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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

Defining Leadership Part 1

December 17, 2012
communciations, infrastructure, Leadership, management, sustainability, Uncategorized, water sewer management
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What exactly is leadership?  How is defined?  How do we find leaders?  What are the skills required to be a leader?  These are tough questions, and the answers are often and murky as the Colorado or Mississippi Rivers in springtime.  If picking leaders was easy, all organizations would be successful.  But they are not.  If leadership skills were easily defined, there would be a lot more schools trying to teach leadership , and they would create generations of leaders.  But they don’t.  It is so much easier to see leadership after the fact, not beforehand, and that is the challenge.  This about our elected officials.  Let’s start with the President and Congress.  We elect these people to lead us.  Periodically we pick one who leads us, often no so much.  No offense intended here, but can we really say that Herbert Hoover, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, or Warren Harding were great leaders/  They rank in US News’s worst 10 presidents of all time.  And our perception is generally the same (assuming you know enough US history to know these characters).   Was it their fault?  Hard to tell.  Circumstances were not in their favor, but what did they do to lead the nation from the difficulties?

Ulysses Grant and Zachary Taylor were great leaders on the battlefield, but they were failures as President.  Why? Different skill sets.  Their best skills were not transferrable to the Presidency.  Interestingly, Lincoln’s forays into combat in 1841, were utterly unsuccessful, he was demoted from Captain to private.  HE took this failure as an opportunity to learn and study, and then find talent to implement the plan (although it could be argued he dallied far to long with various generals in the Army of the Potomac, before promoting Grant). But we see Lincoln very differently than those noted above in part because they were able to lead us through difficult times.  History treats FDR, Teddy Roosevelt and Kennedy similarly.  But how did we pick these leaders in those times?  And how to we find ones for today?

Defining leadership appears o be better defined by identifying what is not leadership.  Scott Adams’ Dilbert comic strip has a book entities “Don’t step in the Leadership.”  The entire comic is focused on the silliness of managers trying to “lead” their charges.  Apparently Mr. Adams has many years worth of stories to tell.  Our reality is similar to Dilbert’s:  we see many examples of people who are not leaders.  Leadership and being the utility director, CEO, mayor, commissioner or any position “in charge” of an organization are often not related.  That is why if you ask, you can find out from the employees who are the “go to” people, the ones they rely on and follow.  Those are the true leaders.  They often outlast the leadership, especially is the positional leadership does not tap into their skill set.

People often desire to be the boss and to lead the organization but many never actually lead just like failed Presidents.  Some may think they are in charge, but if you lead no one, you are not a leader regardless of your title.  A leader is defined by those who follow him/her.  Leaders require no coercion to get people to follow through on their vision.  But a vision is needed.  It may not be a popular vision, and it may not be easy, but your followers must buy into it and be active in pursuing it.  One problem with today’s version of leadership in politics is the fear of tough decisions, or making part of the electorate unhappy.  CEOS often follow the corporate need to make money every quarter, at the expense of the long-term.  How many companies have failed to keep up with technology, upgrade facilities (at a cost), or alter their products to maintain market share?  It took years for the Big Three automakers to figure out that people did not want gas guzzling cars as gas prices increased, at the cost of market share, growth and profits.  The examples are endless.

So what to we look for with potential leaders?  That’s the question.  We want a vision.  We want skills and knowledge about that vision.  We want competency.  People skills.  The ability to take responsibility for the failures, and to share in success with those that supported the effort.  To bring value to the organization.  So next post let’s look at some examples.  In the meantime, post some thoughts on what you think leaders should look like.

How to Keep Federal and State Economic Issues from Trickling Down to Local Funding

December 8, 2012
communciations, funding, infrastructure, Leadership, management, Marketing water, planning, water sewer management
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One of the ongoing discussions at all levels of government is the lack of funding for many programs as a result of economic difficulties in 2008.  Economic difficulties are nothing new.  We had economic downturns in late 1970s/early 1980s, 1991-1992, 1999-2000, and 2008-2009 as examples, and we have often incurred the same issues.  Unfortunately it appears to the general public that we make many of the same mistakes over and over.  From a federal level we hear the argument about the need for tax cuts to spur spending in the private sector, while Keynesian economists who suggest greater expenditures by government to pull us out of economic difficulty.  Both arguments have their points, but how opposites can solve the same problem is difficult for the public to see.  Perhaps a little understanding of the economic sector and analogies to our personal lives and the water industry would help us.

From the perspective of an ongoing growing economy, the goal would be to have the consistently increased gross product, growing at a reasonable rate, just as it seems reasonable for our salaries to rise at or above inflation rates and our ability to “bank” water for those growth spurts are common pursuits.  From a national perspective, you know you are doing well when your economy grows just over the rate of population growth.  When it grows a lot faster, economists worry about overheating.  These high growth rates have occurred as recently as 1996-1999 and 2002-2007, but are often associated with economic “bubbles” which means that a specific sector seems to be growing really faster, creating a demand for investments that further drive up the perceived value.  The benefit to utilities and governments for these growth spurts was that revenues generally grew faster than the costs.

 

Of course bubbles are speculative, and at some point investors realize the value is not there and stop investing.  The sector collapses wreaking havoc on the economy, resulting in the economy not growing at a rate exceeding the population growth.  In these cases, the revenues to fund those services people expect, grow slower than population or may even decline as they did in 2008-2009.  Government has not been able to deal with these changes well, but from a personal perspective, these ups and downs are common in peoples’ lives, and we try to deal with them by putting money away in the proverbial “savings for a rainy day.”  Businesses have historically tried to do this as well and utilities try to secure water sources for the same reasons.  However, many governments have not, and it is worth trying to understand why not, the impact it has today and how to resolve the issue going forward.

Two things appear to drive the issue, and they are related to the two schools of thoughts on economics.  First there is a tendency to spend at the level of your revenues.  People, companies and governments all do this.  So in good times, our expenses often rise to match revenues, partly for catch-up purposes, but partly simply because there is more disposable income.  When revenues greatly exceed expenditures, there can be a tendency by utilities and governments to reduce their revenues by cutting rates reducing taxes and the proverbial thought that “people can better manage money than government.” We saw this in 2001 after the federal government finally balanced the budget and started creating surpluses (that could have been used to pay off some of the accumulated debt, but that’s an entirely different story).  Many states saw the same phenomenon (Florida is an excellent example).  However this thought process is akin to a person who goes to his or her boss and asks them to reduce their salary because they are accumulating too much money.  No person ever does this.  Instead we bank that money for the “rainy” day.   So does it make sense for government to cut their revenues in the surplus times?

Consider that down times follow surplus times.  If revenues are reduced during times of plenty, there is no savings for that “rainy” day.  As a result the current path leads to a tendency to suggest cuts in expenses in down times, but this actually exacerbates the economic problem.  Income decreases and because demand is down, prices fall (basic supply and demand).  As expenses decrease, the economy contracts, which means even more people are affected – it can be a vicious circle.  Economic disruption creates a negative impact on government revenues, sometimes disproportionately.  So by reducing revenues in the surplus times, actually compounds the impact of economic downturns, by eliminating the potential for expenditures from savings, requiring spending from borrowing.

At the federal level, we hear the tax cuts versus more spending argument, but neither addresses what individuals have long known – we need to bank surpluses, not ask for pay cuts or extensively borrow in lean times.  The concept of Keynesians is that government should make up the difference between the private and public sector spending to maintain the level of spending in the total economy, but Keynes did not say that is should all come from borrowing.  There is an implicit assumption that some of this should come from savings, just like it does for individuals.  Heavy borrowing can complicate future revenues by increasing future revenues needs, the other side of the argument.  Trying to make up for revenue shortfalls increasing rates and fees when the funds of people and corporations are limited, compounds their problem.  The economy may grow to make up for those cuts, but that is a speculative argument.  The results of austerity is evident in Spain, Greece, Italy and Ireland where their economies continue to contract, not improve.  That solution clearly does not work.  That’s like asking for a pay cut and reducing your expenses significantly – you don’t live better and those depending on you  don’t either. Cutting revenues while increasing expenses creates the worst of both worlds and makes future concerns even more of a problem.  The federal conundrum is, well, a conundrum.  Not sure what the solutions are there, but there are no easy choices and few of us have much control of input.

But locally ourselves and our utility systems, are completely under our control.  A modification to the paradigm of economic needs or our utilities for the future of our system is needed.  We should rethink our economic vision for the next cycle to mimic what many people attempt to do.  We need to figure out what our revenues need to be, and plan long-term for maintaining a given revenue flow.  There will be up and down times, but we can plan for these.  We should create policies that denote that revenues in excess of expenditures should be banked for that “rainy day.”  We should control the urge to expand expenses in the good times.  We should then use those banked revenues for the future.  Then when the next economic downturn hits, we have banked revenues that can be used to maintain the level of service to our customers.  We should have a policy on this as well.   The benefit to utilities is that the investment in lean times often comes at a reduced cost (demand is down so prices fall), while providing an economic stimulus locally (more jobs).  The City of Dania Beach’s nanofiltration plant had this benefit – 70 cents on the dollar costs, plus a grant.  100 jobs created.  Policies on generating surpluses and spending them in lean times on projects like this would seem to make things easier for everyone in the future, but to follow such a trek requires leadership, policies, and self control within the organization.

The question is where is that leadership coming from to make these decisions and to resist political expediency?

Hope you all had a great thanksgiving

November 25, 2012
communciations, infrastructure, Leadership, sanitary sewer, sustainability, water sewer management, water supplies
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While many of us enjoyed being with friends and family, enjoying good food and drink,, how many of us thought about being connected to water and sewer systems that provide safe water supplies and safe wastewater disposal? We should be thankful for this as well. The other option makes life so much harder. We should not water and wastewater for granted, but unfortunately we do.

Creating Expectations

November 7, 2012
communciations, finance, funding, infrastructure, Leadership, management, Marketing water, planning, sustainability, water sewer management, water supplies
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We hear the moniker about getting the most out of your employees and staff.  Business books will talk about accountability, as will politicians, but creating accountability requires a first step on the art of management.  In any organization there needs to be a vision of where the organization wants to be in 5, 10 or 20 years.  Then there needs to be  a team of managers who buy into the vision, and implement it by securing employees who can implement it.  But it does not stop there.  You need to set  expectations.  Sounds, easy, but it is one of the issues professional employees especially complain about.  Assigning work tasks and saying “get it done” is not an expectation.  That’s a command.  Commands work in the military, but not so much in private practice.  The command and control types are notoriously difficult to work with, especially in professional and/or creative environments.  Micro-managers fall into this same mode.  The creative/professionals are intelligent and are looking for freedom to solve problems, usually more effectively that they can be told.  Instead, what needs to be done is to create a set of expectations of what will be accomplished and timelines.  Let the creative types and professionals figure out how. Provide them with the resources they need.  If employees understand the expectations, and are given the ability to accomplish the goals, accomplishing them becomes an end in itself – that becomes the goal and their satisfaction.  But does it work?  Well, yes.  I have been in organizations where the stars aligned to have a small group of manager who created and bought into a vision. We set expectations and let people accomplish them.  Always faster, always less cost, and always effectively.  A degree of recognition follows them. The group was easy to spot because they were accomplishing things (I should note that this does come with the price of jealousy among those who prefer to sit on the sidelines and can create some degree of subterfuge there which requires a strong leader to deal with that problem).  Students work the same way – set expectations of the delivery and allow them to develop the methods to solve the problem.  It is easy to see who the good engineers are, and who perhaps will be less successful.

Even easier are city and county managers, general managers and the like.  New officials come into office and six month later they are complaining that the staff and manager don’t communicate with them.  First response is to give them more information, which compounds the problem.  Still not communicating.  Every manager has one of these stories. The problem is that the new folks never revised the expectations from the past.  As a result everyone operates on the last set of expectations, until new ones are established.  If that never happens, well, the conflict escalates.  Someone has to take the leadership role, which creates a quandary with governing boards like the ones utilities commonly deal with because these folks are generally not educated in the intricacies of the operation of the utility, and rarely have any management experience.  They simply do not understand how to set reasonable expectations, to identify what is important to them and what is not, how to delegate, etc.  Until a sitdown discussion of expectations of both manager and the board is developed, the potential for friction will exist.  Some managers are good at recognizing and making adaptation, but most governing bodies are not.  This is why it is important to develop education programs that will encourage the community, which often has better connections to the governing members than staff.  So as utilities, our infrastructure is vital to the long-term development of our communities and to the public health and productivity of our residents.  So how do we make governing bodies understand the need to invest in utility infrastructure when emergencies are not happening?  Realizing we are all busy, we need to keep in mind that outreach is a key to creating that coalition of leadership in the community to advance the utility agenda.  Again a leadership issue and the need to engage the community, something we all too often forget to do.

Cutting costs while keeping the stormwater out

November 3, 2012
finance, funding, groundwater, infiltration, inflow to sanitary sewer, infrastructure, management, sanitary sewer, stormwater, sustainability, water sewer management
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Storms highlight the need to reduce infiltration and inflow into the collection system so as not to overwhelm the piping system causing plant damage or sewage overflows into streets, so much of the focus has been on dealing with removal of infiltration and inflow through televising the sewer system and sealing or lining sections where leaks are noted.  However, many miles of videotape show virtually nothing, so significant money is spent to find “nothing.”  Part of this is because “infiltration” and “inflow” are not the same, and storm events do not highlight infiltration nearly as much inflow.

The manholes and clean-outs are required for access and removal of material that may build up in the piping system and for changes in direction of the pipe.  Manholes are traditionally pre-cast concrete or brick, with brick being the method of choice until the 1960s.  Brick manholes suffer from the same problems as vitrified clay sewer lines – the grout is not waterproof so the grout can leak significant amounts of groundwater.  The manhole cover may not seal perfectly, becoming another source of infiltration.  Pre-cast concrete manholes resolve part this problem, but concrete is not impervious either.  While elastomeric or bituminous seals are placed between successive manhole rings, the concrete is still exposed.  Many utilities will require the exterior of the manholes to have a coal-tar or epoxy covering the exterior which helps to keep water out.

Inflow results form a direct connection between the sewer system and the surface.  The removal or accidental breaking of a cleanout, unsealed manhole covers, laterals on private property, connected gutters or storm ponds, damaged chimneys from paving roads, or cracking of the pipe may be a significant source of inflow to the system.  All are potential sources of inflow which can be identified easily during storm events.  The peaking that correlates with the rainfall is inflow, not infiltration since infiltration is part of the base flow that creeps upward with time.  When operators see peaks, this is not indicative of infiltration which is groundwater.  Think inflow.   Inflow causes peaks in run time on lift station pumps, and create potential overflows at the plant.  The good news is that simple, low tech methods can be used to detect inflow, which should be the precursor to any infiltration investigation.

The following outlines a basic program for inflow detection and correction for any utility system.  The order is important, and pursuing all steps will resolve the majority of issues.  The first step is inspection of all sanitary sewer manholes for damage, leakage or other problems, which while seeming obvious, usually surprises.  The manhole inspection should include documentation of condition, GPS location, and some form of numbering if not currently available.  Most manholes have limited condition issues, but where the bench or walls are in poor conditions, that should be repaired with an impregnating resin.

Next is repair/sealing of chimneys in all manholes to reduce inflow from the street during flooding events.  The chimney includes the ring, cement extensions, lift rings, brick or cement used to raise the manhole ring.  Manhole covers are often disturbed during paving or as a result of traffic.  The crack between the ring and cover can leak a lot of water.  The intent of the chimney seal is to prevent inflow from the area beneath the rim of the manhole, but above the cone.

The next step is to put dishes into the manholes.  One might think that only manholes in low lying areas get water into them, but surprisingly every manhole dish that is properly installed has water in it.  Hence assume that all manholes leak water between the rim and cover.  Most collection system workers are familiar with dishes at the bottom of the manhole where they are of limited use.  This is because the dish deforms when filled with water or is knocked in when the cover is flipped.  The solution is a deeper dish with reinforcing ribs.  No ribs, don’t use it.  A gasket is required.

Once the manholes are sealed, smoke testing can identify obvious surface connections.  The normal notifications, inspection and documentation will identify broken or missing cleanout caps, surface breaks on public and private property, connection of gutters to the sewer system, and stormwater connections.  All should be documented via photograph, by associated address and public or private location. The public openings at cleanouts can be corrected immediately.  However, if the cleanout is broken, it may indicate mower or vehicle damage, that can occur again.  If missing, the resident may be using the cleanout to drain the yard.  In either case the collection system needs to be protected.  USSI (http://www.elastaseal.com/about_us.html), located in Venice, FL developed a solution, called the LDL plug to correct those commonly broken or commonly opened cleanouts to reduce inflow.

Notices should then be sent to property owners with documentation of the inflow connections to their property.  This is sometimes the most difficult part of the program due to political will, but it is necessary.  This finishes the inflow correction portion of the project, but one more step will help focus efforts for the second “i”.

The final step is a low flow investigation, which is intended to focus on the infiltration piece of the problem.  Such an event will take several days and must be planned to determine priority manhole to start with and sequencing.

Based on a projected plan and route:

  • Open the manholes
  • Inspecting them for flow
  • Determining if flow is significant.  If investigation of basin will end and new basin will be started.  If flow exists, open consecutive manholes upstream to determine where flow is derived from.  Generally a 2 inch wide bead of water is a limit of “significant” infiltration.

Documentation of all problems and corrections in a report to utility that identifies problem, location and recommended repair.  Identification of sewer system leaks, including those on private property (via location of smoke on private property).

The example in Dania Beach, FL was that the last step indicated that only 15% of the sewer system needed to be televised.  This saved the City almost $1.2 million.  Their total costs is under $1.4 million for all parts of the project, spread over several years and contracts.  Overall the hope is that the inflow and infiltration programs together will save $400,000/yr, a five year payback.  But the key is to insure you get the inflow as well as the infiltration… Otherwise storms will continue to overwhelm plants, creating public health concerns and ruining your reuse program.

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!!

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….

 

Engaging the Community – Going Beyond the Cheap Steps

October 8, 2012
communciations, Leadership, management, Marketing water, sustainability
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In a prior blog, I raised the question about marketing your water to your community.  The issue resulted from a comment that public dollars should not be spent on advertising.  There were several comments about this and we perhaps need to explore that option further.  One question raised was “how do we engage our community?”  There are a variety of ways to engage the community, but most utilities pursue only superficial, and inexpensive solutions, if pursued at all.  The typical solutions include speaker’s bureaus, mailers, flyers, notes on water bills, the consumer confidence report, press releases, presentations at commission meetings and water conservation efforts.  But how well do these work?  Certainly every utility should pursue many if not all of these options.  Getting positive information out to the community is needed, but does it change the perception of the community toward the utility?  Hard to say, but if that is the goal, you may be surprised how limited the impact of these efforts may be.  For one thing, most mailers, etc are viewed as junk mail so are not read by the customers.  Likewise most people do not pay attention to commission meetings, or read the paper (assuming the paper publishes the press release).  So many of these well intended, and time consuming efforts may be create limited engagement.  More proactive and maybe time consuming efforts are often needed to create an impact.

So what might work better?  If trying to change perception of the utility, more hands-on engagement may be needed.  It may mean reaching targeted audiences that can change current or long-term perceptions.  This can occur in a number of ways.  Here are a few:

  • School competitions for water conservation, hydrant painting, model water tanks – the concept here is to provide fun to elementary and middle school kids while encouraging them to learn about a given topic.  Normally involves teachers and parents, which enhances the message and spreads the “word.”  There are state and national competitions that students can participate in as well.  Utility management support is required, as and some resources and some devotion of time from staff to coordinate efforts among students and teachers.  But it puts the utility in front of an impressionable audience and provides a learning opportunity very different from the normal classroom.  How would that not be memorable?
  • Middle school programs with utility staff – the concept here is to encourage utility staff to communicate directly with middle school kids about what they do.  The key is to get younger kids interested in pursuing jobs in the field.  One of the ongoing issues in the utility industry is “graying,” and the potential for almost 50% of the workforce to retire in the near future.  Getting students to change their careers in college is too late.  Often high school is as well.  Middle school kids have rarely given much thought to their careers.  What better way to recruit that to put the utility in front of kids and get them thinking about going into the water field.?
  • Tours of facilities for school kids – most students learn visually, so tours of the facility are useful to create interest and enhance learning. Security is an issue, but they are kids.  It is always useful to know what goes on with water and wastewater. And it’s normally a positive, out of the classroom experience.  What kid doesn’t like a field trip?
  • Summer internships for high school students – this is another effort to engage and educate students, while perhaps setting the stage for a future employee who understands what win needed to do the work.  Teachers and parents are required to be part of the process – otherwise who recommends the students ad how do they get to work?  It helps if this is coupled with earlier introductions to the utility, so kids have become interested in the career prior to the job opportunities.  Think about the kid who learns about and tours the utility in middle school, knowing internships might be available in a couple years.
  • Partner with local universities on research issues – The focus is universities, not trade schools or community colleges, because universities do research and this capacity is often underutilized in the business work.  In part this is because their mission is misunderstood – they teach students to think as opposed to technical skills, which means things might take a little longer.  But universities have lots of technical resources, literature and skills that can be useful to utility systems.  Often the cost is less than consultants, and the access to data and knowledge is usually beyond that of consultants as well.  The utility needs to find the right person to connect with for small projects as some university folks avoid small projects, but many engineering professors welcome the opportunities.  Also many universities are public entities, which means bid laws may not apply for public agencies.  That makes it easier….
  • Sponsoring research projects for graduate students – graduate students need projects to complete their thesis.  They need real data and utility projects and research are generally beneficial.  And they need jobs so research is like an extended interview.  Professors are looking for research to collaborate on.  Utilities often need testing of pilot projects before design is initiated or completed.  As a result, utility sponsored research is a win-win for everyone.
  • Offering paid internships for undergraduate students – college students need money to pay tuition and experience to get a job.  The utility can engage and educate students, while perhaps setting the stage for a future employee if they do the job well.  Internships are extended interviews to gauge student skills.  And universities can help recommend good students.  Another win-win.
  • College scholarships – scholarships recognize good students, while creating the potential to attract future talent.  AWWA has found that most students who receive scholarships in from the water industry, stay in the field.
  • Co-hosting conferences – many conferences are looking for sponsors, money and locations.  Local conferences normally get some press, which helps the water profession.  Another win-win.
  • Hosting training programs- like conference, training is something all engineers, finance people, and operations and field personnel need.  Like conferences, many training programs are looking for sponsors, money and locations.
  • Participation in activities like Habitat for Humanity – utilities have tools and skilled labor.  They can help with community based activities.  Management needs to be engaged and show leadership for such projects to be successful, but there can be no losers in activities like this.
  • Awards – Apply for them.  They are noteworthy, and publishable!
  • Newspaper advertisements about events or accolades – some elected officials are opposed to self-laudatory commentary or marketing.  But in the competitive environment we operate in, we need to maximize revenue opportunities.

There are more, how many utilities actually engage in these efforts.  Money is often used as a reason not to, but if long-term engagement is what is desired, perhaps spending limited dollars to pursued these options could present a positive benefit:cost ratio to the utility.  That would make it worthwhile.