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Leadership with Water-Energy Nexus?

January 26, 2013
Climate, communciations, Environment, finance, groundwater, infiltration, infrastructure, Leadership, management, power demands, power-water nexus, sanitary sewer, sustainability, water sewer management, water supplies
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In our prior blog discussions the theme has been leadership.  Vision is needed from leaders.  In the water industry that vision has to do with sustainability in light of competing interests for water supplies, completion for funds, maintaining infrastructure and communicating the importance of water to customers.  The need to fully to optimize management of water resources has been identified.  The argument goes like this.  Changes to the terrestrial surface decrease available recharge to groundwater and increase runoff.  Urbanization increases runoff due to imperviousness from buildings, parking lots, and roads and highways that replace forest or grassland cover, leading to runoff at a faster rate (flooding) and the inability to capture the water as easily.  In rural areas, increased evapotranspiration (ET) is observed in areas with large-scale irrigation, which lowers runoff and alters regional precipitation patterns. At the same time there are four competing sectors for water:  agriculture (40% in the US), power (39% in the US), urban uses (12.7%) and other.  Note the ecosystem is not considered.

New water supplies often have lesser quality than existing supplies, simply because users try to pick the best water that minimizes treatment requirements. But where water supplies and/or water quality is limited, energy demands rise, often to treat that water as well as serve new customers. For many non-industrial communities, the local water and wastewater treatment facilities are among the largest power users in a community.  Confounding the situation is trying to site communities where there is not water because the power industry needs water and the residents will need water.  It is a viscous cycle.  When you have limited water supplies, that means your development should be limited.  Your population and commercial growth cannot exceed the carrying capacity of the water supply, or eventually, you will run out.  Drawing water from more distant place can work for a time, but what is the long-term impact.  Remember the Colorado River no longer meets the ocean.  Likewise the Rio Grande is a trickle when it hits the Gulf of Mexico  As engineers, we can be pretty creative in coming up with ways to transfer water, but few ask if it is a good idea.

Likewise we can come up with solutions to treat water that otherwise could not be drunk, but, that may not always be the best of ideas. Adding to the challenge is that planning by drinking water, wastewater, and electric utilities occurs separately and is not integrated. Both sectors need to manage supplies for changes in demands throughout the year, but because they are planned for and managed separately, their production and use are often at the expense of the natural environment.  Conflicts will inevitably occur because separate planning occurs (for a multitude of reasons, including tradition, regulatory limitations, ease, location, limited organizational resources, governance structure, and mandated requirements). However, as demands for limited water resources continue to grow in places that are water limited, and as pressures on financial resources increase, there are benefits and synergies that can be realized from integrated planning for both water and electric utilities and for their respective stakeholders and communities. The link between energy and water is important – water efficiency can provide a large savings for consumers and the utility.   As a result, there is a need to move toward long-term, integrated processes, in which these resources are recognized as all being interconnected .  Only then can the challenges to fully to optimize management of water resources for all purposes be identified.

Anybody have any good examples out there?

Energy Leadership in the Water Industry

January 23, 2013
Climate, Environment, groundwater, infrastructure, Leadership, management, planning, power demands, power-water nexus, sustainability
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Water and energy systems constitute the foundation for modern civilization around the world.  Without water, societies never get started, and without power, it is difficult for economies to grow.  At the same time, modern power generating equipment needs water for cooling and processes, creating an interdependency between water and energy infrastructure and potential for conflict over water resources. As a result, the Energy-Water Nexus is a topic of great interest and discussion among federal policy-making and regulatory entities; private and public sector water and electric utilities; state and local governments, and many supporting technical, educational, professional associations. At the nexus of water and energy exists a host of societal issues, policy and regulatory debates, environmental concerns (local and global), technological challenges, and economic impacts that must be balanced or optimized to permit ongoing economic development for all (NETL, 2008).

Estimates indicate that from 1950 to 1980, demands for water increased steadily across all sectors, with 1980 being the peak water use year.  However, since 1980, withdrawals declined.  Despite the overall decline, the built environment demands continued increase. This of course ignore the natural environment demands, which may play a large part in the economic stability of some regions.  Unlike water demands, the total US power consumption continues to climb as a result of population increases.  The US Census Bureau (2004) projects that the national population will increase from 282 million people in 2000 to 420 million by 2050.  The Energy Information Administration (EIA) project, assuming the latest Census Bureau projections in its reference case, the U.S. population to grow by about 70 million in the next 25 years and electricity demand to grow by approximately 50 percent (EIA, 2006). More people, means more power.  More power means more water for cooling unless all new power is solar or wind, something highly unlikely.  On the current track, which suggests and expansion of fossil fuel plants, the power sector may be highly vulnerable to changes in water resources, especially those that are already occurring, and are likely to intensify, as result of climatic changes (Vorosmarty et al 2000, Bates et al 2008, Dai 2010, NETL 2010d).

Adding to the challenge is that planning by drinking water, wastewater, and electric utilities occurs separately and is not integrated. In the US, the energy sector uses 39% of the water withdrawals on an annual basis for cooling, immediately behind the 40% used by agriculture (Lisk et al, 2012; GAO, 2012).  Urban demands (12.6% of water use – Sanders and Webber, 2012) require clean water supplies to protect public health.  Both sectors need to manage supplies for changes in demands throughout the year, but because they are planned for and managed separately, their production and use are often at the expense of the environment (NREL, 2011). This separate planning occurs for a multitude of reasons, including tradition, regulatory limitations, ease, location, limited organizational resources, governance structure, and mandated requirements. However, as demands for limited water resources continue to grow among all sectors, and as pressures on financial resources increase, there are benefits and synergies that can be realized from integrated planning for both water and electric utilities and for their respective stakeholders and communities. The link between energy and water is important – water efficiency can provide a large savings for consumers and the utility.  Reduced energy consumptions benefits the consumer – but should always be considered as one of the first steps (Gould, 2011).  As a result, there is a need to move toward long-term, integrated processes, in which these resources are recognized as all being interconnected (NREL, 2011).  Only then can the challenges to fully to optimize management of water resources for all purposes be identified (Scanlon et al 2005).

The lack of planning creates the situation where competition for water between agriculture, power and urban uses will reach a tipping point (or beyond in many basins) as an expected increase in thermoelectric capacity by electric utilities, and an increasing prevalence of droughts could induce possible water shortages.  By 2025, Ciferno (2009) suggests the most vulnerable areas for water shortages are fast growing areas:  Charlotte, NC, Chicago, IL, Queens, NY, Atlanta, GA, Dallas, TX; Houston, TX, San Antonio, TX, and San Francisco.  Immediately behind these areas are Denver, CO; Las Vegas, NV; St Paul MN, and Portland OR (Ciferno,2009). Hightower (2009) notes that virtually all the states west of the Mississippi and many southeastern states will experience regional or statewide water shortages in the coming decade (2010-2020).  The South and the Southwest are particularly vulnerable (Glassman, et al, 2011) because they rely on air conditioning to provide a comfortable environment, which requires more power for a growing population, requiring more water for cooling power plants.

These projections come with recent experience that is likely to foretell the future.  The south, Texas and parts of the west have had repeated drought periods in recent history.  During the summer and fall of 2007, a serious drought affected the southeastern United States.  River flows decreased, and water levels in lakes and reservoirs dropped. In some cases, water levels were so low that power production at some power plants had to be stopped or reduced (Kimmel and Veil, 2009). The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Gallatin Fossil Plant is not permitted to discharge water used for cooling back into the Cumberland River due to thermal pollution (water > 90 F) (WSMV Nashville 2007; Kimmel and Veil, 2009; NETL 2009c).  Nuclear and coal-fired plants within the TVA system were forced to shut down some reactors (e.g., the Browns Ferry facility in August 2007) and curtail operations at others. This problem has not been limited to the 2007 drought in the southeastern United States. A similar situation occurred in August 2006 along the Mississippi River (Exelon Quad Cities Illinois plant).  Other plants in Illinois and some in Minnesota were also affected (Union of Concerned Scientists 2007). The production of gas from oil shale and biofuels has exacerbated the issues in the Plains states (Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas), Upper Rocky Mountains, and the Ohio River Valley (Hightower, 2009; Kimmel and Veil, 2009).  DOE (2006) specifically identifies where new power plants have been opposed because of potential negative impacts on water supplies (Tucson Citizen, 2002; Reno-Gazette Journal, 2005; U.S. Water News Online, 2002 and 2003; Curlee, 2003). Recent droughts and emerging limitations of water resources have many states, including Texas, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Tennessee, scrambling to develop water use priorities for different water use sectors (Clean Air Task Force, 2004a; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2005; GAO, 2003; Curlee, 2003; Hoffman, 2004; U.S. Water News Online, 2003)

So what is currently happening?  Current legislation  is mostly silent on the power-water nexus.  This is not to say that little is being done. A number of federal agencies are actively involved with the power-water nexus, including DOE, via NETL, and NREL, NOAA, USEPA via water Wise and Energy Star, BLM though management of land and water resources in the west, USDA and Department of the Interior/USGS which inventories water supplies.  However, DOE (2006) noted that collaboration on energy and water resource planning is needed among federal, regional, and state agencies as well as with industry and other stakeholders.  GAO (2012a) notes that the growth in water and energy demands is occurring at a time when the nation’s supplies are stressed by a growing population, a variety of new and changing uses, and environmental challenges such as climate change, but none of the involved agencies consistently or strategically collaborate on to ensure a harmonized approach to energy and water resource planning.

Effective integrated energy and water policy planning will require identifying the individual and cumulative impacts that power plants have on water resources and the vulnerabilities of specific power plants to changes in water resources (Wilkinson 2007, Scott and Pasqualetti 2010;Stillwell et al 2011; Kenney and Wilkinson 2012). From a systems perspective, a sustainable society is one that has in place the institutional, social and informational mechanisms to keep in check the feedback loops that cause exponential population growth and natural capital depletion.  A sustainable world is not a rigid one, where population or productivity is held constant.  Yet sustainability does require rules, laws and social constraints that are recognized and adhered to by all (Meadows, 2005).   Integrated planning implies removing silos, working collaboratively, and using resources wisely. It implies using the combined intelligence of multiple parties in the planning and fulfillment of goals. It implies linking a vision, priorities, people, and institutions into a flexible system of evaluation and decision-making.  In other words, leadership.

Details on refrences available

Outlook for Utilities is Up, but Leadership needed for Infrastructure Investments

January 13, 2013
communciations, finance, funding, infrastructure, Leadership, management, Marketing water, planning, sustainability, water sewer management, water supplies
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The magazine Utility Contractor suggests that 2013 may be much better than 2012 from a utility construction perspective.  In Fact they suggest a 13% increase in utility construction, although the bulk of that is in the power industry, not the water industry.  Their projections are for water utility infrastructure spending to remain roughly constant from 2012, a slight uptick from the recession years.  At the same time, the US water infrastructure bill was suggested by Public Works magazine to exceed $1 trillion over the next 30 years, requiring over $30 billion to be spend annually on upgrades.  This is more than double their estimates of current funding..  Many of these upgrades are pipe.  Much of the piping infrastructure in America is over 50 years old, and the condition may be unclear (unless you dig it up, you don’t know much).  But piping projects are hard to fund, because no one sees the pipe, only the failures.  As time goes on, the condition continues to deteriorate.

Much of the reason that water utility infrastructure is not expected to increase is that revenues are not expected to climb significantly to allow for the expansion of capital funding despite historically low borrowing rates and lowered costs of construction.  The reason:  many public sector utilities, which accounts for many of the larger systems, have been caught in one or more of several traps:  deferring capital to pay current expenses without raising rates, revenue losses from defaults on housing, use of utility fees to overcome ad valorem tax losses in the general fund, or political pressure to reduce rates.  All four cases can be crippling to the utility because it not only removes revenues today, but likely will result in a continuing practice in the future.

The good news in the revenues are rising, and that unemployment is down nationally despite the loss of 276,000 state and local jobs in 2011.  But since governments tend to lag the private sector in recovery, and we now have 34 straight months the private sector adding jobs, governments should start to see improved conditions in 2013.  Salaries are up, revenues are up a little and jobs are being filled, but what does this mean to infrastructure? The question is why the projections are for no increase in spending.  Water and sewer utilities owned by governments, are caught in the middle of the political process which lacks leadership.  These utilities are set up as enterprise funds, whereby revenues are gained from provision of a measurable service.  As a result they are designed to be operated more like a business, than a government.  But if your utility funds are altered through the political process, this can frustrate the efforts to run an efficient and effective business-like organization, which may mean the status quo, which is not investments in infrastructure beyond absolutely essential and emergency measures.  The question is where is the leadership to reverse this trend?  Unfortunately the political leadership focus is on elections, 2 to 4 years out, not the 20 or 30 year life of the utility’s assets.  As a result, short term benefits sacrifice long-term needs.

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If you are a person who wants to be a leader, you also need to think about the long-term impacts of your plans/policies and actions.  How will they be perceived 10 or 20 years out?  How will your decisions impact the course of the organization?  For utilities how has your tenure added value to the utility, whether that value is treatment capacity, public health protection or reliability of the system.  And how is it measure, since monetary value is not the only means to add value. Keep in mind no one remembers the guy who did not raise rates, only the person who did not plan to replace the infrastructure that failed. That’s a legacy leadership issue.  One thing many people do not understand is that while we live in the moment, it is how people view our actions afterwards.  It is why it is so easy to see leadership after the fact, but sometimes very difficult during the event.  The question is, how to we overcome the restrictions caused by the 2008 recession?  That’s where leadership comes to play.

SUSTAINABILITY THROUGHOUT TIME – BUT NOW WHAT?

January 10, 2013
communciations, Environment, finance, groundwater, infrastructure, Leadership, management, Marketing water, planning, sustainability, Uncategorized, water supplies
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I was cruising through Glacier Bay National Park when I wrote this blog.  It was just one of those inspirational momentsl  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?

But when we start to look at resource limitations, who stands up and says, this type of withdrawal is not the right answer.  We need another one.  Where is that leadership moment?

Leadership Part 4

December 29, 2012
communciations, infrastructure, Leadership, management, Marketing water, sustainability, water sewer management
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In the theme of the past posts, I have two stories about a young man in North Carolina 30 years ago.  He was an engineer by education, but wanted to get into management.  So he got a master‘s degree in public administration and after working for a utility for several years, got an opportunity to manage one of the many very small towns in North Carolina.  Now he, like me, was not from North Carolina, but from a northern state, so imaging the reception 30 years ago in a small eastern North Carolina.  His workforce was not educated, and the town workforce lacked any specific skills according to the mayor, although the field supervisor was a skilled equipment operator and had completed high school.  Now you can imagine the suspicion this “young whipper-snapper” had on a community that did not want all that education and did not “want to become Raleigh,” as if there was some horrible stigma attached to that fine city.  And his assignment – fix the infrastructure.

Now many utility directors reading this post will relate to this issue.  It seems that the town was losing half the water pumped out of the groundwater in the leaking pipelines and over half the water mains were 30+ year old galvanized pipes that were laid near and far to reach specific properties.  All were 2 inches and smaller which obviously did not provide fire protection.  Areas of the town were skipped.  Sewer was lacking in some areas and there were a series of stormwater issues to address.  Of course there was no money as the town’s fiscal condition was poor, so the solution was to train the crew to lay the piping needed.  So the story goes like this.  The crew had never installed push-on PVC piping and did not believe it would stay together under pressure.  They had never installed valves or other appurtenances, not manholes and pipe on grade.  Cement finishing was an issue.  So the day came to start work.

The supervisor dug the trench with a backhoe and the young man joined the crew in the field.  He was trying to instruct them on the specifics of laying pipe from the surface.  After all he was the town manager.  It was a struggle, and conditions in a trench are not the best as working space is limited.  Finally realizing the need to show the crew how the pipe pushed together and sequence of tightening bolts needed to go, he hopped into the trench.  He worked with them for days, and the crew became very effective at installing pipe in all circumstances.  Even after the young man moved to a larger town, the crews finished the pipe replacement effort.  The leadership moment?  As the supervisor noted later, the instant he hopped in the trench.  The struggle wasn’t so much not understanding as not believing.  When the young man showed the crew that what he was telling them worked, that by jumping in the trench and working with them he appreciated and understood their efforts, when he treated them with respect in demonstrating the skills the crew needed, they bought the vision.  It was easy after that and they we successful.  Lesson 1:  Show the crew what you want, and believe in them and they will be successful

The same young man later demonstrated his willingness to protect the crew from interference form outside.  So this story goes that they were installing a water main of a given street.  The mayor called and demand a water break get fixed.  Coincidently it was 20 feet from where they were working.  The town manager said no, they would continue working.  You can imagine the broohah brewing up here.  Especially when two days later another leak occurred, but the new main was nearly complete.  And the fourth day, a third leak.  Conferences with commissioners, phone calls, etc form the fanned flames.  But the crew kept working.  No demands were conveyed to them.  Keep working.  The water main was complete the following Monday, placed into service and all service connected to the new line by 5 pm.  The manager was asked to explain his decision at the Tuesday Commission meeting.  He brought in a four foot piece of service line from where the first leak occurred. It contained 22 clamps, meaning the town personnel had “fixed” the line 22 time, over 80 hours of work, in the past.  The leak actually occurred between two to the clamps and could not have been fixed.  Replacement was the only option.  Leadership moment number 2:  the crew knew they had been shielded from criticism, since the manager took all of it.  All the commissioners decided that in the future, such issues would be left to the purview of the manager.  Not that during the week of construction his life wasn’t miserable.  Lesson 2.  Sometimes leadership is difficult.

Happy Holidays!

December 25, 2012
infrastructure, Leadership, management, sustainability, water sewer management
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Just a short note to wish everyone a very happy holiday season!.  May your wishes and dreams come true.  May you and your’s be happy.  May 2013 be our greatest year yet!.  May we be successful in all we try to do this year!  And remember that we are defined and remembered by our friends and family.   Enjoy the all-to-short time you have together!  Be merry!  The other stuff will wait.

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

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!!

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
17 Comments

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!!