Make Your Case

You have to have a clear picture of your assets and a plan for effective renewal

It’s a shame that so many people don’t understand the importance of investing in water and wastewater infrastructure. It’s an even bigger shame when that lack of understanding translates to a lack of funding for necessary projects, which in turn forces utilities to stay in a reactive rather than progressive mode.

The irony, of course, is those same people — the local taxpayers — end up paying more in the long run. Emergency repairs don’t come cheap. The longer you’re forced to go without replacing or rehabilitating old, failing infrastructure, the more expensive emergency repairs you’ll be forced to make. It’s inevitable. And it’s a terrible cycle. Your budget gets destroyed because you can’t plan or account for every emergency. But there’s always funding for emergencies, because when their water stops running or their toilets stop flushing, people want action.

It puts utility leaders in a difficult and unenviable position. First and foremost, you need to manage your utilities. But you also have to be equal parts politician and lobbyist, working with government officials to make the case for better funding and the long-term savings that it can create. And on top of that, you have to be educators and public outreach coordinators.

It starts with running your utilities as efficiently as possible. You need to know your system inside and out. Asset management is key because being able to forecast future expenses and demonstrate potential savings through a more proactive approach will give you a chance to break the cycle of reacting to emergencies while infrastructure continues to degrade.

In Florence, Kentucky, profiled in this issue of Municipal Sewer & Water, top department staffers are constantly looking for emerging technologies to keep them ahead of wastewater system failure.

Eric Hall, public services director, says having a dedicated inspection crew is a fiscally responsible way to pre-emptively avoid costly pipe failures and to monitor what is happening underground, and asset management software enables cost-effective planning for repairs, rehabilitation, and replacement projects.

Hall traces the city’s better asset management practices back to 2005 when, he says, “we really got into problem management.” Now, the utility regularly runs a filter through documented information to prepare a list of responses so that every year they can properly plan projects and how they’re going to spend their money. And data from the department’s flow-monitoring program guides pipe relining decisions — up to 3 miles of pipe relined each year.

So how do you get the buy-in for infrastructure improvements while the water is still on and the toilets are still flushing? Inspect. Monitor. Analyze. And use that data to formulate justifiably cost-effective plans.

It’s all easier said than done, but it doesn’t take a large utility or huge budget. It’s dependent on a desire to do things a better way, and it’s something every utility should be working toward.

Enjoy this month’s issue.



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