Water Outsourcing Is Coming To The US!
America’s water quality is in pretty good shape these days. According to the last Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study, 89% of community water systems are in compliance with EPA regulations. Of course, that doesn't mean that every city has high-quality water. Industrial pollution is rising in some areas, as are pharmaceutical contaminants. Perhaps more importantly, just after World War II, small and middle-sized towns in America became boom-towns in the 60s and 70s.
As these towns grew, there was plenty of money (and incentive) to build new water reservoirs and infrastructure. In California and the adjoining western states (especially Arizona and New Mexico), the continuing grown in population and agriculture is draining water faster than it is replenished by rain and runoff. It’s getting tough for municipalities to meet water needs, and budgets are too tight to make major improvements in the water infrastructure. Can outsourcing keep the water flowing?
Water in America has not always been high quality, highly available or government owned. In the earliest days of American history, our towns were mostly small, and they were often built by good sources of water. Where the water was not as good, private firms rose up to sell water to citizens. As America grew, we needed more water and in the combination of industrial and human pollution in cities made the need for modern sanitation and modern waterworks a priority. In the US and in Europe, modern medicine learned how contaminated water led to cholera, typhus and other plagues.
The size of modern city and the importance of maintaining a high-quality water supply made the water supply a public issue. In many areas, the quality of water was poor, and often mixed with sewage. In other areas, the rise of industry also meant that new contaminants were being created as fast as science could name them, and many of these new compounds were found to be deadly. In other areas, there were more people than water, and fights were starting between farmers and city dwellers over water rights.
In the US, most of these issues played out in the early part of the 20th Century. The combination of iron (and later steel) pipes and the development of heavy construction equipment, made it possible to cost effectively lay water pipes and build large reservoirs. The use of water filtering systems and chlorine effectively destroyed harmful germs in the water. Sophisticated canal and hydraulic systems moved the water from where it was plentiful to where it was needed. Problem solved! Well, for one century.
But now we’re in the 21st century. Our water infrastructure has aged. Some big canals have been poorly maintained and lose millions of gallons of water every year. In other communities, there are fights between farmers, residents and environmentalists over water use. Few communities with pollution problems can afford to remove new contaminants from their water supply. Between local financial problems and Federal cutbacks, clean and plentiful water is falling further and further behind on the list of municipal priorities. Some cities have begun exploring the outsourcing of municipal water services. What could outsourcing do to help municipalities?
CONSTRUCTION: In expanding communities, such as Texas, Utah and Colorado, new housing developments are being built, and new pipeline needs to be laid. In the last century, new construction was paid for by government bonds. Today, there is little appetite for raising new bonds or adding new taxes to pay for water services. In other countries, water services have been outsourced, as an alternative way to finance water services. For communities that have been waiting for the revenue created by new construction, slowing down that construction while arguing over how to finance the construction could be ruinous for a recovering economy.
MAINTENANCE: Older communities, are no longer building new water systems, but have settled into the maintenance of the existing system. For quite a few municipalities, that means managing a system that is 50, 75 or 100 years old. In Detroit, which has just about every imaginable form of fiscal problem to deal with, the city needs reduce the cost of their water department by $900,000,000 over the next decade. In order to meet these goals, Detroit will reduce the water department’s staff from 2,000 workers to around 700, with half remaining employed by the city and half outsourced.
POLLUTION: A century ago, the types of pollution most water departments dealt with were mostly sewage and perhaps oil spills. As industry has become more complex, the types of pollution that is entering our water supply has become more complex. In Pensacola Florida, which the EPA rated as the worst municipal water system in America, the water has high levels of trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene, from dry cleaning. These complex, but small molecules, cannot be removed from the water by older filtration systems. Riverside California and Las Vegas show significant amounts of uranium in the water. The EPA doesn't yet test for many pharmaceuticals, but independent tests are showing more and more meds in our water. A new generation of filters will need to be developed to deal with these new forms of pollution.
CONTROL: For the last decade, the city of Fargo North Dakota has been battered by the annual flood of the Red River. Yet, EVERY state that surrounds North Dakota suffers from water shortages. For the most part, water is managed on a city or town level, with the state managing larger river systems, with occasional cooperation between states. It’s not that states don’t want to cooperate with each other, it’s more that until recently, water has been so plentiful that there was no need for constant cooperation. Population continues to grow, but water supplies remain the same size. Finding ways to better share scarce water supplies makes sense, but few states have the resources to build new infrastructure. That’s why multi-state outsourcing projects, to manage entire river systems, makes sense.
CONFLICT: California is probably the best example of the future of water in America. Most of California is a semi-arid dessert. Yet, it is here that extensive farm lands were planted, followed by the building of Los Angeles and then by the created of high aerospace and high tech computer firms, all of which require massive amounts of water. From the wineries of Napa Valley to the swimming pools of LA to the microchip plants of Intel, California is a water economy. At each step in California’s growth, there has been a “Water War.” At the turn of the 20th Century, LA needed to take over the water to feed the growth of the city. In the 70s, the environmentalists fought to preserve wetlands. Today, there are almost daily fights over water (farmers vs. rural towns vs. fishermen vs. native rights vs. environmentalists vs. big cities, etc.). Outside of the US water companies have been able to develop more water sources than municipalities.
The record for 21st century water outsourcing is not exactly crystal clear. Technically, challenging water supply issues will be as difficult for corporations to fix as they were for government. However, politically challenging issues may be better handled by a corporation. If the political distribution of water rights is replaced by economic distribution, we might think twice about filling an Olympic swimming pool with precious water. Better sharing of inter-state water supplies might be possible. Just as electric companies subsidized conversion from incandescent to compact fluorescent light bulbs, private water companies might introduce and subsidize smart water technologies to stretch overburdened water supplies. Something as simple as fixing home water leaks could save 1 Trillion gallons of water every year, enough to meet the combined water needs of Los angeles, Maimai and Chicago!
Some outsourcing projects will succeed, but we can expect quite a few to fail. However, if just a few develop better water management or can break the political deadlocks of the current water wars, then these projects will be well worth it. Outsourcing may not be the solution for every municipal problem, but for the most cash-strapped towns outsourced water services many be the only way to keep the water flowing!
As these towns grew, there was plenty of money (and incentive) to build new water reservoirs and infrastructure. In California and the adjoining western states (especially Arizona and New Mexico), the continuing grown in population and agriculture is draining water faster than it is replenished by rain and runoff. It’s getting tough for municipalities to meet water needs, and budgets are too tight to make major improvements in the water infrastructure. Can outsourcing keep the water flowing?
Water in America has not always been high quality, highly available or government owned. In the earliest days of American history, our towns were mostly small, and they were often built by good sources of water. Where the water was not as good, private firms rose up to sell water to citizens. As America grew, we needed more water and in the combination of industrial and human pollution in cities made the need for modern sanitation and modern waterworks a priority. In the US and in Europe, modern medicine learned how contaminated water led to cholera, typhus and other plagues.
The size of modern city and the importance of maintaining a high-quality water supply made the water supply a public issue. In many areas, the quality of water was poor, and often mixed with sewage. In other areas, the rise of industry also meant that new contaminants were being created as fast as science could name them, and many of these new compounds were found to be deadly. In other areas, there were more people than water, and fights were starting between farmers and city dwellers over water rights.
In the US, most of these issues played out in the early part of the 20th Century. The combination of iron (and later steel) pipes and the development of heavy construction equipment, made it possible to cost effectively lay water pipes and build large reservoirs. The use of water filtering systems and chlorine effectively destroyed harmful germs in the water. Sophisticated canal and hydraulic systems moved the water from where it was plentiful to where it was needed. Problem solved! Well, for one century.
But now we’re in the 21st century. Our water infrastructure has aged. Some big canals have been poorly maintained and lose millions of gallons of water every year. In other communities, there are fights between farmers, residents and environmentalists over water use. Few communities with pollution problems can afford to remove new contaminants from their water supply. Between local financial problems and Federal cutbacks, clean and plentiful water is falling further and further behind on the list of municipal priorities. Some cities have begun exploring the outsourcing of municipal water services. What could outsourcing do to help municipalities?
CONSTRUCTION: In expanding communities, such as Texas, Utah and Colorado, new housing developments are being built, and new pipeline needs to be laid. In the last century, new construction was paid for by government bonds. Today, there is little appetite for raising new bonds or adding new taxes to pay for water services. In other countries, water services have been outsourced, as an alternative way to finance water services. For communities that have been waiting for the revenue created by new construction, slowing down that construction while arguing over how to finance the construction could be ruinous for a recovering economy.
MAINTENANCE: Older communities, are no longer building new water systems, but have settled into the maintenance of the existing system. For quite a few municipalities, that means managing a system that is 50, 75 or 100 years old. In Detroit, which has just about every imaginable form of fiscal problem to deal with, the city needs reduce the cost of their water department by $900,000,000 over the next decade. In order to meet these goals, Detroit will reduce the water department’s staff from 2,000 workers to around 700, with half remaining employed by the city and half outsourced.
POLLUTION: A century ago, the types of pollution most water departments dealt with were mostly sewage and perhaps oil spills. As industry has become more complex, the types of pollution that is entering our water supply has become more complex. In Pensacola Florida, which the EPA rated as the worst municipal water system in America, the water has high levels of trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene, from dry cleaning. These complex, but small molecules, cannot be removed from the water by older filtration systems. Riverside California and Las Vegas show significant amounts of uranium in the water. The EPA doesn't yet test for many pharmaceuticals, but independent tests are showing more and more meds in our water. A new generation of filters will need to be developed to deal with these new forms of pollution.
CONTROL: For the last decade, the city of Fargo North Dakota has been battered by the annual flood of the Red River. Yet, EVERY state that surrounds North Dakota suffers from water shortages. For the most part, water is managed on a city or town level, with the state managing larger river systems, with occasional cooperation between states. It’s not that states don’t want to cooperate with each other, it’s more that until recently, water has been so plentiful that there was no need for constant cooperation. Population continues to grow, but water supplies remain the same size. Finding ways to better share scarce water supplies makes sense, but few states have the resources to build new infrastructure. That’s why multi-state outsourcing projects, to manage entire river systems, makes sense.
CONFLICT: California is probably the best example of the future of water in America. Most of California is a semi-arid dessert. Yet, it is here that extensive farm lands were planted, followed by the building of Los Angeles and then by the created of high aerospace and high tech computer firms, all of which require massive amounts of water. From the wineries of Napa Valley to the swimming pools of LA to the microchip plants of Intel, California is a water economy. At each step in California’s growth, there has been a “Water War.” At the turn of the 20th Century, LA needed to take over the water to feed the growth of the city. In the 70s, the environmentalists fought to preserve wetlands. Today, there are almost daily fights over water (farmers vs. rural towns vs. fishermen vs. native rights vs. environmentalists vs. big cities, etc.). Outside of the US water companies have been able to develop more water sources than municipalities.
The record for 21st century water outsourcing is not exactly crystal clear. Technically, challenging water supply issues will be as difficult for corporations to fix as they were for government. However, politically challenging issues may be better handled by a corporation. If the political distribution of water rights is replaced by economic distribution, we might think twice about filling an Olympic swimming pool with precious water. Better sharing of inter-state water supplies might be possible. Just as electric companies subsidized conversion from incandescent to compact fluorescent light bulbs, private water companies might introduce and subsidize smart water technologies to stretch overburdened water supplies. Something as simple as fixing home water leaks could save 1 Trillion gallons of water every year, enough to meet the combined water needs of Los angeles, Maimai and Chicago!
Some outsourcing projects will succeed, but we can expect quite a few to fail. However, if just a few develop better water management or can break the political deadlocks of the current water wars, then these projects will be well worth it. Outsourcing may not be the solution for every municipal problem, but for the most cash-strapped towns outsourced water services many be the only way to keep the water flowing!
