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Water/Wastewater PBS Documentary to air nationally
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Grant Whittle
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Aug 20, 2008 09:27 PDT
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I haven't sent anything to this "retired" Trenchless Technology list in a
looooong time. I'm hoping that any of you who never unsubscribed won't
mind receiving this.
The whole industry needs to know this PBS Documentary is coming and the
sooner the better, We all need to contact our local PBS stations and
encourage them to work this documentary into their programming schedules.
We also need to take advantage of the Educational Outreach Toolkit
materials to help educate our local communities.
When I "pitched" this documentary idea to Penn State about 5 years ago, my
motivation was to have a "grass roots" education campaign so that the
average citizen would come to understand the criticality of water and
wastewater infrastructure and what we must do as a nation to keep our
infrastructure sustainable. The longer we wait to properly fund the
sustainability of these critical assets, the higher the financial capital
cost will be. The political resistance to the necessary funding won't go
away until the "political capital" cost of rate and fee increases declines.
We have to help the average citizen understand the unique and new
challenges our water and wastewater infrastructure is now facing.
As the AWWA has put it, we have entered "the dawn of the replacement era."
For the first time in the history of our nation, our long life water and
wastewater assets are needing to be rehabilitated or replaced. The pipes,
which are frequently out of sight and out of mind, are as much as 75% of
our water and wastewater infrastructure investment. Many are 50 years old,
75 years old, 100 years old, or even older. Now, not only do we need to
fund expansion of our systems and upgrades to comply with stricter
environmental regulations in order to prevent increased ecological
degradation under the pressure of ever rising population concentrations,
but we must also begin major funding of maintaining, rehabilitating, and
replacing our existing infrastructure.
This is a relatively new expense that hasn't been adequately reflected in
our water and wastewater rates and fees in the past. The costs of
operating, maintaining, and sustainably managing pipes are typically
realtively low for the first 40 to 50 years of their performance life and
then rise dramatically towards the end of their performance life, Until
recently, water/wastewater agencies weren't required to track the condition
of their assets or even to budget for future rehabilitation and replacement
needs to ensure sustainability.
When new water and wastewater pipes were installed, they were frequently
paid for by the community developers. Sure, the big dollar expenses like
major trunk mains and treatment plants were publicly funded but the miles
and miles of residential collection and distribution lines were frequently
built into the cost of the developed lots and incorporated into the
homeowners' mortgages. So in many cases, these costs were essentially
previously "hidden" from the rate payers. Even where such original
development costs were reflected in the rates or "impact fees," the need
for new development has only increased, and there was never any accounting
for rehabilitation and replacement. Now that those systems are needing
major rehabilitation and replacement for the first time, those costs need
to be reflected in the water and wastewater rates and fees for the first
time. This changed recently with the new GASB 34 rule, but their are
accounting "tricks" available to still essentially ignore the issue if so
desired. But whether we choose to ignore it or not, the problem isn't
going to go away and it is only going to become insurmountably bigger the
longer we wait.
How big of an impact is this going to be on our water and wastewater rates
and fees? Well, all analyses so far suggest that we are underfunded for
such challenges to the tune of water and wastewater rates and fees needing
to double or triple to cover the "true costs" of sustainably providing
continued services. In the midst of rising energy costs, rising food
costs, the weakening buying power of consumer dollars, and stagnant or
declining wages, no one wants to further hurt their political good will by
also raising the cost of the basic sanitation services that enable life as
we know it. But if our grandchildren are going to enjoy such sanitation
advantages, we have no other choice. We can live without cable TV. We can
do much to conserve energy and control such expenses. But we cannot live
without access to water and sewer (at least not with our low infant
mortality rates, long life expectancies, etc.). As the industry has been
proclaiming: "Water is life!" Water is also the backbone of our local
economies. If access to clean water ever fails, society as we know it
fails.
Public servants have two types of capital to spend: political capital and
financial capital. All too often in order to be able to stay in office and
to continue to be able to serve the needs of the community, public servants
are forced to conserve their political capital. They therefore are
required to wait until the public so fully understands an issue that acting
on it doesn't cost them more political capital than they have available to
spend. The result is the financial capital costs continue to rise until
the crisis becomes so severe that the public has no choice but to accept
the actions taken by the public servants to solve the problem. In many
cases, the lack of political capital results in inaction until regulatory
agencies "force" the issue through consent decrees and other legal actions.
Unfortunately, the longer the wait, the higher the ultimate financial
capital cost. Proactive asset management ALWAYS costs less financial
capital than such reactive management.
So, as an industry we have to find ways to lower the political capital
costs so that we can acquire the necessary poltical approval to proactively
asset manage our systems and thereby also ultimately lower our financial
capital costs and provide better use of the funds received from our rate
payers. To do this, the public needs to understand the challenges the
water and wastewater industry is currently facing. The public currently
doesn't have enough information to understand why their basic services
haven't improved and perhaps have even declined in quality, and yet for
some "unknown" reason the public servants managing the systems now suddenly
say it is going to cost them 2 to 3 times as much to get the same or lesser
services. It "looks" like mismanagement. The public wants to know if they
REALLY need to pay such dramatically higher rates, and if so, why?
It is my hope that this documentary and the educational outreach toolkits
that go with it will help answer those questions. And with the answers to
those questions being heard and hopefully understood, perhaps the political
capital costs for doing the necessary things to keep our water and
wastewater infrastructure sustainable will go down. As the political
capital costs go down, perhaps the water/wastewater industry will get the
approvals required to do what we all know we need to be doing without
having to have consent orders to get it done. Society as we know it is
literally hanging in the balance pending the outcome of this effort.
So, I'm on my soap box again...
In the midsts of war, energy costs, healthcare crises, social security
crises, and so many other IMMEDIATE concerns that occupy the attention of
our nation, we are going to have to work exceptionally hard to get heard.
Please spread the word about this documentary and ensure that your
communities know about it and watch it. Perhaps even more importantly,
leverage the public awareness and interest generated by this nationwide
documentary program to host local educational programs about your local
community situations. Use the Educational Outreach Toolkit materials to
educate your public servants AND PERHAPS MORE IMPORTANTLY the rate payers
about the challenges facing our water and wastewater systems. Raise public
awareness and understanding and thereby lower political capital costs, and
thereby ultimately lower the financial costs to everyone. This can only be
accomplished at the grass roots level. Garner enough grass roots political
support and it will become a national priority.
The average citizen in America has no problem supporting clean water
initiatives. In fact, surveys have shown that the public supports clean
water as much as they support other bipartisan national issues such as
education, police and fire protection, and transportation infrastructure.
Water/Wastewater is one of the only issues with such widespread public
support that hasn't been raised to the level of a prominent national
campaign platform issue. The only resistance by the public to proper
investment in our water and wastewater infrastructure is a lack of
information and understanding. The effort to provide that understanding is
not coming from the political parties. We in the industry are the only
ones who can change the public understanding. This documentary and the
grass roots educational outreach campaign that needs to go along with it
are perhaps our last best hope of achieving such essential public support
for water and wastewater infrastructure sustainability. If we wait much
longer, we won't be trying to achieve sustainability, we will be trying to
start over at a much higher and perhaps impossible cost.
So please, go to the dodumentary website and review the Educational
Outreach Toolkits and find ways to leverage them in your communities. Give
presentations to local service clubs like Kiwanis, Rotary, Civitan, and
Lions Clubs. Invite loal public servants to attend the presentations. Get
newspaper articles about the documentary as a tie in to your local
presentations. Get the public hearing and talking about water and
wastewater infrastructure needs. Those of us who understand water and
sewer needs (or at least think we do <grin>) all need to do our part to get
people talking and thinking.
Here is the documentary website:
<http://liquidassets.psu.edu>
Here is a PR piece about the documentary:
<http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/penn-state-public-broadcasting-docum
entary/story.aspx?guid=%7BDD3E60AE-41E0-4E50-BC97-21DA8A94607A%7D&dist=hppr
regards,
Grant Whittle
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