt per month), then that same warming could take place in less than 20 years.
Science is that narrow realm of knowledge that, in principle, is universally accepted. I embarked on this analysis to answer questions
that, to my mind, had not been answered. I hope that the Berkeley Earth analysis will help settle the scientific debate regarding global
warming and its human causes. Then comes the difficult part: agreeing across the political and diplomatic spectrum about what can and
should be done.
Richard A. Muller, a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former MacArthur Foundation fellow, is the
author, most recently, of “Energy for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines.”

Changing Attitudes about Government Infrastructure?

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

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

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

And of course thisis all true….

Why aren’t We Paying the Cost for water and Sewer?

July 8, 2012
Environment, finance, funding, infrastructure, management, water sewer management
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It is budget season again which means the annual battle for water and sewer rates.  The costs for power and chemicals go up every year, and billions of dollars of deferred maintenance obligations exist.  So why is it that utilities find it so hard to get the revenues needed to update and operate?  The easy answer is politicians, but the issue is more complicated than that.

 

Much of the growth and expansion of the US and Canadian economies can be traced to the development of water, sewer, storm water and transportation infrastructure.  Without water, and associated wastewater disposal, the public health suffers, people get sick, and are less productive than if they are healthy (and you don’t need transportation then).  The lack of clean water is a major barrier to growth and development in many parts of the world.  So going back over 100 years, the federal government saw the benefit of improving drinking water quality.  Utilities responded, building filtration and disinfection facilities which were so successful that we are still reaping the benefits of those improvements.  Many central cities began expanding their systems as a means to provide service to surrounding communities.

Development of regulations relating to metals in water occurred in the 1940s, and developed through the 1962.  The Safe Drinking Water Act reaffirmed many of these standards, and of course added new ones as new constituents.  Over 90 percent of the US population has access to safe, potable drinking water on a 24/7 basis.

Unfortunately we do too good a job and have for 100 years.  People take safe water and sewer for granted.  Regulation or not, people assume it’s all good (the bottled water folks aside (see Peter Gleick’s new book).

 

The solution?  Marketing.  Local governments, their employees, their systems and their solutions are all kept under wraps.  No one actively markets the benefits of utilities?  Why not?  Why don’t we use our CCRs, monthly newsletters, meetings, and community involvement to market ourselves.  True most of us in the industry are not great marketers and we see so many other issues it is not a priority.  The private sector sees the benefits of marketing, but utilities often see the lack of active marketing in the attitudes of our elected officials, who do not often understand the value of the service.  IF people value your product they will pay for it.  The difficulty that many utilities have in getting rate increases to update and improve their inrastructure is an indication of failure to understand the value of the product.  That’s a marketing failure!  I once had an elected official tell me marketing was not something the public sector should do.  I asked why.  There was no answer, but he acknowledged it would help.  So we need to make marketing our efforts, and products.  So who’s got some great ideas out there to market?  Who has some great success stories we can all use?