Volume 4 Issue 1
Managing Water During Hurricane Harvey Gulf Coast Authority p. 6 Houston Water p. 12 San Jacinto River Authority p. 18 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers p. 22
January 2018
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THE VALUE OF PLANNING AND PREPOSITIONING: GULF COAST AUTHORITY'S RELIABILITY DURING HURRICANE HARVEY
Contents
January 2018 Volume 4, Issue 1 5 Water Management in Extreme Storm Events By Kris Polly 6 The Value of Planning and Prepositioning: Gulf Coast Authority's Reliability During Hurricane Harvey 12 Hunkering Down for Hurricane Harvey By Drew Molly
BUSINESS LEADER 28 Luka Erceg of Drylet
THE INNOVATORS 32 Reducing the Cost of Water Operations With SCADA: A Case Study
STATE PERSPECTIVE 36 Reviving Water Infrastructure in New Jersey By John F. McKeon
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CIRCULATION: Municipal Water Leader is distributed to irrigation district managers and boards of directors in the 17 western states, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials, members of Congress and committee staff, and advertising sponsors. Please send address corrections or additions to Municipal.Water.Leader@waterstrategies.com. Copyright © 2018 Water Strategies LLC. Municipal Water Leader relies on the excellent contributions of a variety of natural resources professionals who provide content for the magazine. However, the views and opinions expressed by these contributors are solely those of the original contributor and do not necessarily represent or reflect the policies or positions of Municipal Water Leader magazine, its editors, or Water Strategies LLC. The acceptance and use of advertisements in Municipal Water Leader do not constitute a representation or warranty by Water Strategies LLC or Municipal Water Leader magazine regarding the products, services, claims, or companies advertised. MuniWaterLeader
COVER PHOTO: Hurricane Harvey captured by the GOES–16. Photo courtesy of NOAA/NASA GOES Project.
MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
PHOTO COURTESY OF GULF COAST AUTHORITY.
18 Overcoming Inundation in The Woodlands: San Jacinto River Authority Operations During Hurricane Harvey
22 Core Principals of Water Resources Emergency Management: Sean Smith, Principal Hydrologic and Hydraulic Engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
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Water Management in Extreme Storm Events
By Kris Polly
PHOTOS COURTESY OF GULF COAST AUTHORITY.
F
or water managers, the calm before the storm is a time for preparation. In 2017, the water and wastewater agencies of southern Texas were put to the test by Hurricane Harvey. Some of them experienced 20,000-year flood levels. It is no surprise that those agencies helped to ensure that drinking water and wastewater services continued at a time when so many individuals and families lost so much. In this issue of Municipal Water Leader magazine, we speak to managers at the Gulf Coast Authority (GCA), Houston Water, the San Jacinto River Authority (SJRA), and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Army Corps) about their respective experiences during the storm and the policies that govern the emergency management of water resources. Their collective responses reflect the professionalism and leadership of organizations well prepared for potentially catastrophic events. The Gulf Coast Authority provides industrial and municipal treatment services to companies and communities along the Gulf Coast south of Houston. Harvey inundated GCA’s service area, dumping several feet of rain on its facilities and customers. GCA Chief Technical Officer Gordon Peterson explained that while the storm “provided unique challenges that GCA had not experienced before . . . by adapting our [emergency] plan to meet the storm’s characteristics, we were able to keep our personnel safe and minimize damages.” GCA Chief Financial Officer Elizabeth Free highlighted the need for ongoing communication with local, state, and federal emergency management agencies, especially the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). She said, “It is important to talk with FEMA about flood mitigation funding. FEMA wants to sponsor flood mitigation projects, so that the next time something like this happens, the damages aren’t as severe.” Houston Water’s Drinking Water Operations (DWO) provides water to the fourth-largest city in the United States. It’s a big job. As Harvey hit, the DWO staff was working 24/7 to make sure its 4 million customers had drinking water. Assistant Senior Director of Houston Water's DWO Drew Molly shared his story of how DWO’s efforts “helped our communities endure the storm and kept a difficult situation from becoming worse.” The SJRA's Woodlands Division operates and maintains 3 regional wastewater treatment plants, a wastewater conveyance system with 30 lift stations, a regional water system with 5 drinking water plants, 38 water wells, multiple storage tanks, and miles and miles of water distribution lines. By investing in its people and planning ahead, SJRA-Woodlands successfully weathered the storm to provide service to the 100,000 residents of The Woodlands.
MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
SJRA General Manager Jace Houston spoke with pride, “The system performed like a champ.” The reason for that, according to SJRA-Woodlands Manager Chris Meeks, was his maintenance team. “We can get parts and pieces, but good people are hard to find.” SJRA has invested in good people. In addition to on-the-ground reports, we also talk big-picture water resources emergency management planning with Sean Smith, principal hydrologic and hydraulic engineer for the Army Corps in Washington, DC. Mr. Smith discusses the role of the Army Corps during storm events and how it coordinates with local agencies to protect communities. Public safety is the top priority for the Army Corps. Mr. Smith explained, “It is our number one mission. Proactive engagement with the local entities in understanding their roles and responsibilities with regard to public health and safety is also something we work collectively to bolster, with the intent of continual improvement in how we work together.” Water managers are true professionals. They are committed to public safety above all else and are dedicated to bringing drinking water and wastewater services even in the most dire conditions. For that, we thank them. M
Kris Polly is editor-in-chief of Municipal Water Leader magazine and president of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at Kris.Polly@waterstrategies.com.
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The Value of Planning and Prepositioning:
Gulf Coast Authority’s Reliability During Hurricane Harvey On August 26, Hurricane Harvey dumped several feet of rain on the communities along the Galveston Bay. One of the untold stories from the storm was the work of the wastewater treatment operators serving refineries and petrochemical facilities in the Galveston Bay area. Gulf Coast Authority (GCA) provides regional industrial wastewater treatment services for many of these industries and also provides regional municipal wastewater treatment. Its wastewater treatment operations run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When Harvey hit, GCA’s employees were prepared to provide uninterrupted service to both its municipal and industrial customers. GCA Chief Technical Officer Gordon Peterson and GCA Chief Financial Officer Elizabeth Free spoke with Irrigation Leader’s editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, about storm preparation and operations and the scope of the storm and its aftermath. Kris Polly: Please describe the scope of your industrial operations and facilities. Gordon Pederson: We’ll start with the Washburn Tunnel Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility, which is on the Houston Ship Channel in Pasadena. It treats the process wastewater from several refineries, chemical plants, and bulk storage facilities. The facility also treats 1 million gallons of municipal wastewater a day from the city of Pasadena. The Bayport Industrial Wastewater Treatment Facility, located in the Bayport Industrial Complex along the bay, has some domestic sewerage coming in from the cities of LaPorte and Shore Acres and serves more than 65 petrochemical customers. The 40-Acre Industrial Wastewater Facility treats wastewater from two chemical plants and a marine terminal operation in Texas City. PHOTOS COURTESY OF GULF COAST AUTHORITY.
Kris Polly: How did the GCA prepare for the storm? Gordon Pederson: We have an established hurricane plan that was activated. On August 24, we initiated the first phase of the plan, in which we prepared the facilities for the storm, checked all our provisional supplies for our employees on shift, tied down anything that could be blown away, and checked all our emergency equipment.
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MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
Gordon Pederson.
Elizabeth Free.
Harvey came in quite a distance south of us. We prepared for significant rainfall and were not necessarily concerned about the wind or the surge. Reports initially indicated that the storm would come ashore south of us, slowly move up through the state of Texas, and on to Oklahoma or Arkansas. Unfortunately, Harvey decided to stay in south Texas for a few days, move out to the Gulf of Mexico, and then slowly come back into Houston. We were far more prepared at our facilities than many of our staff could be at their respective homes. With the exception of our Cedar Bayou Park Wastewater Treatment plant in eastern Harris County, our facilities all ran 24 hours a day through the storm. Due to rising water, our facilities could not sustain regular shift changes, and operating personnel worked tirelessly until it was safe to conduct shift changes. The operator on shift at our Blackhawk facility could not be relieved for 3 days due to flooded roads leading to the plant. Another operator was able to canoe in to safely make the shift change. During the storm, many of our employees had floodwaters in their houses—some of their homes were submerged up to the ceiling. Twenty-eight of our employees had severe water damage. Mobility in the Houston area was extremely limited due to standing water for a 4-day period, so nonessential personnel were asked to stay home until the waters receded and safe travel conditions resumed. Kris Polly: How did your emergency plan function given the enormity of the storm? Gordon Pederson: Except for the Cedar Bayou facility, which was inundated by floodwaters, we followed our plan. All our plants ran at maximum capacity through the storm. We did report some overflows and permit sampling issues due to the unprecedented rainwater falling on the facility. Over those 4 days, we received on average 48 inches of rainfall. I have never experienced a storm of this magnitude in my lifetime. MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
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Kris Polly: How did the storm affect you personally? Gordon Pederson: By the end of the first day that the storm arrived in our area, I couldn’t see the road from my front door. During the storm, my house flooded twice, with over a foot of water each time. It was 4 days before the water subsided enough for me to get out of my subdivision. I did have internet and cellphone service, so I was able to communicate with staff during that period of time. Kris Polly: Please describe the scope of the damages incurred at GCA.
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Gordon Pederson: The small, 100,000-gallon-per-day Cedar Bayou Park Wastewater Treatment plant in east Harris County is part of a public utility district that we operate for the district. Its lift station was under 5 feet of water. A majority of the houses in that area had water up to their ceilings—there was a mandatory evacuation of that whole area. The wastewater plant received more than 6 feet of water. Fortunately, 20 feet away from that plant is a manhole that opens to a gravity sewer to the city of Baytown Wastewater Treatment Plant, which was operational. The district has since entered into an agreement with the city of Baytown to pump the district’s wastewater to the Baytown treatment facility. The district has decided not to rebuild the Cedar Bayou plant and will continue to send its wastewater to Baytown. The public utility district is in MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
PHOTOS COURTESY OF GULF COAST AUTHORITY.
Elizabeth Free: At our Bayport facility, the perimeter road, which also acts a berm for one of the retention ponds, partially washed out. There was some minor facility damage as well—a small leak in the roof that required drywall replacement. In addition, while the Washburn Tunnel facility was not flooded, waters from the Houston Ship Channel deposited a lot of silt and debris along the banks of the facility. There was also minor damage to a few buildings due to leaks in the roofs. Next to the Cedar Bayou Facility, GCA’s Blackhawk municipal facility had the most damage, with two
maintenance buildings that flooded. In addition, the bottom half of the interior walls required pegboard and insulation replacement. Almost all the small tools and machines had to be replaced. Some of the heavy equipment, such as the crane, the dump truck, and front-end loader, were flooded but repairable. Given the enormity of the storm, the damage was minor. We fared fairly well.
TOP (left to right): Industrial Wastewater Treatment Facility in the Texas City area, Bayport Industrial Wastewater Treatment Facility in Pasadena, TX., and the Blackhawk Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility in Friendswood, TX. BOTTOM (left to right): Central Lab in Pasadena, TX., Odessa South Industrial Wastewater Treatment Facility in Odessa, TX., Washburn Tunnel Wastewater Treatment Facility and Vince Bayou Receiving Station in Pasadena, TX.
the process of working with FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] to demolish the current plant and make the delivery operations to Baytown permanent. Kris Polly: Were there any unexpected developments during the storm? Gordon Pederson: During the storm, we would receive 12 hours of a heavy rain—15–20 inches at a time. It would stop for a short period of time and then start again, for a total of around 50 inches. No one has ever designed conveyances to move that much water. We were absolutely shocked that we did as well as we did at all our facilities, which is a tribute to their staff and design. Kris Polly: What are some of the key lessons learned from the experience? What advice would you have to other water managers facing an extreme flooding event? Elizabeth Free: It is important to talk with FEMA about flood mitigation funding. FEMA wants to sponsor flood mitigation projects, so that the next time something like this happens, the damages aren’t as severe. It’s important to get in touch with FEMA for guidance and to start the process. I recommend that water agencies have at least one member on staff with full FEMA Independent Study Training and at least one person on staff who knows how FEMA works and what FEMA expects as MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
far as documentation and procurement. It is quite a process to navigate, with numerous deadlines for filing applications. Gordon Pederson: Prepositioning your resources is critical. In our case, we followed our plan and were set up with food and emergency equipment, tied-down equipment, and positioned resources—when the storm hit, the people and equipment we had at that time were the people and equipment we had for 24–48 hours straight. Preplanning is crucial in these situations. Communication was key at all levels to adapt to this unique storm. Our plan calls for us to shelter our first responders in an offsite location on the north side of Houston; however, given that this storm was more of a rainfall event without evacuations, the challenge was having the personnel resources to have access to our facilities. We accomplished this by acquiring hotels rooms close to our facilities. Not only did the rooms allow personnel who had been relieved after working extended hours to rest, but it also kept them close by to allow their return when needed. This storm provided unique challenges that GCA had not experienced before, but by adapting our plan to meet the storm’s characteristics, we were able to keep our personnel safe and minimize damages. We would encourage all managers to broaden their emergency response plans to include various types of storm scenarios and not just specifically hurricanes. M
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HUNKERING DOWN FOR
HURRICANE HARV 12
MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
HURRICANE HARVEY STRUCK HOUSTON, TEXAS, ON AUGUST 26, 2017, AND WENT ON TO BECOME ONE OF THE MOST DEVASTATING NATURAL DISASTERS ON RECORD.
MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
PHOTO COURTESY OF SOUTH CAROLINA NATIONAL GUARD.
E VEY
Entire neighborhoods were flooded or severely damaged, and thousands of people were forced to evacuate. While the efforts to protect people and homes are well known, the story of the efforts of Houston Water’s Drinking Water Operations (DWO) Branch to protect the city’s drinking water is not. For several days, DWO personnel worked to keep clean drinking water flowing to our customers. Our efforts helped our communities endure the storm and kept a difficult situation from becoming worse.
BY DREW MOLLY 13
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of 80 million gallon per day, but it is being expanded to an eventual 400 million gallons per day capacity. That project is the largest active water treatment plant expansion project in the world, at a cost of approximately $1.5 billion. All those facilities were put to the test with the arrival of Hurricane Harvey. WEATHERING THE STORM Harvey grew from a tropical depression on August 23 to a category 4 hurricane as it approached the Texas coast 2 days later. The rapid rate of change was somewhat of a surprise to meteorologists and ultimately meant quick and nimble activation of emergency preparedness plans. As the storm neared, we worked hard to finalize our preparations to ensure that the right people were on duty at the right places. Ultimately, we mobilized over 100 staff to key locations on Saturday, August 26, with the expectation that they would be onsite 24/7 for approximately 3–4 days at the most. Many would work tirelessly and not get home for 3 days, some up to 5 days on the job. All three of the treatment plants were manned during the storm, along with other facilities within our distribution system. We knew there would be significant flooding, and we wanted to make sure our people were in place beforehand. We also ensured that all the chemical tanks were topped off with sufficient chemicals to allow us to MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
PHOTOS COURTESY OF HOUSTON WATER.
SETTING THE STAGE Houston is the fourth-largest city in the country and has a demand for drinking water to match. DWO’s water capacity of approximately 800 million gallons per day is split between surface water and groundwater. Surface water is the predominant source of the water we provide to our customers, with a daily maximum capacity of approximately 635 million gallons per day. Our groundwater capacity is approximately 180 million gallons per day. We have 7,500 miles of pipeline across a 600-square-mile area, and we provide drinking water to about 4 million customers, which includes our direct retail customers in Houston as well as regional customers to whom we sell wholesale water. The city shifted away from groundwater to surface water in the late 1980s because the regulatory environment required the city and surrounding counties to alter the makeup of their water sources. Many areas have experienced significant subsidence: Some areas have sunk 5–15 feet due to excessive groundwater pumping and the clay composition of the soil. The combination of subsidence and extreme weather events puts Houston at a greater risk for flooding. Our three surface water treatment plants—the northeast plant, the east plant, and the southeast plant—are located on the eastern side of the city and convey drinking water to the west. The northeast plant is the smallest, with a capacity
ABOVE: An aqua barrier was constructed around the Filter Backwash Pond at the Northeast Water Purification Plant. The barrier was constructed to prevent flood water from entering the pond, and then pumps were mobilized around the pond to pump stormwater out of the pond so that filter backwash could resume. LEFT: The front entrance of Northeast Water Purification Plant is shown flooded, including the guard building. Security employees in the guard building relocated to the Administration building.
treat water for 15 days or longer. Our fuel tanks were topped off before the storm as well. The east and southeast water treatment plants have onsite landfills for the disposal of the sludge from their dewatering processes, but the northeast plant does not and normally has to use a commercial landfill approximately 5 miles away. We knew that the landfill would likely close in the event of significant flooding, so we brought in 10 extra tractor trailers to store sludge in the interim until the landfill reopened. The landfill ultimately was closed for several days, but the trailers allowed us to store sludge safely during that time. There was also a daily call at 9:00 a.m. for all the key resource managers, to check on the operational status of each facility. At the height of the storm, all three of our surface water plants were completely cut off from the outside world. There was no way we could get in to or out of any of them by vehicle. All the plants had some flooding issues, but the northeast was the hardest hit and was flooded such that no one could get into the area via the highway, no one could drive a vehicle inside the plant, and workers had to wear waders to walk from one part of the facility to another in waist-deep water. This made it very difficult to check on important pieces of equipment. Each plant has a central control room, but it is important to visually and physically inspect the equipment as well. Our instruments also take MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
continuous samples, measure them, and report the data to the control room through SCADA. Normally, we collect samples every 4 hours to ensure regulatory compliance and verify the automated systems; however, the flooding made those tasks impossible, so we had to trust the data from our SCADA system. All three of the plants have generators that were installed in 2013 as a result of Hurricane Ike. None of the treatment plants ever lost power during Harvey, but the northeast plant came very close to going offline because the backwash system nearly failed. We have 16 filters that have to be cleaned approximately every 48 hours by taking 500,000 gallons of clean, potable, chlorinated water from our storage tanks. The dirty water from the filter is normally flushed into the backwash pond; however, during the storm, the backwash pond was completely flooded, and the pumps could not overcome the head pressure of the pond. Late Sunday night, August 27, we suspected that we were going to have difficulty maintaining the plant through the entire storm if we did not drastically cut the production. The decision was made to reduce flow to approximately 25 percent of the total plant design capacity in order to preserve the filters, since backwash was not possible. This reduction in flow was possible because the rest of our system was able to make up for the loss this capacity. Additionally, we had system pressures being monitored
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Back Row: Roger Brookes, Robert Perkins, Reginald Coleman, Francisco Miranda, and Orlando Wilson. Middle Back Row: Eric Garza, Kevin Trujilo, Chris Thompson, Lynn Younts, Russell Holley, Oran Woods. Middle Front Row: Tracy Blake, Cesar Rios, Ken Dement, Drew Molly, Scott Barker. Front Row: Koby Bowman, Tony Cook, Jacob Fuselier, Christopher O’Donnell.
by Kira Smith, managing engineer of our Water Quality Group, to ensure that we were compliant with minimum pressure regulations while communicating with state regulators. With major assistance from city leadership, including Public Works Deputy Director Jeff Weatherford and Houston Water Executive Director Yvonne Forrest, we made an emergency purchase of a tiger dam to address flooding of the backwash pond. We constructed the dam around the backwash pond, installed pumps and a suction hose on the inside of the dam, and pumped the stormwater from the backwash pond to a stormwater ditch about 2,000 feet from the plant. BRH Garver’s Peck Boswell was the key contractor who facilitated and coordinated this effort from the field. Additionally, plant staff, including Chris Thompson, Ken Dement, Scott Barker, Eric Garza, and Chris O’Donnell, to name a few, were instrumental in implementing the mitigation measures. Ultimately, the mayor authorized the emergency purchase order of the tiger dam and the pumps used to convey the stormwater out of the backwash pond and to the appropriate drainage ditch. LOOKING TO THE FUTURE Despite our ability to maintain operations during Harvey, Houston Water still faces long-term challenges to keeping our infrastructure functioning going forward. One of our top goals is developing accurate and efficient asset management systems that will improve how long-term
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investments are made to our Capital Improvement Plan. We are currently in the process of fine-tuning our asset management systems so we can account for all our assets and their condition. Our goal is to couple that information with consequence-of-failure analyses to determine what will happen if a given asset fails and come up with a condition-based program that we can use to understand the useful lifespan of the assets, both individually and collectively. We then want to articulate that information to our elected officials and other stakeholders, to enhance trust and transparency in our processes. The more trust we can build, the more support we will have when the time comes for the city and its regional water authority partners to fund new projects. There will always be some shifting of priorities as circumstances change, but improving that process will be a major focus for us going forward and will help us to be better prepared for future natural disasters. M
Drew Molly, PE, is the assistant senior director of the Drinking Water Operations Branch of Houston Water. You can reach him at Andrew.Molly@houstontx.gov.
MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
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Overcoming Inundation in The Woodlands San Jacinto River Authority Operations During Hurricane Harvey Not many water agencies have to grapple with 20,000-year flood events. Last August, Hurricane Harvey inundated much of southern Texas with record-breaking rainfall, posing significant challenges to drinking water delivery and wastewater treatment. The staff of the San Jacinto River Authority’s (SJRA) Woodlands Division, however, took those challenges in stride, providing seamless operations over the span of the storm.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SAN JACINTO RIVER AUTHORITY.
The Authority SJRA oversees the water resources of the San Jacinto River basin across seven counties just north of Houston, Texas. SJRA’s Woodlands Division is a wholesaler of drinking water and wastewater treatment services to the Woodlands Joint Powers Agency (WJPA), which is the central management agency for the area’s 11 municipal utility districts. The Woodlands Division operates and maintains 3 regional wastewater treatment plants, a wastewater conveyance system with 30 lift stations, and a regional water system with 5 drinking water plants, 38 water wells, several elevated and ground storage tanks, and miles of potable water distribution lines. Harvey's Arrival As all tropical storms in the Atlantic Ocean do, Harvey started off the west coast of Africa. It veered west toward Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula
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MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
Facilities in The Woodlands Division of San Jacinto River Authority were flooded during Hurricane Harvey.
and then dissipated. Three days prior to landfall on the Texas coast, its strength had reduced to below tropical storm level. The storm, however, quickly reorganized and made landfall in southern Texas, meandering its way up the coast and hammering it with record-shattering rainfall. SJRA General Manager Jace Houston characterized the plight of water districts trying to gauge the size of the storm. “The storm very rapidly reorganized. It was only when it reached the southern coast of Texas that forecasts showed our area would get a lot of rain—10 inches or more. For our region, 2 days before landfall, rainfall was forecast to be 6–10 inches. It was a gigantic storm, but we didn’t have 2 weeks’ notice. We didn’t have that luxury.” The Woodlands received 30 inches of rain. All its watersheds were at record levels. Storm Preparation With the onset of the storm, the Woodlands Division engaged in its standard protocol for emergencies. Since Harvey was the third storm event in a 3-year time period to reach 500-year flood levels, SJRA had already raised some of its electrical equipment on a few of its lift stations. Division Manager Chris Meeks explained SJRA’s emergency protocols. “We prepared staff the Wednesday before the storm and started 24-hour shift operations the day of landfall. We started those operations at 7:00 a.m. on Friday—half a day before landfall—so staff would know where they needed to be and who was going to be on. Before landfall, we checked all our chemical and fuel inventories and communicated with staff.” MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
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Division Operations and Maintenance Manager Jason Williams added that SJRA made sure all the auxiliary generators were ready to go. “You try not to get any surprises from something that does not operate as it should. Our administration group also purchased supplies for the 24-hour shifts: food, cots, essentials,” he said. Operations During the Storm The Woodlands was inundated with precipitation. With respect to SJRA’s Woodlands Division facilities, its Wastewater Treatment Plant No. 1, which has a 2-hour peak capacity of 18 million gallons per day (mgd), reached a flow of 24 mgd. Its other two plants did not experience any peak flow issues. Mr. Meeks explained, “We use the collection system as extra storage during these events. We meter the flow into the plant to make sure we don’t have flow exceedences and overflows in the collection system.” The Woodlands Division’s lift stations bore the brunt of Harvey’s downpour. However, even though Harvey was an off-the-charts storm event, SJRA was prepared. “Normally, one or two lift stations are susceptible to 500-year floods; in this case, it was nine. We already prepared for that kind of situation, using the same processes and procedures as a normal event,” said Mr. Houston. The rain created some small, sporadic power outages within the Woodlands Division service area, leading to downed lift stations. The longest lasted around 4–4.5 hours. SJRA dispatched portable generators to those stations. SJRA staff watched and manned lift station sites with onsite generators to ensure that those stations operated as they should under emergency power. In some cases, they had to gut and rewire electrical panels. Despite those challenges, both the water and wastewater systems in the Woodlands Division ran uninterrupted during the storm. Mr. Meeks explained, “On our water system side, there were no issues anywhere: no water main breaks, no flooded facilities, no major power outages. There was no change in service to the end user. It operated like it does every single day.” “Our system ran like a champ,” said Mr. Houston. Throughout the storm, SJRA kept in continuous contact with WJPA and the township. “We did not receive one call indicating that there was sewage or water in someone’s home. There were no calls for help to unclog drains or deal with fallen trees,” said Mr. Meeks.
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Four Day Peak Rainfall Frequency Hurricane Harvey, August 25–29, 2017 Preliminary rainfall data provided by Harris County Flood Control District during presentation in The Woodlands.
Exceedance Probability (year) 0.05%–0.02% (2,000–5,000 year) 0.02%–0.005% (5,000–20,000 year) 0.005%+ (20,000 year+) MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
GRAPHIC COURTESY OF HARRIS COUNTY FLOOD CONTROL DISTRICT.
A Talented Group The Woodlands Division was well positioned to address power outages during the storm. With eight electricians in its fold, the division is adept at addressing electrical issues in-house. That is not by chance. The 45-year-old Woodlands system requires a good deal of maintenance. Over the last 5 years, the division has adopted SCADA technology to optimize the water and wastewater facilities, and it moved staff over to the
San Jacinto River Authority's wastewater treatment facility no. 3 had never flooded prior to Harvey. Both buildings and equipment were damaged by rising water.
maintenance department to maximize mechanical and electrical skills. The division also developed a collections and distribution group, which specializes in line work. The investment in electricians has paid dividends over the years, especially during the storms. Mr. Meeks noted that if the division had relied on contractors to get the power running to the lift stations during the storm, it would probably still be waiting. “After being able to get out to the sites, everything that was down was back up and running at full capacity within 24 hours due to our inhouse staff abilities.” Recovery and Assessment The storm hit on a Friday, and by the following Wednesday, SJRA normalized operations. For SJRA, recovery fell well within its emergency plan. Once the division was up and running normal operations, Mr. Meeks gave his staff a day off, “not only to get their personal affairs in order, but also to de-stress from the situation and get a fresh mind.” For the Woodlands Division, a critical element of the recovery is evaluating those lift stations that were submerged during the storm. Mr. Meeks explained, “Last year, we raised one lift station generator 8 feet in the air [1 foot above the 500-year flood elevation]. It went online the day that Harvey hit. That station flooded but did not lose power. We are using that lesson and elevating flood-susceptible station generators 1 foot above the 500-year flood elevation.” The Woodlands Division also evaluated the effect of emergency operations on its staff. During the storm, Mr. Williams observed that as division staff came off intense 12-hour shifts, they lacked ways to unwind at the office. Management is now looking at ways to help staff unwind when they come off emergency operations shifts. “We can get parts and pieces, but good people are hard to find,” said Mr. Meeks. Advice on Emergency Operations When considering storm preparation, Mr. Williams stressed, “Do not to assume because a generator ran last week, it will run during a storm. If you need it, fire it up before the event. It’s preventative maintenance.” Mr. Meeks related that it was important to have a sufficient amount of parts in stock. “If it is on your shelf, you can go and grab it. If you have to rely on your supplier to have it on his shelf when 20 other people want that part, you are not going to be able to get it.” On the recovery side, Mr. Williams advised that districts need to reset and refocus to return to normal operations. “[It is important] to get your guys back to normalcy— to focus on what you do, which is to treat water and wastewater and provide a high level of service to the customer. Once you get back in that routine, the recovery just falls in line with your day-to-day operations.” M MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Debris team in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.
Core Principals of Water Resources Emergency Management Sean Smith, Principal Hydrologic and Hydraulic Engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
John Crotty: Last year’s storm events brought water resources emergency management into focus. Please
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provide a brief overview of the Army Corps’ water resources emergency management operations. Sean Smith: Primarily authorized for flood risk management, Army Corps projects also may have water supply for municipal and industrial purposes and environmental purposes, as well as hydroelectric power generation and recreational purposes. Our operators and water management specialists oversee the day-to-day operations of those facilities. We are situationally aware of project operations 24 hours, 7 days a week. In some cases, we will man those facilities or our operations management offices 24/7—typically, when there is an impending storm coming our way. Through the day-to-day operations of those facilities, we maintain regular contact with our other federal agencies and partners as well as responsible state and local entities regarding the collection and dissemination of information and data. When you start talking about warnings and notifications, we work very closely with our sister agency, the National Weather Service. In its capacity, the National Weather Service serves as the official weather prediction MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
PHOTOS COURTESY OF FACEBOOK/U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS AND SEAN SMITH.
Last year’s hurricane season wrought a substantial amount of damage to the southern United States and the U.S. Caribbean Island territories—including to the water infrastructure of those regions. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been integral to the response to and recovery from those storms. Under the Flood Control and Coastal Emergency Act, the Army Corps provides disaster preparedness and response services, mobilizing its people nationwide to “support immediate life saving and life safety emergency response priorities[;] sustain lives with critical commodities, temporary emergency power, and other needs[;] and initiate recovery efforts by assessing and restoring critical infrastructure.” To learn more about the Army Corps’ emergency management of water resources during significant storm events, Municipal Water Leader’s senior writer, John Crotty, spoke with Sean Smith, principal hydrologic and hydraulic engineer for the Army Corps here in Washington, DC, about the scope of the Army Corps’ emergency services as they relate to water infrastructure and the agency’s drive to protect public health and safety.
and forecasting agency for those types of events. John Crotty: How does the Army Corps communicate with local water providers and emergency management agencies? Sean Smith: We work directly with state emergency management agencies in terms of information and data sharing as well as for any specific coordinated actions for emergency preparedness and response. That is not to say we do not have regular communication with other nonfederal entities. It is common that we will have day-to-day or other routine coordination meetings with state water management districts or municipalities. This sort of effort could be for a wide array of purposes, such as collaboration for coordinated operations of facilities, emergency preparedness, or support for ongoing initiatives involving common touch points for our agencies. When there are large-scale storm events, we work with the state and emergency management officials who in turn work with local emergency management officials for coordinated actions in preparation or response to the storms. Using our liaisons in a coordinated fashion ensures that the essential pieces of information are disseminated in an efficient manner. We are in lockstep with our sister agencies and work closely with the state emergency management offices for the dissemination of critical information as an event unfolds. We are in constant communication throughout the event or series of events. What actually occurs when a storm hits landfall may be very different from our predictions. The Army Corps is nimble in being able to adjust to these circumstances and is adaptable in our response while always staying in lockstep with other emergency responders and agencies. John Crotty: What is the scope of the Army Corps’ disaster response? Sean Smith: Once the bulk of a storm has come through a region, we’ll do an assessment and evaluation of our facilities. We stay in communication with the local and state emergency management offices. You might think of it as disaster preparedness and response. But we don’t just do it in disasters; we do it in all events. In Houston, for example, disaster preparedness and response meant we were looking ahead as Harvey developed. During the event, Army Corps Headquarters MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
Sean Smith.
provided support and assistance to our Southwestern Division. We aided in the orchestration of resources to the division and worked closely and in an integrated fashion with the flow of information necessary to make decisions and take appropriate actions for overall preparedness and response. After a storm event passes, we get into the response effort—that is where a substantial amount of effort is applied in terms of how we manage water after it hits the ground and provide resources to emergency responders, where necessary—whether that be with FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] or in a liaison role to other federal or state agencies or local water management agencies.
John Crotty: Please describe the Army Corps’ emergency action planning. Sean Smith: Within our own agency, we have an emergency action plan for all our facilities. The plans set forth much of the who, what, when, where, and why associated with coordination. The plans also set forth when we are to reach out, when we send our liaison officer to emergency management offices, and how we put people into gear. However, not everything rises to the level of an emergency. Operations at all our facilities are governed by a water control manual that details the characteristics of the basin and all the attributes that go with the project and how we operate a facility. For example, the manual details seasonal operations setting forth actions to take at different times of the season or during a storm event. If necessary, our water control manuals have policy provisions that allow for deviations when appropriate. These deviations are intended to serve the purpose of altering operations to better respond to changing conditions that might not otherwise have been addressed through prescribed, withinnormal operational procedures. John Crotty: What should every water provider know about emergency management at the Army Corps? Sean Smith: Public health and safety is paramount to the mission of the Corps. It is our number one mission. Proactive engagement with the local entities in understanding their roles and responsibilities with regard to public health and safety is also something we work collectively to bolster, with the intent of continual improvement in how we work together. M
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Luka Erceg of Drylet
he process to treat and recycle biosolids can be time consuming and expensive for water treatment plants, but a new product called Aqua Assist is changing that. Added to wastewater treatment systems, Aqua Assist, developed by Drylet, uses a specially engineered microbe-delivery platform to break down and reduce biosolids, resulting in cost and equipment savings for treatment facilities. Luka Erceg is the president and chief executive officer of Drylet. After spending more than 20 years in the chemical, utility, and energy industries, Mr. Erceg joined Drylet and helped market Aqua Assist to municipal treatment plants nationwide. Mr. Erceg recently sat down with Municipal Water Leader’s lead writer, John Crotty, to discuss how Aqua Assist came to be, the advantages it has over traditional biosolid remediation techniques, and how it will continue to change the wastewater industry in the future. John Crotty: Please tell our readership about your background and your initial connection to Drylet. Luka Erceg: I first learned about the bioremediation technology in 2012 after being introduced to the man who invented it, Ramiro Treviño. I was busy growing a selective lithium extraction company that used geothermal brines as a feedstock. We worked on technologies that would allow compounds to be extracted, produced, and used for electric vehicle batteries. Mr. Treviño and I had a common intellectual property attorney at the time, and we began a dialog. It was fascinating to learn about the technology. A year and a half later, it was being used at a number of wastewater treatment plants and confined animal feeding operations. Mr. Treviño is the owner of a
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President and Chief Executive Officer of Drylet Luka Erceg.
food manufacturing company based north of Dallas. He decided that the technology was not central to what the company was doing, and he spun it off into its own company. I helped him think about how to do that and helped the company secure its first capital investment from a large Canadian strategic agricultural trading firm in late 2013. Both parties then asked me to stay on board as an independent director for the new company, and I stepped in as chief executive officer in February 2017.
John Crotty: Did you have any other experience in water before joining the company? Luka Erceg: I started my career working for Phillips Services Corporation, which was active in waste management. Then I moved to the energy sector, which is very much tied to water. My lithium extraction company also had a number of water-related processes, which gave me a lot of insight into industrial water treatment. MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
BUSINESS LEADER We all worry about where our water comes from, but few people think about where the water goes after the toilet is flushed or the sink drains. The reality is that process is part of a cycle. That water will end up back at people’s kitchen taps over time, so we should be serious about the part of the cycle that is wastewater treatment. John Crotty: What is Aqua Assist, and how does it facilitate wastewater remediation? Luka Erceg: Aqua Assist is a microbial delivery product that is added to wastewater treatment systems. It uses a carefully selected mix of microbes to improve the breakdown of biosolids. The net result is a reduction of biosolids by up to 50 percent, which in turn creates a plethora of other operating benefits. Aqua Assist is a high-surface-area material that is very absorbent, and we can put a lot of microbes on it. For example, 1 pound of our material provides the equivalent of 700,000 square feet (12 football fields) of surface area. John Crotty: What does winning the Innovative Water Technology Award earlier this year at the Water Environment Foundation Technical Exhibition and Conference mean to your company, and how will you build on that success? Luka Erceg: The award recognized the fact that we are not in business to sell microbes; we are here to provide a product that can enhance operations and be an alternative to all the capital expenditures that wastewater plants typically engage in. Much of the heavy equipment that treatment plants use is dedicated to the handling of solid waste, and our product reduces the need for such equipment. If over half the solids can be eliminated, that will also reduce the need for polymers, filter-press capacity, and many other technologies related to dewatering. Moreover, those technologies only condense solids rather than reduce MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
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BUSINESS LEADER
them, whereas our product actually eliminates solid waste. Our product is a cost-saving solution that can allow facilities to do more with less.
John Crotty: What else have you learned about working with municipalities, and has Drylet been able to adapt to the industry’s needs?
John Crotty: Are you pitching that benefit to municipalities that are looking to build new wastewater treatment or remediation plants?
Luka Erceg: I had the opportunity to work in Silicon Valley for 10 years, and I learned that the chasm we have to cross when introducing new technology to the wastewater industry is larger than for any other industry I have worked in. This is primarily due to the industry’s reluctance to embrace innovation. We do a lot of training with municipalities to help them understand our products, but it is a slow and time-consuming process. We have to educate people at every stage of the process, including city managers, plant managers, third-party contractors, and engineering firms. We have also learned that there is a disparity across the United States regarding how people think about the key drivers of wastewater facilities, including varying levels of state regulations that have to be mitigated.
Luka Erceg: Absolutely, and it is an example of how we are using the recognition of the Water Environment Foundation award. We now have added credibility when speaking with municipalities, and many people are paying attention. The big challenge in the municipal wastewater industry is the fact that innovation is not foremost in the minds of many people. Much of the innovation is incremental, and there are a lot of gatekeepers who often do not permit new ideas to advance quickly in the industry. The United States is woefully behind Europe and China in wastewater treatment, and failure to understand the benefits of products like Aqua Assist is part of the reason. People are so accustomed to buying heavy equipment that it becomes easier and less risky to keep doing that. We try to explain to municipalities that we want them to build the facility they otherwise would have, but to add our product to it. They can still get the cost savings that way while extending the lifespan of their heavy equipment, which will save them even more. Reducing pollution should be the first priority for municipalities, and biosolids are a form of pollution. We cannot eliminate biosolids completely, but we can help nature process them better.
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John Crotty: What is your message to utilities about your company and its product? Luka Erceg: We look at wastewater treatment plants like chemical plants, which do everything possible to reduce volatility in their operations. There needs to be a strong focus on operational excellence and reducing volatility so that there are consistent outcomes on a day-to-day basis. If we all bear down and really focus on operational enhancements at wastewater treatment plants, we can increase savings and operational outcomes for facilities and ratepayers. M MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
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THE INNOVATORS
Reducing the Cost of Water Operations With SCADA: A Case Study By John Nichols
L
arge water and wastewater utilities have been using supervisory control and data acquisition, or SCADA, systems for years. However, due to the cost and complexity of traditional systems, realizing the benefits of SCADA has been out of reach for many rural and small-town agencies. The good news is that newer, proven technologies are making SCADA less costly, simpler, and more reliable, and therefore, easier to justify. Two such technologies are cloud-hosted SCADA and cellular telemetry communications to remote sites. With SCADA systems, plant operators and managers can, from a computer screen or mobile device, view the status of local and remote pumps, valves, flows, levels, pH, building intrusion systems, chlorinators, generator sets, and facilities’ environmental conditions, just to name a few. In addition to viewing the devices and process variables described above, SCADA allows qualified personnel to manually override the automated controls, if warranted, to start and stop pumps, or to adjust speeds, flows, levels, and other settings. SCADA also allows operators to view and acknowledge critical alarms and alerts generated by the system. The major benefits of SCADA are better visibility into, and control of, critical water and wastewater operations. Graphical status screens show the state of pumps, reservoir and clarifier levels, and other important variables in real time. Operators are alerted to plant upsets within seconds. SCADA-logged historical records can be used in lieu of, or as validation for, manually collected data required by regulatory agencies.
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Why don’t more agencies use SCADA? As stated above, complexity, cost, and reliability of traditional SCADA based on older technology, can put it out of reach for many rural and small-town agencies. Traditional systems typically have SCADA software installed on computers at agencies’ central locations. These computers store data on their internal hard drives, which require additional hardware and procedures to back up and restore process information and the SCADA software itself, if necessary. Radios used to communicate with remote terminal units (RTUs) at remote sites have installation requirements that can involve tall antennae and other physical and electrical considerations to ensure reliable communications. In addition to installation concerns, radios require regular maintenance and repair or replacement. Winds can cause antennae to get misaligned, and nearby trees may need to be trimmed so they don’t interfere with reception. Traditional SCADA systems have high up-front costs compared to those based on current technologies. Software licensing, high-end computers, remote and base radio equipment, leased lines, and installation all add up to significant, budget-busting amounts. These costs apply to new installations as well as to upgrades of existing ones. Traditional SCADA hardware and software often require regular and frequent upgrades that require the agencies to employ or contract information technology personnel. Upgrades to software may make existing computer hardware obsolete, requiring replacement and recommissioning. Conversely, upgrades to computer MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
hardware may render the existing software incompatible and therefore require updating, reinstalling, and reconfiguring, Although computer hardware has become more reliable in recent years, it is still subject to environmental and electrical mishaps. As we saw in the winter of 2016–2017 in Idaho, roof collapses and flooding were ever-present possibilities. Fires and electrical power outages and surges at the SCADA computer’s location can cause the system to be nonoperational for short or extended periods of time. Technology to the rescue! Cloud hosting installs the SCADA software and the computer it runs on at the hosting provider’s secure, protected, and remote facilities, while allowing agency employees to use it from their central location or on laptops and mobile phones, wherever they are. All SCADA functionality is accessed by browsing to a secure website located on the hosting provider’s servers. Instead of installing a high-end computer and expensive software (that require maintenance, upgrades, repair, and backup procedures), all a cloud-hosted SCADA computer needs is the ability to browse the internet. Computer maintenance is almost nonexistent at the plant site, and software upgrades are installed by the hosting provider at its site. Agency computer repairs, if needed, are usually just a matter of replacing the defective unit, with no interruption to SCADA functionality. The initial installation costs for cloud-hosted SCADA are typically 40–50 percent of the cost of traditional MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
systems. Traditional systems require ongoing maintenance, upgrade, and expansion hardware and software expenditures, plus the added cost of information technology support to implement them. Cloud-hosted SCADA providers can troubleshoot remotely. Cloud-hosted SCADA systems are located in secure data centers and installed on high-availability server-class computers with fail-safe redundancy. Data are backed up on a regular basis. Installing an RTU with cellular capability is less expensive than radio or leased-line telemetry systems. Cell-based systems keep already-low data costs even lower by sending data in small packets and only on request or by exception. Cellular telemetry is more reliable than traditional systems. Storms, wind, and line-of-sight obstacles have very little, if any, affect on availability and uptime. Cell towers have backup power systems that keep them online during power outages at the tower site. City of Payette, Idaho The city of Payette’s water system had been controlled by a traditional SCADA system for 12 years. The equipment employed RTUs comprising signal cards and radios. They communicated through radios back to a central computer that ran SCADA software. All control system operations were performed by the central computer. Five years ago, the Federal Communications Commission mandated that all public and emergency radios transmit over narrow-band frequencies. The city converted all its radios to narrow-band equipment. The new radios proved unreliable, and communications between
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THE INNOVATORS
the central computer and the RTUs were frequently lost. When this happened, the RTUs would not turn on the pumps that replenished reservoir and tank water. Additionally, the central computer was unreliable and would freeze, so that alarms could not be sent to the on-call operator. Also, pumps would stay in their last states until the computer was rebooted, which needed to be done twice a day. In 2015, the city upgraded its traditional SCADA system to a cloud-hosted system that uses cellular telemetry. According to Water Superintendent Jacob Hust, “We went with Carefree SCADA, and have been very happy with it. It’s extremely reliable and has built-in fail over functionality, so if cellular communications go down, the system still operates safely. Communication interruptions are infrequent and short, and do not present much of a problem at all.” “We also like the other benefits of cloud-hosted SCADA,” added Hust. “We don’t have to manage and perform updates or maintenance; that’s all handled by the SCADA provider, Advanced Control Systems.” Although there is a SCADA computer at the water shop, the city’s on-call technicians can also view and supervise water operations from their laptops in the field or their home computers by securely logging in to the system on the internet. Payette’s original wastewater system had no SCADA computer. For 20 years, the city used hard-wired RTUs and analog radios for lift station and clarifier control. There was no alarming or notification of problems or upsets. And to make matters worse, the RTU vendor went out of business. The city’s next step was to install a traditional SCADA computer in the shop, along with new PLC–based RTUs
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and radios. That worked well for a few years, but complexity and reliability issues, as described above, eventually materialized. A major problem for the plant was that the radio antenna, installed on a tall mast, had to be realigned frequently, and tree limbs impeding the line of sight required trimming on a regular basis. Finally, in 2015, cloud-hosted SCADA with cellular telemetry was installed. This system was provided by Carefree SCADA and has been operating reliably ever since. Darwin DeCroo, wastewater superintendent, also relies on the alarm notification capabilities of Carefree SCADA to realize the same benefits. “Our on-call teams get alarm texts on their cell phones. The messages provide detailed alarm information, and the techs can acknowledge right from their phones,” said DeCroo. And, like their counterparts in the fresh water department, they can log in and troubleshoot from any computer with internet access, wherever it may be. M
John Nichols has 30-plus years’ experience bringing successful SCADA, manufacturing automation, and optimization solutions to market.
MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
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STATE PERSPECTIVE
Reviving Water Infrastructure in New Jersey By John F. McKeon
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down businesses, divert traffic, and jeopardize public safety. Water mains have been leaking and bursting with increased frequency. A leakage rate of 25–30 percent has become the unofficial standard leakage rate in New Jersey—much higher than the national industry standard of 15 percent. This amounts to millions of dollars a year lost at the expense of ratepayers and taxpayers. When 1 in 10 people on our planet lack safe and reliable access to clean drinking water, there is something simply immoral about a quarter of our supply being wasted annually. Over the last 30 years, the U.S. population has increased more than 40 percent while the gross domestic product, or GDP, has grown from $2.5 to $7.5 trillion. Yet, federal capital investment in water infrastructure has decreased by a whopping 70 percent. Thanks to the historic levels of dysfunction and discord in Washington, DC, state governments have no choice but to step up to the plate. Trenton must examine the Byzantine oversight and governance structure of our water utilities, where as many as four or five different agencies are responsible for our residents’ water supply systems. Streamlining this structure under one authority could help alleviate some unnecessary administrative complexity. MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAM WARBY/FLICKR.
hile energy and transportation assets are well known for being indispensable to our economy, our security, and our overall quality of life, the significance of a safe, reliable, and efficient water delivery system is habitually unheeded. But while many of us get frustrated at the damage a potholed roadway can do to our car or worry about the stability of historic bridges, we would be equally troubled if we could see into our subterranean world. There are about 60,000 miles of pipe buried within New Jersey, which if laid end to end, would be long enough to extend to and from California 10 times. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that New Jersey will require an investment of $7.96 billion by 2027 in order to continue to provide reliably safe water to the public. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, closing this investment gap would create $2.60 of economic activity for every $1 invested. Many of New Jersey’s most densely populated water systems are either past or approaching the end of their useful life. Half of these segments were installed around the year 1920 or earlier. The city of Hoboken has averaged at least 20 water main breaks per year since 2012. These breaks shut
STATE PERSPECTIVE
New Jersey skyline.
The legislature should also consider amending the way in which we require the Department of Environmental Protection to draft and release the statewide water supply plan. The recent release of the plan update was delayed by over 20 years, and the substance of the plan was disappointing in a number of ways. By making this plan more of a priority, we can develop a clearer and more prospective accounting of how our water supply can be protected from the threat of increasingly unpredictable weather patterns. The 2017 Water Quality Accountability Act, among other requirements, mandates that all water purveyors implement by April 2019 an asset management plan designed to renew its infrastructure. This law represents an excellent first step in creating regulations that relate to water infrastructure, as opposed to water quality, which is already subject to a litany of important and well-regarded regulations that protect our supply. As the 2017 Water Quality Accountability Act moves toward implementation, it is critical that state agencies look for clear evidence of the fact that these plans are as thorough as they are necessary. New Jersey already has a wonderful mechanism for water infrastructure funding. The New Jersey Environmental MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
Infrastructure Trust, established in 1988, has been authorized to spend up to $641 million on low-to-no-interest loans in 2018 for water infrastructure improvement projects. We must make sure the trust is properly collateralized and make a commitment to these projects in the long term as New York, California, and Massachusetts have. The public faces a profound decision related to the safe and reliable delivery of water to the spouts at our homes and businesses. We can ignore the probability of system failure and the massive costs associated with them, or we can take action to prioritize the health and economic prosperity of future generations. M
Assemblyman John F. McKeon represents the 27th legislative district in the lower house of the New Jersey State Legislature and is co-chair of the Joint Legislative Task Force on Drinking Water Infrastructure in New Jersey.
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