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NASSCO's efforts to have a Water/Sewer Crisis PBS Documentary
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Grant Whittle
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Aug 05, 2004 09:54 PDT
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With cities nationwide facing steep rate hikes and bond issue ballots in
order to repair their water and sewer systems, NASSCO has taken the
initiative to help increase public awareness of the nationwide water &
sewer infrastructure crisis. At our Annual Meeting, the NASSCO Board of
Directors decided to pursue solicitation of a PBS documentary. As a result
of those efforts, Penn State University and the Emmy Award winning
documentary film production company GreenTreks have just signed a contract
to work together to bring such a documentary to reality.
GreenTreks has received nationwide recognition for their many Clean Water
and watershed focused educational programs, which been very successful in
reaching the general public. Penn State University has significantly
broadened NASSCO's initial vision of the project with their own plans for a
national educational outreach program in conjunction with the airing of the
documentary. Penn State PBS has shown substantial enthusiasm regarding the
broad educational opportunities in conjunction with the documentary. The
Penn State Pipeline Infrastructure Research Center (PIRC) plans to work
with the Penn State Educational Outreach program to develop "Educational
Outreach Toolkits" for nationwide distribution in conjunction with the
airing of the documentary. In addition to assisting Utilities with public
awareness programs, the toolkits are also intended to provide detailed
information pertaining to the water & sewer crisis. Targeted toolkits will
tentatively be distributed to Governors & Legislators; Mayors & City
Councils; Utility Boards & Public Commissioners; FInancial Managers; Public
Works Departments; Utility Engineers; Universities; and K -12. The NASSCO
leadership has expressed its willingness to assist with the development
and/or peer review of any of the Penn State toolkit information pertaining
to pipe rehabilitation.
NASSCO has made a generous education grant to Penn State University to
assist with these efforts, and the NASSCO membership will likely also be
called upon to provide matching resources in the form of expert man-hours.
The NASSCO Board has formed a committee to coordinate these efforts, and we
encourage any NASSCO members who wish to assist to contact Grant Whittle,
one of the chairs of the Documentary Project Committee. The donated
education grant is currently being used by Penn State and GreenTreks to
cover the costs of developing a "documentary treatment" (the planned
documentary scope and content) to be used in grant proposals. Tentatively,
the documentary will focus on the extent of the pipe rehabilitation needs
across North America, the financial and political implications for
communities, and the need for engineering and construction training to meet
the exponentially increasing demand for pipe rehabilitation services.
The documentary project team plan to profile geographically dispersed
cities across North America in order to tell the story. Multiple cities
have already expressed an interest in being profiled within the
documentary. Industry-wide support for the documentary project has been
overwhelming, and every industry organization will likely be involved in
the "toolkit" development.
Grant Whittle
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