Flint,

You raised some concerns about the recent water/wastewater report on the thread below at http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001zbv. A number of forum members reponded, and I am wondering if these responses addressed your concerns. Did they?

Here is a repost of my comments, in case you didn't see them the first time:

Flint,

You said:

Since the AWWA was the source of the scare story about only 14% of water/wastewater treatment facilities being ready, here is an updated story. (I wonder why our resident researchers never seem to find these things?) http://www.awwa.org/y2k07.htm

Response:

As Brian pointed out, the 14% statistic referred to the results of AMSAs July 1999 wastewater treatment survey, NOT the June 1999 drinking water survey by AWWA, NAWC, and AMWA.

AMSA's July 1999 wastewater treatment survey (on AMSAs website) explains that only 4% of respondents had completed the implementation phase and only 14% had completed the repair phase. As for AMSAs optimism that all of its members will be Y2K-compliant by the end of the year, you might want to note that they were similarly optimistic in their October 1998 survey (also on AMSAs website) that 18% of their members would have completed implementation and 35% would have completed repair BY APRIL, 1999. But the July survey showed that respondents were nowhere near these optimistic projections, even three months after April! Are you really willing to trust the industrys current rosy predictions? Even the Senate Committee said in its 100 day report, We feel justified in saying that we are alarmed by these statistics.

You said (regarding the preliminary report from AWWA/NAWC/AMWA June 1999 survey):

Here is a salient quote from this site: "Analysis of the surveys indicate that water utilities are currently much better prepared for the new millennium than they were only 10 months ago. The Survey shows that overall, 92 % of all systems have gone through the inventory, assessment, remediation or replacement, and testing required to become completely Y2K compliant. This breaks down to 92.5% for the very large systems, 88.7 % for large, 90 % for medium, and 93.6 % for small systems. In 1998, only 51 % of all systems had even completed their assessment, although 81 % expressed confidence that they would be ready before December 31, 1999. In general, it appears that utilities will be prepared to handle the issues confronting them when the new year begins. In addition, very few systems still require remediation or replacement"

Response:

Read on in that same document. You will see the following quotes in the industrys own report:

However only a very few systems are 100% Y2K compliant at this time. . . When looking at the last steps, testing and contingency planning, only 40-50% are 100 percent ready at this time.

and

"Isolated instances of malfunctioning equipment may result in pockets of consumers not having adequate supply."

It seems that such conflicting statements are among the reasons why the report was considered unintelligible.

In addition, please read the section in the NRDC/Center for Y2K & Society report explaining that, in fact, the industry survey did NOT find that 92% of utilities were compliant (pps. 21-25) and the correspondence from AWWAs spokesperson (Appendix D) confirming that far fewer than 92% of responding utilities said they were compliant. (The report is at www.y2kcenter.org/resources/centerpubs/index.html).

You said:

Uh huh. Third-hand reports from AWWA filtered through "advocacy groups" is accepted as the Whole Truth. The word from the primary source is rejected! Can't you SEE how stupid you look?

Response:

Please read the report again, and look at the Appendix, which contains a letter from AWWAs Y2K spokesperson admitting that far less than 92% of respondents said they were Y2K ready. The report also relies on documentation provided by the industrys trade associations and utility spokespersons, including testimony, correspondence, and survey reports. What kind of material do you consider to be the primary source?

Finally, some food for thought:

Why did AMWAs September 1999 survey fail to ask utilities if they had completed the testing, implementation and IV&V stages of Y2K compliance?

Why hasnt NRWA, which calls itself Americas Largest Utility Membership Association, Serving Over 19,000 Water and Wastewater Utilities RELEASED the results of its survey, which  according to the Presidents Councils final assessment report  were due this fall???

-- d (d@d.com), December 13, 1999

Answers

Great questions d, let's see if the anointed one honors this thread with some answers!!

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), December 13, 1999.

d:

Good points. I was surfing around looking at anything about water treatment, and saw that site. I thought, Hey, these numbers don't look like the numbers posted to the forum. Maybe I should post it and see what happens.

I sincerely congratulate you and others on your perspicacity in digging into this, finding different surveys of different organizations asking different questions and having different response rates, etc. I agree the results end up being unintelligible. As always, there's a LOT of ambiguity and room for debate.

I can only dream that the same attention to detail were applied to *every* such report, rather than only the uncongenial ones. As I recall, nobody dug into the 14% report at all, everyone just said (essentially) "Aha! Just as we thought! How could the stupid pollies ever doubt this?" Indeed, all I posted about the Omaha situation was a URL and quote, and I was personally attacked for posting "stupid drivel" for doing so! To me, this response tends to characterize the depth of analysis too often applied on this forum.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 13, 1999.

Flint,

Thanks for your response -- I appreciate your taking a second look at the issue. As you said, the survey results are truly unintelligible. What really bothers me is that, while no one can predict if lack of "readiness" will actually lead to obvious service disruptions, we still can't get a coherent response from the industry representatives on whether the utilities are "ready."

Ah well...I guess we'll find out soon enough.

-- d (d@d.com), December 13, 1999.

Well Flint we are back to square one with water, we know as much as we did last year. Not much.

But the question has to be asked how did this situation develope? How could such a valuable utility not have real scrutiny like the power corps?

Even though I can find information, it mostly indicates that we don't know. This isn't transperancy it is ignorance.

You actually made a small error in judgement but the questions from it should be looked at. Why can the AWWA consider such a small precentage of water suppliers indicate an industry standard?

Is this normally the case?

Why didn't the other water suppliers provide data? It is a critical industry. Banks and Electrical suppliers have to, why not water corps?

And the waste water situation is almost unmentionable. Going to have to check that out but the answer will be the same as water, not enough info to make a sound judgement call.

Shame

-- Brian (imager@home.com), December 13, 1999.

Brian:

My guess is, what lies at the heart of the lack of information about most industries is the lack of an institutionalized (that is, government-mandated and regulated) reporting bureaucracy. For banks, FDIC (in the US) has been the regulatory agency, and banks must undergo periodic FDIC audits, and meet many other reporting requirements. But water treatment has no such overseeing bureaucracy. Most of the time, this is a Good Thing, since government intrusion is inefficient at best and potentially dangerous to freedoms -- just reflect on the "know your customer" proposals!

So there's always a tradeoff. If things are mandatory, this is serious Big Brotherism. And if they're voluntary, nobody bothers to volunteer. I prefer the voluntary system, even though it does leave us in the dark sometimes about critical information.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 13, 1999.

There are numerous state agencies regulating water utilities. But many of them have been AWOL on Y2K (see the GAOs April report). And, as noted in the NRDC/Center for Y2K & Society report (at p. 19), The Federal Safe Drinking Water Act gives EPA broad power to guarantee safe drinking water supplies. However, EPA has failed to use its existing power to ensure that these utilities will be Y2K- ready in time. EPA even refused to exercise its powers under the Safe Drinking Water Act to require that states revise their already- mandated emergency plans to include potential Y2K contingencies.

I think we would all be better off if GAOs April 1999 suggestions on public disclosure and mandatory surveys had been adopted  and I dont think this would have been Big Brotherism. No one ever suggested that EPA should regulate HOW utilities should fix their non- compliant systems, just that EPA (or some other agency) should mandate that utilities simply inform the public about the status of their efforts and the likely impacts on water service. Would that have been such a serious government intrusion? I don't think so.

-- d (d@d.com), December 13, 1999.

Thanks, gang. We need to e-mail this thread to the folks who "contributed" to the thread immediately below so they can see the diff between what they are doing/talking about and discourse is.

# 3

-- # 3 (rienzoo@en.com), December 13, 1999.

Here is a link of the original thread

 AWWA water update for the record

-- Brian (imager@home.com), December 14, 1999.

Thanks for the link, Brian.

By the way, I think you summed up the situation succintly: Shame (on the industry representatives and industry regulators).

-- d (d@d.com), December 14, 1999.