A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) is a software
designed to simplify maintenance management. Maintenance management is a
necessity in a broad range of disciplines and CMMS software is able to serve
fields ranging from manufacturing to energy to healthcare. With CMMS, companies
or organizations can monitor work orders, quickly generate accurate reports,
schedule repairs, create accurate inventory forecasts and easily determine
which assets require maintenance and when. You may have also heard of enterprise
asset management (EAM) systems. CMMS and EAM are actually different systems but
are often referenced interchangeably. Both systems provide many similar
features but EAM systems tend to be broader and more useful for larger
companies. 

The goal of CMMS software is to improve organization, extend asset lifespans and reduce costs. It is there to help protect an organizations large capital investment. CMMS software cannot take the place of knowledgeable individuals but instead can help them prioritize and easily keep track of assets and labor. CMMS software’s core functionality includes preventative maintenance, asset management, work order management and inventory management. However, many additional features can be added.  

Does your utility need
CMMS software?

Many utilities, especially small utilities, may be unsure about whether CMMS software would benefit their operation. Below are some guiding questions that can help you decide whether to take the next step in your CMMS research or determine your operation can continue without one.

What does your record-keeping look like? Is it chaotic, with related material kept in many different locations? Is it hard to locate assets?

When record-keeping is unorganized your team could spend more time finding relevant information than making repairs. CMMS software is capable of storing everything in a single, searchable database that allows you to make informed data driven decisions. It also improves the tracking and scheduling of labor, helping you identify and resolve bottlenecks in labor utilization and improve response time.  

Are routine processes moving smoothly? Maybe routine processes are running smoothly but are they as efficient as possible? Are you easily communicating what needs to be completed on a daily basis?

It’s challenging to plan facility repairs and service in
advance and thus you may currently be fixing problems as they arise rather than
preventing them from happening. CMMS software helps you proactively plan most maintenance
tasks with standardized processes and set procedures. This will reduce reactive
repairs and free-up valuable time. The software enables you to move from a
reactive maintenance program to a preventative maintenance program. 

Have you ever failed to complete repairs in a timely manner because important spare parts were unavailable? Maybe you have the part but have no idea where it is. Or you thought you had it only to realize you used it in a previous repair and forgot to order another.

Waiting for parts is a common setback. CMMS software allows you to create a spare parts inventory so you can adjust new material orders based on stock level and identify a pattern of materials consumption. You gain control over your inventory and ensure critical parts are available when needed.

If your utility experiences  some the above issues then it is worth investigating CMMS software further. The software is not inexpensive but is available at varying prices with varying capabilities and most systems will find a product that matches their needs. There must also be a commitment by staff to learn a new system. However, the payoff can make it worthwhile. The next step is to begin creating a list of what your utility wants out of CMMS software before you begin researching software companies. The next blog post will walk you through how to define your CMMS goals and who to involve in the process.

A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) is a software
designed to simplify maintenance management. Maintenance management is a
necessity in a broad range of disciplines and CMMS software is able to serve
fields ranging from manufacturing to energy to healthcare. With CMMS, companies
or organizations can monitor work orders, quickly generate accurate reports,
schedule repairs, create accurate inventory forecasts and easily determine
which assets require maintenance and when. You may have also heard of enterprise
asset management (EAM) systems. CMMS and EAM are actually different systems but
are often referenced interchangeably. Both systems provide many similar
features but EAM systems tend to be broader and more useful for larger
companies. 

The goal of CMMS software is to improve organization, extend asset lifespans and reduce costs. It is there to help protect an organizations large capital investment. CMMS software cannot take the place of knowledgeable individuals but instead can help them prioritize and easily keep track of assets and labor. CMMS software’s core functionality includes preventative maintenance, asset management, work order management and inventory management. However, many additional features can be added.  

Does your utility need
CMMS software?

Many utilities, especially small utilities, may be unsure about whether CMMS software would benefit their operation. Below are some guiding questions that can help you decide whether to take the next step in your CMMS research or determine your operation can continue without one.

What does your record-keeping look like? Is it chaotic, with related material kept in many different locations? Is it hard to locate assets?

When record-keeping is unorganized your team could spend more time finding relevant information than making repairs. CMMS software is capable of storing everything in a single, searchable database that allows you to make informed data driven decisions. It also improves the tracking and scheduling of labor, helping you identify and resolve bottlenecks in labor utilization and improve response time.  

Are routine processes moving smoothly? Maybe routine processes are running smoothly but are they as efficient as possible? Are you easily communicating what needs to be completed on a daily basis?

It’s challenging to plan facility repairs and service in
advance and thus you may currently be fixing problems as they arise rather than
preventing them from happening. CMMS software helps you proactively plan most maintenance
tasks with standardized processes and set procedures. This will reduce reactive
repairs and free-up valuable time. The software enables you to move from a
reactive maintenance program to a preventative maintenance program. 

Have you ever failed to complete repairs in a timely manner because important spare parts were unavailable? Maybe you have the part but have no idea where it is. Or you thought you had it only to realize you used it in a previous repair and forgot to order another.

Waiting for parts is a common setback. CMMS software allows you to create a spare parts inventory so you can adjust new material orders based on stock level and identify a pattern of materials consumption. You gain control over your inventory and ensure critical parts are available when needed.

If your utility experiences  some the above issues then it is worth investigating CMMS software further. The software is not inexpensive but is available at varying prices with varying capabilities and most systems will find a product that matches their needs. There must also be a commitment by staff to learn a new system. However, the payoff can make it worthwhile. The next step is to begin creating a list of what your utility wants out of CMMS software before you begin researching software companies. The next blog post will walk you through how to define your CMMS goals and who to involve in the process.

I thoroughly enjoy having my conventional thinking turned on its head, which is even more fun when it affects conventional wisdom in general. So here goes…

What gap are we talking about here? We often think of the gap as the difference between the money we have and the money we want or need to complete all the projects on our list (including maintenance, repairs, and replacements.)  For the typical water, wastewater, or stormwater utility in the U.S., the gap is often quite large.  The gap usually includes pipe replacement, treatment plant upgrades, and years of neglected maintenance (often called deferred maintenance, implying we will do it “some day.”) The way the gap is viewed in most places is that it is a financial hole that someone needs to fill by giving the utility the money.  That someone may be the federal government (everyone’s preferred choice), the state government, the local government, a non-profit or private entity.

The new thinking is that this difference in finance (what we need/want minus what we have) is not a gap that someone is going to fill but rather a trade-off the decision-makers have made to fund one activity over another.  This thinking was introduced to me at the recently concluded Infrastructure Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA) conference in Perth, Australia.  This thinking does not treat the gap as a hole that will be filled but rather looks at a community with all of its needs and financial resources and sees the choices to attain and spend all of its collective revenue as a series of trade-offs.

For example, a community may choose not to raise water revenue because property taxes, income taxes, or sales taxes were just increased.  While the water rates do not directly tie to these taxes in most cases, nor is the water or wastewater utility likely to benefit from the increased revenue the taxes may generate, the increased fees may feel like such a burden to businesses or residents (who are also voters) that adding additional fees onto customers may not be acceptable.  Therefore, decision-makers may choose to forgo a rate increase because of the tax increase(s).  The decision-makers, in essence, traded off the higher taxes for no increase in the water rate.

Trade-offs may also be made within a utility.  A utility may choose replacement of assets over maintenance for existing assets or to replace a water main under new road construction as opposed to a water main that had priority for replacement but wasn’t related to road repaving. These choices are made every day in utilities but we may not always see them this way.

If we see our infrastructure spending more as a finite pot of money that must be spent on the most advantageous projects through a series of trade-offs rather than as set of funding holes that must be filled up by outside money, we can start to see infrastructure more as it is than what we want it to be.  This thinking will also drive communities to start thinking holistically about all of their infrastructure (water, wastewater, roads, buildings, bridges, community facilities, parks, etc.) in a comprehensive asset management way.  This process would start by evaluating the community’s desired level of service and their priorities for infrastructure.  How do community residents rank parks compared to libraries or roads compared to water, etc.?  This process is done routinely in New Zealand where local governments must reach out to community residents every three years to assess their priorities and their desired level of service.  In New Zealand, this assessment process greatly assists local governments in making the tough choices and trade-offs. When community members are deeply involved in the process, they share in the consequences of the decisions that are made.  This shared responsibility gives elected leaders the opportunity to make the tough decisions without the constant worry of being thrown out of office.

Viewing the gap as a trade-off changes the conversation greatly and allows for a different narrative – one that is much more constructive and sustainable over the long-term.  This conversation should be based on a well-done, comprehensive asset management program that includes all assets under the government’s leadership. In concluding this post, I offer a challenge to all elected leaders or decision-makers:  if you thought of a trade-off (making choices for collecting and spending revenue) instead of a gap (a money hole to be filled by an outside source), how would your day-to-day decisions change?

Access our Asset Management Guide

In the beginning, before you learn about asset management at all, you may be letting your assets manage you. What I mean by that is that you wait until something happens and then react to it. You do maintenance only when you notice a problem or only according to the manufacturer’s recommendation or based on “it’s the way we always do it.” You do not plan for asset replacement proactively and have no shared vision or strategic direction with regards to your assets. The assets just do what they do until they don’t. You replace them when they no longer work the way you want them to. This is a very unsatisfying way of running your facility and, although it may not initially seem like it, a very costly way. Customers are unlikely to be satisfied with the performance and employees will have very unstructured, unplanned days as they react to each failure. Overtime pay may be quite high and financial resources are unlikely to keep pace with the needs.

You may decide to move away from letting your assets manage you to a better way of doing things. You read about asset management or take a training and you decide to begin your asset management journey. Sometimes this process gets derailed and instead of looking at the program as strategic and overarching, it becomes focused on what you are going to do to individual assets – how you will manage them, what the best maintenance strategy is, when to intervene with preventative activities, etc. You may feel that you are practicing asset management, when what you are really doing is managing assets. Managing assets is certainly important, but it is not synonymous with asset management.

With asset management, the organization considers its overall strategic direction, the goals it is trying to achieve, its overall business risk and how it intends to manage it. The organization adopts a common terminology and practices asset management at all levels throughout the organization. Rather than looking at what is done to a particular asset, the organization looks at how all its assets as well as business practices fit within the overall goals, objectives, and strategic direction of the organization.

This topic came up a couple of times recently which led me to want to write this blog. First, there is a great video from Terrence O’Hanlon describing the difference between managing assets and what we mean by asset management.

The video discusses in very clear terms the need to be more precise with our language as well as the concepts of asset management. As an example, Terry describes how talking about the purpose of the organization is part of asset management. Talking about maintenance and reliability is part of managing assets. Organizational value, purpose, long-term outcomes, and understanding business risk are part of asset management, while understanding the risk of a particular asset and managing it to reduce that risk is managing assets. These two ideas merge, intersect, and overlap at various points but they are distinctly different meanings. It is crucial to understand the difference or you will not develop an asset management program that is robust and able to achieve the benefits you want. I recommend that you take a look at Terry’s video as it is very well done and educates in an entertaining way.

The second time this came up was at an infrastructure conference in Perth Australia in August 2017 (The Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia Conference). I had a fantastic opportunity to talk with Dr. Penny Burns, who is someone I met many years ago when I was first beginning my asset management journey. Penny, from Adelaide, Australia, is one of the founders of the modern asset management movement that essentially began with Australia and New Zealand 20 years or so ago. She coined the terminology asset management to describe the approach they wanted to use. I was talking to Penny about this idea of “asset management” vs. “managing assets.” She described a similar dynamic in Australia to the one which Terry describes in the U.S. She noticed that communities were telling her that they were doing “asset management” when what they were really describing was managing assets. They were talking about maintenance and reliability-centered-maintenance and better ways to replace individual assets rather than focusing on the strategic vision and direction of the organization. While maintenance is an important activity for an organization, it is not by itself, asset management. Penny changed her language to “Strategic Asset Management” in an effort to create this distinction between what is being strategically done at the organizational level from what is being done at the asset level. Over the years, many organizations in Australia and New Zealand have developed and implemented strategic asset management programs but there are still those who are managing assets rather than practicing asset management.

Check out Penny’s organization TalkingInfrastructure.com to join the Asset Management conversation.

Next time you think about asset management, stop for a moment and think about what you really mean. Do you mean “asset management” or “managing assets.” If you happen to still be in the stage of letting your assets manage you, seek out assistance and resources on asset management to help you move along the journey. Some resources are available at the Southwest EFC website here. Please leave us a comment to let us know what you think of this topic.

She gave me the following letter, which was written by the third-grade students:

I found their letter adorable so I agreed to come and talk to the class.  When I arrived, the students were well behaved and sitting on a rug towards the front of the class. I introduced myself and guided the class discussion around a few questions.

Question 1: What is the difference between storm water and waste water?

Their responses:

• Waste water is dirty water. Storm water is rain water.
• Waste water is from the toilet, storm water is from the sky.
• Waste water comes out of your house, storm water falls off the roof.

They were on the right track. They knew that storm water is caused by rain and wastewater is caused by us.

Questions 2: Why do communities clean their stormwater?

They looked at me with blank stares and were not sure how to respond. So, I asked them to imagine they were a little droplet of water in the sky and imagine where that droplet would go as it fell onto a community.

Our imaginary droplets’ trajectory looked like this:

• First the droplet falls onto a rooftop.
• Then it slides down the roof, down the gutter and onto the drive way.
• Then it rolls down the driveway, onto the street, into the street gutter and into an arroyo.
• The droplet then travels into the Rio Grande.

We concluded that the droplet probably wasn’t very clean when it arrived at the river because it had picked up gunk along the way. The students said the droplet would have dust from the rooftop and trash from the street. I reminded them that our streets are very oily because of all the cars driving on them and so the droplet would have also picked up oil. In the end, we concluded that storm water probably gets very dirty and that is why people try to clean it.

Question 3: Does waste water and storm water have different contaminants?

They talked about this for a long time and we brainstormed what the different contaminants could be. Here is a table of their ideas:

Question 4: How much wastewater do you think Albuquerque cleans each day?

Their Guesses:

• 200 gallons
• 1000 gallons
• 56,000 gallons

It seemed that the biggest amount of water the kids could imagine was 56,000 gallons.  When I told them it was a lot more than 56,000 gallons the class ooed and awed. Their eyes grew big and they were very shocked when I informed them that Albuquerque cleans 76 million gallons of water each day.  They were happy to find out that most of that water gets recycled and is used to water our parks and golf courses, but were saddened by the fact that Albuquerque does not clean its stormwater. The students did not like to think about all the trash, oil and dead animals they had described earlier flowing into our arroyos and the Rio Grande.

Conclusion:

I finished the lesson by reading them The Magic School Bus at the Waterworks where we got to learn about how water is cleaned and all the pieces that come together to ensure that drinking water is available to us.

Overall, I was very impressed by the students’ vocabulary. They knew about alum was and the purpose it serves. They also knew both the English and Spanish words for aquifer. They were very curious about what one had to do to have the job that I have. Did you go to college? they asked. They thought I was a teenager and were confused as to how I was working as an engineer. Do you have to go to college to do what you do? they asked and I shared with them about my college experience and how I decided to study Environmental Engineering. I think it is wonderful that these students have such a great understanding of how water gets cleaned and why it is important.  Living in a desert, water is scarce and instilling a greater understanding of its value in our children at a young age will contribute to greater stewardship in the future.

There are many ways to educate local children about water. For example, you could work on a rain barrel project with your kids! Or you could take them walking along the acequias and talk to them about water rights and irrigation.  As water industry workers, one can invite local school children to go on a field trip and tour the water system.  Water Operation is an aging industry. We should think about ways to recruit younger generations to the field. As water professionals, one option would be to reach out to local technical high schools and talk to the students the role and responsibilities of a water operator, the value of this profession and the steps the can take to become a water operator.

What experiences have you had with water and children outreach?

What ideas do you have with regards to educating our youth about water?

Please share your ideas in the comments section below.

Dawn: I am a “water baby” born in February; my sign is “Aquarius” and I have always been drawn to water.  When I was young, after a rain storm, if a drain was clogged you could find me with a stick trying to get the water flowing again.  Water is so many things in my life: sport, health, career, family fun — the list goes on and on.  When I think specifically about drinking water I think about how overlooked and taken for granted it is in the U.S.  I think of places that don’t have enough drinking water or adequate infrastructure. I think of the impact those deficiencies have on everything from the health to the economy of those communities.  I wonder how many Americans have ever pumped water from a well or carried water from a spring.  It hasn’t been that long since those were the only ways to get water into our homes.  How far we’ve come and how far we have to go to protect the mighty resource that is drinking water.  My hope is that the work we are doing is putting us farther down the path of protection.

Matt: Being an advocate for something means that you publicly support and work towards a specific cause.  As we celebrate Drinking Water Week in 2017, one of the most important roles we can play in our communities is by being an advocate for safe and affordable drinking water. This role is particularly important in our small communities where a single person is often the driving force to ensure that their community has access to safe drinking water. In our large cities, water utilities, water boards, elected officials, corporations and citizens are all stakeholders in ensuring a safe and affordable supply of drinking water, but in our small communities it is that single person that can make an impact in sustaining the life force that is safe drinking water.  If that person is no longer able to play that role, then our small communities are in danger of losing that life force and dying.  Whether you live in a large city or a small town, I encourage you to think about advocating for safe drinking water. You have a chance to make a difference in your community, not only in 2017 but beyond.

Heather: Interestingly the “biggest challenge in drinking water” and the “importance of water” go hand in hand.  The biggest challenge — the fact that customers don’t want to pay a sustainable rate for water and elected leaders don’t want to charge a sustainable rate — is related to the fact that, in general, people greatly undervalue water.  Water comes into a home, safe to drink, under pressure, any time day or night through just a turn of the tap at far less than a penny per gallon. There is no more important product to support life and health, but there is also no less expensive product.  The water industry has been a victim of its own success in this regard. We have been able to provide such excellent service at such a low price that people have come to expect that high service/low price water forever. What customers may not realize is that much of the early infrastructure was installed with grant funds and the infrastructure is now reaching the end of its useful life.  Now that much of that infrastructure needs to be replaced (and the costs of replacement can be extraordinarily high), the rates need to go up in order to sustain the water utilities.  If the rates stay the same, we risk infrastructure failures which can result in short or long-term water outages, the potential for public health related concerns, or the potential to lose businesses due to an inability to provide reliable water service. Realizing that water is the foundation of our communities may lead customers and elected leaders to view paying rates not in a negative way, but rather as a positive, long-term investment in the community.

Francine: Growing up in Romania, I have many memories of our water service being interrupted – both with and without notice. The water-related memory that sticks with me the most is from the mid 1990s when hot-water services were only available twice a week for two hours at a time. I remember my sister and I having to interrupt our hide-and-seek games to rush home and take a shower before the service was interrupted again. Even when we were on time, the hot water would sometimes cut off mid-shower—now, twenty years later, I can still picture my mom carrying a steaming pot of hot water through the apartment to make sure I could rinse the shampoo out of my hair.  Some years later, soon after moving to a small town on the East Coast, I remember our landlord and neighbors happily reporting that there was no need for us to limit the duration of our showers since the water was free in that part of town. Although I did not realize the implications of those sorts of financial decisions until I began working for the Environmental Finance Centers, I continue to use water in a thoughtful manner and often have conversations with my friends and family about the importance of preserving this limited resource.

Mark: As part of a study conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)¹, it was determined that climate change will impact the availability of water in the contiguous United States in upwards of 1,100 counties by mid-century. Of the 1,100 counties predicted to be affected, 400 could face extreme water shortages resulting in the water users’ demand exceeding available supply. Planning now for the effects of our nation’s impending water supply shortage due to climate change will determine the success or failure of future agricultural yields, the accessibility for domestic use, and the availability of power due to a decreased supply to power plant cooling systems. It is apparent that the consequences of moving forward under the current approach to climate change is untenable for our future. We must make it the mission of this generation to find an environmentally conscientious way of managing our depleting resources, while simultaneously shifting to clean alternative options for meeting the exponentially growing demand for power in the United States and developing countries. 

Teresa: A few days ago I listened to a radio talk show when the hosts began a conversation about the poor access to water quality around the world. One of them then told the story of a friend who had volunteered with an NGO to drill a well in an African country.  How I wish things were that simple! Access to a reliable source of clean drinking water would be so much simpler if all we needed to do was to drill a well! Instead, what if that well is not adequately protected and becomes contaminated? What if the community does not know how to operate and maintain the well? How will the water from the well get disinfected? How will the water be safely transported from the well to people’s homes?

Many of us do not realize how many puzzle pieces must come together so that we can have clean water flowing out of our taps in our homes. People who live in big American cities are fortunate enough to have water treatment plants that use chlorine, filters, ozone, UV and whatever combination of treatment methods is necessary to remove contaminants from their water supply. In other parts of the country (and the world), there are communities with fewer resources who must decide which treatment methods to forgo and what kind of risks they are willing to take with their water supply. Effectively treating and distributing clean drinking water is an expensive process. As a result, there are many communities in the United States whose water systems have been completely abandoned. Those water systems are known as ‘orphan systems’ because no one is available to operate or maintain or ensure that the water is potable.  As budgets get slashed and economic opportunities migrate from rural to urban settings, elected officials will face the challenge of ensuring the number of ‘orphan systems’ does not continue to increase.

What does drinking water mean to me? Drinking water is like a mirror: it reflects our economy, education, community health and sociopolitical priorities.

Rose: Water is life: no living thing would exist without it. Ironically, although 70 percent of the earth is covered in water, most of it is saline and safe drinking water is quite difficult to find. In some parts of the world people fight for water—for themselves, for their livestock, and for their plants. However, in other parts of the world drinking water is taken for granted until we are faced with its scarcity. Only then are we sadly reminded of its importance in our lives. If lucky enough to have both abundant and safe drinking water, this resource should be treasured and protected at all costs. The 2014 US National Intelligence Strategy report and other Global Water Security Reports predict that future global wars will be fueled by water issues. The challenge therefore is, how can we avert this prediction from becoming a reality?

James: I grew up in Seattle, surrounded (and often drenched) by water.  It was always there and we took it for granted – you turned the tap and clean water came out. I’ve lived in many parts of the United States and abroad, but it wasn’t until I moved to New Mexico that it really occurred to me how dependent we are on our supply of clean water, how limited that supply can be, and how odd our water consumption habits are in the US.  Here I began to value the resource and marvel at the ingenuity that goes into making water safe and delivering it to us.  For example, we get much of our water supply in Albuquerque from rivers on the other side of the continental divide.  That’s an amazing engineering feat, but is it tenable long term? While I marvel at the technical feats used to deliver clean water into our homes, I also marvel at the unwillingness of consumers to pay for that service.  Clean water comes from our taps at pennies a gallon, but rate increases to maintain and improve our drinking water infrastructure are routinely objected to by both customers and water boards.   The disparity in water rates across the country is also amazing.  It strikes me as supremely ironic that customers in Seattle, a place with seeming (though not actual) unlimited supplies of fresh water pay four times what we do in Albuquerque.  Seattle residents also use less than half as much water as we do in Albuquerque.

And yet, while consumers reject water utility rate increases, many support a bottled water industry we don’t really need.  Water is drained from aquifers in Fiji, desiccated central California, and many other places.  It’s bottled and shipped to grocery stores in 20 oz. plastic bottles, and sold for more than $7.00 a gallon.  Why?  We need to re-think our habits, our long-term priorities, and our strategy before the resource that has always been there, isn’t there anymore.

1 Climate Change, Water, and Risk. (2010, July). Retrieved from https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/WaterRisk.pdf

What are your thoughts on drinking water? Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

It is almost that time of the year again when all community water systems across the country are required to communicate the quality of their drinking water to their consumers through the publication of their annual consumer confidence report (CCR). Federal guidelines suggest that these reports should be made available to the public by July 1st each year, as they are an important tool for public communication and involvement. For some systems, the CCR provides an opportunity to showcase the work accomplished over the past year, ranging from developments and improvements at the water utility to reporting on good water quality results. For other systems, the CCR can be an undesirable disclosure of ‘not so good’ drinking water quality results and even incurred drinking water violations. Regardless of the situation, consumers have a right to know crucial information about their drinking water and any issues associated with it. Similar to food labels on food packaging at the grocery store, CCRs ensure that the public is well informed of what they are consuming. Each tap water user needs an assurance that they are consuming a clean and safe product. An informed public is always key to promoting confidence with water utilities. To learn more about CCRs visit the EPA website.

World Water Day is on March 22 every year.  The theme for this year is “wastewater.”  According to worldwaterday.org, World Water Day is about taking action to tackle the water crisis.  The theme of wastewater this year helps draw attention to the fact that the majority of wastewater flows back to nature or neighbors without being treated.

The worldwaterday.org website has stories about “wastewater and its enormous opportunities as a resource.”  You can learn more at http://www.worldwaterday.org/stories/

Regulations are in the cross hairs right now. Regulations of all kinds, but especially environmental regulations, are hated by politicians, companies, regulated entities of all types, including public entities, and the general public. It is tempting to assume that all regulations are costly and unnecessary and that we would be better off without them. The question is, is this reputation deserved? Should we be supportive of the quest to reduce regulations?

To address these questions, we probably need to go back to why we have regulations in the first place. And more importantly, why the regulations go beyond “common sense” into what has become branded as “regulatory overreach.” To understand why we have regulations, we must go back to a time before regulations, or imagine what it would be like if they were not there. For simplicity’s sake, let’s focus on drinking water regulations but the same thought process would apply to most regulations, environmental or otherwise. If there were no regulatory requirements, say no Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or no state environmental regulatory department, what would water utilities do?

Some percentage of water utilities, probably around 10 to 20 percent, would still treat their water to a very high quality and would police themselves by taking samples, adjusting treatment, replacing assets, and employing highly trained operators. The percentage of utilities above has the required technical expertise to accomplish these goals. A much larger percentage, probably 60 to 80 percent would generally have the desire to serve safe, high-quality water, but would not really know how to do that and would not have the technical expertise to determine what needs to be done or how to accomplish the required tasks. In those cases, safe drinking water would be mostly based on happenstance. (e.g. if the groundwater were clean and the piping were relatively new, the water would be of decent quality. If the groundwater were contaminated or the infrastructure were aging, it would be of lesser quality.) The remaining group of water utilities, the final 10 to 20 percent, would not strive to serve good water and would be more focused on providing the bare minimum service to their customers. They would focus much more on the cost than the quality of the water they provide.

Understanding this grouping of water utilities helps understand how regulations get started and how they end up evolving the way that they do. If all systems were in the first category, we would not need regulations. However, that is not the case. To meet the needs of the second group of systems, regulations are written and implemented to provide the information of how safe water is defined and how it can be delivered to customers. These regulations are of the “common sense” variety.

Unfortunately, it is the set of water utilities in the final category (the 10 to 20 percent of utilities that would focus more on the cost than the quality) that lead regulations to move beyond the “common sense” label. This 10 to 20 percent will ignore regulations or look for ways around the regulations. They will look for every loophole and push the boundaries as far as they can. As the systems ignore the regulations or actively try to avoid them, their customers are put at risk. In order to protect the public, regulatory agencies have to increase the regulations, add more complexity, close loopholes, increase enforcement or increase penalties. As these systems push boundaries, they end up in enforcement or judicial proceedings. As a result, regulations tighten and “regulatory overreach” is born.

So, the question is: are the regulations really “overreaching” or just protecting the customers served by these 10 to 20 percent of systems? Do the customers of these systems deserve to drink unsafe water or put their health at risk? I hope the answer is no. Let’s consider some numbers. There are approximately 50,000 to 60,000 community water systems in the United States. Let’s say that only 10 percent of those community water systems fall into this latter category. That would still be 5,000 to 6,000 water systems across the nation. If each one serves 500 people on average, that means that somewhere between 2.5 and 3.0 million people would potentially be impacted. If 20 percent of the 50,000 to 60,000 national community water systems were part of that last category and each system served 1,000 people on average, we could be looking at 10 to 12 million Americans drinking unsafe water on a daily basis!

You might ask, are there really water utilities out there who would behave this way? I would love to say no, but the truth is, the answer is yes. Even with strict regulations, such as currently exist, there are numerous water systems, who for one reason or another, do not comply. I have sat across the table from water system owners who say “I’m not removing that (fill in the blank for a particular contaminant, I’ve heard several over the years) from the water. The state can just shut me down.” Or “I’m not complying, I’ll gladly give the state my system.” Or some version of “That rule (fill in the blank as there are several unpopular rules) is not necessary and we’re not going to comply.”

Regulations also have a role in the financial side of water utilities. If there were no regulations, how would water system managers and operators ever convince elected officials to invest in what is necessary to keep the system running over the long term while protecting public health? Even with regulations, we are grossly underfunding our utilities. How would rolling back regulations make this better? When we make trade-offs of finance over public health you set up situations like Flint, Michigan where the primary driver was not public health but economics. The regulations are intended to prevent this type of decision-making where economics go too far and public health is compromised.  Clearly, decision makers did not do their jobs in Flint. Removing the regulations would not make these types of situations better: removing regulations would only lead to more customers in more cities facing high levels of lead or any number of other contaminants.

If we think about regulations in this context, it becomes easier to understand that one person’s overreach is another person’s health or, possibly, their life. Unfortunately, I do not think we are ever going to solve the conundrum of the bottom 10 to 20 percent or find a way to stop at the “common sense” level of regulation. We are either going to have to have rules that may appear to be stricter and more onerous than we would like or we are going to have to face a risk that is simply too high. As a result, the best approach for us is to change our attitude about the regulations and see them as the reason for almost no one in the U.S. dying from water borne illness while over 3 million people die from poor quality water around the world. Rolling back the regulations would leave us vulnerable and as much as we may hate regulations, the alternative is far worse.

*Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net