The sewer system running under the streets of Des Moines, IL, has kept Steve Gearhart and his company, CIPP Corp., busy. Gearhart estimates that CIPP, which provides cured-in place linings to rehabilitate old sanitary and storm sewers, has lined tens of thousands of feet of sewer pipes in Des Moines. City engineers found these pipes to be defective, many of them having sprung serious leaks due mainly to their advancing age.
Des Moines is one of the more proactive municipalities when it comes to maintaining and renovating its water infrastructure: The city runs an ongoing rehabilitation program of its aging water conveyance, storage, and treatment systems. Part of this system includes annual budget money for repairing or replacing aging pipes and pumps that could cause serious problems if not treated. CIPP bids on the work every year. If company officials win the bidding process, they go out into the streets with their no-dig lining system, and strengthen the city’s weakening pipes.
Unfortunately, not every municipality is like Des Moines. Many have neglected their water conveyance and storage systems for years. To Gearhart, chairman of CIPP Corporation, these municipalities are only asking for serious, and expensive, problems in the future. “It’s kind of inevitable that more municipalities are going to be faced with the need to repair or replace significant portions of their water systems,” Gearhart says. “There are so many systems out there that are over 100 years old. Municipalities are starting to see the catastrophic consequences that happen when these systems fail.”
Gearhart has seen these consequences. He’s seen sewage back up through entire neighborhoods following the collapse of a sewer. He’s seen the sides of hills completely slide away in some cities in California, because the sewer system has been discharging water into the ground for so many years, that it had made the ground unstable. In the Midwest, he’s seen trucks fall into gaping holes that suddenly erupted from parking lots and streets.
Municipalities that ignore their aging water-system infrastructure are only asking for these huge problems, Gearhart says. And, while preventing the problems of aging water system infrastructure requires money, fixing huge holes in streets costs even more. “Once you do have a collapse, it is quite an expensive procedure to repair it at that point,” he remarks. “That doesn’t even take into account the money municipalities will have to spend, because of the damage that homeowners and users of the system have suffered.”Gearhart’s point was reinforced, oddly enough, a few days after he spoke to Water Efficiency, thanks to a massive water-main break January 22 in the Chicago, IL, neighborhood of Ravenswood, a trendy North Side slice of the city filled with new restaurants, shops, and condominium projects.
According to a story in the Chicago Tribune (www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-water-main_webjan23,1,293457.story), a 3-foot-wide iron pipe that had been distributing water for about 100 years, ruptured near 1 a.m. It left an 80-foot-wide, 15-foot-deep hole in the street. The flooding waters that resulted from this also caused an 80-foot section of the brick sewer to collapse.
The scene itself was a rather fearsome display of the dangers of ignoring aging infrastructure: Witnesses reported first a geyser of water erupting from the street, then a sheet of flooding water, and, finally, a loud “bang,” as the street collapsed.
City officials estimated that it would take weeks to repair the damage from the sinkhole, one that was large enough to swallow parking meters and trees. Homeowners in the area had their own problems: They had to deal with severe flooding in their residences. Business owners suffered, too, as their shops flooded and had to close down. This isn’t the first large water main break in Chicago, and city officials estimate that it will be far from the last. Several hundred mains burst each year, the city says, because much of the water system was built from 1880 to 1920, and is nearing the end of its life expectancy.
Municipalities across the country are facing similar issues with their water conveyance and storage systems. The problem is, it requires money–and often water rate or tax hikes–to repair or replace aging pipes, pumps, and facilities.
And, few in municipal government are brave, or foolhardy enough, to ask for tax hikes or rate increases. But, municipalities that ignore the problems of their water infrastructure will certainly suffer serious consequences, much like what happened in Chicago in late January.
“The cities that are most progressive will have established programs to address their water-system infrastructure needs,” Gearhart says. “They’ll focus on system renewal on an annual basis, so that they can catch their problems and fix them before they become more serious.”
A Nationwide Issue
Tim Quinn knows all too well how much of a burden an aging water system’s infrastructure can be. He’s executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, a group whose nearly 450 members are responsible for 90% of the water delivered to the cities, farms, and businesses in California.
It’s of little surprise that many of the association’s member agencies are struggling now with aging water conveyance and storage systems. “It’s happening in California just like it’s happening everywhere else,” Quinn says. “The American Society of Civil Engineers gave our water systems a C-plus grade. We’re not getting great grades. You’re looking at multi-billions of dollars that need to be spent to get our state’s water systems back up to where they should be.”
He says he doesn’t want to generalize too much about the state of California’s municipal water systems. Some aging systems are in dire need of repairs and replacement. Other municipalities in the state, though, have taken the steps to maintain and manage their systems. Quinn cites the Metropolitan Water District of southern California, which provides drinking water to nearly 17 million residents of Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties, as one that does a particularly good job of monitoring its water conveyance, storage, and treatment equipment for potential problems.
The city of San Francisco, CA, has also taken steps to repair its aging water-system infrastructure. The city is now in the middle of a $4 billion capital-improvement project to improve and rehabilitate its water systems, Quinn says. “Some would argue that San Francisco neglected its water system for decades. But, to their credit, they did wake up and do something about it,” he adds.
Many smaller municipalities struggle in this task, he notes. The reason is an all-too-obvious one: Smaller cities and towns have small budgets. It’s difficult to find the necessary funding to repair or replace aging pipes and pumps. “The problem with this is that you can’t, even if you are a smaller agency, ignore the challenge forever,” he says. “You have to somehow financially or politically rise to the challenge.”
Smaller, cash-starved water agencies need to work harder to inform the public that they do have problems with aging conveyance and storage systems, Quinn says. These agencies need to provide information and education to the people who make decisions about water rates. “The smaller water providers buried inside city governments, their ability to raise money is very limited,” he remarks. “One of the key challenges they face is educating people about the issues they are seeing.”
In San Francisco, for instance, city water officials crafted an intense public relations effort, designed to educate decision-makers on the problems their conveyance and storage systems were facing. Thanks in large part to this effort, the city’s voters approved the capital expenditure, which was no simple accomplishment.
“People don’t think of the problems that are going to come to their doorsteps, because some 6-inch pipe somewhere is losing 25 to 30 percent of the water that goes through it,” Quinn says. “Citizens don’t understand what the consequences of something like this can be. I think we have to do a better job of educating people on what the consequences are.”
Quinn, and the municipal water systems across the state, are fortunate to have several allies in their efforts to spread the word about the needs of California’s water storage and conveyance systems.
Jim Earp is one. Earp is executive director of the California Alliance for Jobs, an organization that runs its own political action committee. Starting last year, the organization began focusing on the need for the state to invest in its municipal drinking, waste, and stormwater systems. “Even though California invested better than $40 billion in infrastructure bonds in 2006, the missing element of that was water storage or the need to increase our water capacity,” he says. “We need a comprehensive plan that includes suggestions for improving the water-conveyance system around the California delta, and for increasing the amount of surface storage of water.”
According to Earp, a properly built conveyance system will not only improve the efficiency of how municipalities deliver water, it will also help restore the delta and its surrounding habitat. “You can’t just suck more water out of the delta and be able to keep it healthy,” he says.The coalition has had some success in its efforts to convince California residents and legislators that they need to pay more attention to their water delivery and storage systems, Earp says. It has teamed up with the Association of California Public Water Agencies to help spread this message. The coalition’s mission now includes getting a water bond on the ballot through the state’s legislative process. This, however, is not an easy task. Two-thirds of the legislature’s members must give their approval for the bond to make it on the ballot.
Getting that high of a percentage of legislators–including those from different political parties–to agree on a water-bond issue is no easy task, Earp says. “We need bipartisan support, and right now there is a big division between what the Democrats want to see and what the Republicans want to see with a water bond. We’ve been working very diligently with the legislature to address these issues.”
Then, there is the fact that California–like many states–faces a huge budget deficit. This makes it even more difficult for water agencies to persuade politicians to vote in favor of a water bond, even one that few would debate is urgently needed. “California’s budget deficit is overshadowing everything right now,” he says. “A lot of worthy efforts tend to get pushed aside as legislators scramble around and figure out how to deal with it. We are hung out in limbo a little bit right now.”
This can all be discouraging, but, Earp, and others seeking water-system improvements, say they aren’t ready to give up. “We have to work out the details to get this done; they have to get worked out,” he says. “This is too important to just brush our hands of the matter. We can’t just say, “˜We gave it our best shot,’ and then walk away. We can’t do that. This is our future. Our water system has been neglected over the decades. We have to come to terms with it.”
Replacing Aging Infrastructure
Count the wastewater treatment division of Washington’s King County Natural Resources and Parks department as one municipal water agency that is actively monitoring its aging infrastructure, and, most importantly, taking action to repair and replace those pipes and pumps that are failing.
Since May 2006, wastewater officials in King County–located on Puget Sound in Washington, and covering 2,134 square miles–have been in the midst of a large construction project to repair and replace its aging Hidden Lake pump station. Located in the city of Shoreline, just north of Seattle, the Hidden Lake pump station and its pipes were built in the mid-1960s. David Dittmar, King County capital projects manager, says that the pump station facilities, all nearing or exceeding 40 years in age, need to be renovated or replaced to meet the area’s current wastewater flows and higher-reliability standards.
To meet this challenge, construction crews are building a new wastewater pump station to replace the existing Hidden Lake station. They are also replacing 12,000 feet of the nearby Boeing Creek trunk sewer in the western portion of Shoreline.
Finally, King County is building an underground wastewater storage pipe in Boeing Creek Park. This new pipe will store water temporarily during peak storms to prevent overflows into Puget Sound. It’s not a simple project. Dittmar estimates that construction will run through the end of 2008. King County officials started pre-design work on the Hidden Lake project more than five years ago. But all the work, Dittmar says, is well worth it.
“We will now have a new wastewater facility that meets the needs of the basin for the next 40 to 50 years,” he says. “We had to take on this project to get to that point.”
The Hidden Lake project is just one example of the proactive approach King County takes to managing and maintaining its water systems, Dittmar says. “The systems are getting older. We have a regular program to maintain our existing systems, so that we don’t run into larger problems down the road. Much of our infrastructure was installed in the middle 1960s and 1970s. A lot of our pipes and equipment are approaching 40 years in age. This equipment either needs to be upgraded or replaced.”
King County runs two programs to meet the challenges posed by aging conveyance and storage systems. First, the county has a capital program that provides funds for installing new pipes and pump stations. This program also provides funding to help the county add new equipment and facilities to deal with projected future growth in King County. The county also has an existing asset management program that provides funding for upgrading and repairing existing infrastructure.
Thanks to both programs, King County has managed to maintain its water conveyance and storage systems, even as its pumps, pipes, and storage facilities continue to age.
“Both programs have been going for many years,” Dittmar says. “Both are part of our comprehensive wastewater plan. We update that plan every five years or so. They are ongoing programs to make sure we have proper infrastructure to properly handle wastewater flows.”
But, even with this careful planning, King County still faces plenty of challenges when it comes to maintaining its water facilities. For one thing, much of King County’s existing facilities are located in highly urban areas. It can be challenging to replace or upgrade those facilities.
Then, there are economic considerations. Thanks to current market conditions, Dittmar says, the cost to replace, upgrade, or build new facilities can be quite high. King County officials, then, take extra care to tackle capital-improvement projects in as efficient and cost-effective a manner as possible.The good news is that a growing number of municipal water agencies are taking proactive actions to maintain and monitor their aging water-system infrastructure, Dittmar says. “Municipalities are more and more aware of the issues they face with infrastructure that is getting older,” he notes.
“They understand that it is expensive to replace this infrastructure, and that’s important to carefully monitor their existing facilities to catch potential problems early on. They understand how important it is to find the appropriate time to replace these facilities. Most municipalities now have an ongoing asset-management program where they are monitoring existing facilities to make sure they replace them at the right time and in a cost-efficient manner.”
Technical representative for Brownsville, WI-based Michels Pipe Services, Mike Krosnosky, agrees, remarking that he’s seen the demand spike for his company’s pipeline rehabilitation services.
“The industry is growing by leaps and bounds,” Krosnosky says. “Municipalities are facing water-accountability issues. They have to account for the water that they pump and sell. They have lost revenue when that water leaks out of the system.”
Michels Pipe Services covers all 50 states. The company has seen firsthand, the problems municipalities face when their pipes, storage systems, and treatment facilities begin to reach 50 years-plus. “Every water utility is looking at its record of main breaks and maintenance,” Krosnosky says. “They know they have to do something about it. The maintenance demands are going up. They have to do something preventative, or at the rehabilitation phase, to meet those demands.”
This isn’t a problem that municipalities didn’t see coming, though, he adds. “They’ve been monitoring leaks for 20 [to] 30 years now. They have to do something about it now.”
Gearhart says that he expects the pace of renovation and repairs to only increase in the coming years. He points to San Diego, which has scheduled $1 billion worth of renovations and repairs to its water systems in the next several years.
“Most municipalities now are facing the reality that they have to replace and repair some of these systems,” Gearhart says. “For some, it’s been an educational process. They’ve been watching and seeing what their neighboring municipalities are doing, and learning in advance. Otherwise, they learn the hard way after some type of catastrophic event. It’s like an apple that’s rotten at its core. The problems impact the entire apple eventually.
Many systems are built so that they expand outwards from a central core. As they expand outwards, everything flows into the old infrastructure that hasn’t been renewed and isn’t capable of handling these large flows. That’s the challenge municipalities are facing.”
