Public opinion is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who moulds public opinion goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.”

Abraham Lincoln

The “Liquid Assets” TV documentary produced by Penn State Public Broadcasting came out on October 1. It makes a compelling case for the need to invest in water infrastructure.

The question now becomes: Who will watch it? Because if those who watch are mainly the same people whose job it is to maintain infrastructure, then the program is an exercise in “preaching to the choir.”

The program’s producers and financial supporters have created a guide to community outreach. Has your municipality or agency used advice from that guide to take the program into the schools, to public meetings and into other community forums? If the answer is, “Not yet,” the next question needs to be: When, where and how often will you do so?

A compelling case

Only strong public outreach will help turn this documentary into support for infrastructure repairs. Remember, the country is in an economic upheaval, and large segments of the public have been persuaded that any increases in public spending and taxes are an abomination.

What “Liquid Assets” does well is the one thing that can get people past their jaundiced view of raising taxes or fees. And that is to show what they get for the money, or how they and society may suffer if the money is not spent.

The program contains lots of shocking images of badly corroded pipes, cars fallen into sinkholes, man-made floods caused by breaks in water mains, even a huge geyser caused by a rupture in a major water transmission pipe. It makes the connection between those images and the failure to maintain underground facilities.

There are some 2 million miles of piping beneath our streets, much of it paid for by our grandparents, and some of it seldom or never touched since. It’s old, it’s wearing out, and it needs attention.

The program looks at the experiences of 10 cities. Jerry N. Johnson, general manager of the Washington D.C. Water and Sewer Authority, talks about his city’s all-too-common experience. “In the mid-1990s, our water system had just about collapsed,” he says. “The district had just run into some very dire financial circumstances, and when those kinds of things happen, the very first thing that goes is maintenance of those things that one does not see.”

At all levels

The total cost to upgrade the water and sewer infrastructure exceeds $500 billion. Meanwhile, observes Donald Schwartz, district director with RCAP Solutions, a nonprofit community development agency, “Government is choosing to spend its money elsewhere. Right now, there’s very limited money for communities to install adequate drinking, waste and wastewater systems. I think it’s criminal. This country has to get its priorities right, and they’re wrong right now.”

The most inspiring part of the program tells of Atlanta’s self-described “sewer mayor,” Shirley Franklin, and the outreach campaign she led to get her community behind a massive wastewater system renovation.

Atlanta residents voted three to one to — horrors! — raise the local sales tax by one percentage point to help pay for the program. Atlanta’s experience shows what is possible when public leaders have the energy, creativity and courage to talk honestly to their citizens about infrastructure and why it needs attention.

“It’s a question of who is going to pay, and how much we’re going to be willing to pay, in order to ensure that your children live the kind of life we as Americans have promised them,” Franklin states.

Reaching out

In their wisdom, those behind “Liquid Assets” didn’t just put it on TV. They developed a 16-minute summary from the 90-minute program that’s suitable for playing at community meetings.

They created an Outreach Guide to help municipalities and utilities build public events around the program. It’s extremely well done, and it includes such tools as a community discussion guide, an event-planning checklist, moderator guidelines, and discussion questions. You can find the guide at http://liquidassets.psu.edu.

The brains behind this documentary clearly know that just putting the program on public TV doesn’t do even half the job. The battle will be won in thousands of county, city, village and town halls all over the country. And it will be won by public officials willing to take the time — and summon the nerve — to get out and engage the public.

It is encouraging that the prospect of economic stimulus through infrastructure renewal came up in the presidential campaign. Perhaps a consensus is building that we delay infrastructure investment at our peril. That should make the argument easier. Still, it’s going to take commitment across the board, and the stakes could hardly be higher.

In the words of U.S. Representative Jim Oberstar, who chairs the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, “All the water there ever was or ever will be is here on earth today, and it’s our responsibility now, at this time, in this generation, to protect it. That must be our legacy to the future.”

Comments on this column or about any article in this publication may be directed to editor Ted J. Rulseh, 800/257-7222 or editor@mswmag.com.