About the author:

Johns is the managing editor of Storm Water Solutions. Johns can be reached at [email protected]. 

Compiled by Katie Johns

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact many facets of life, SWS Managing Editor Katie Johns spoke with various industry association leaders to get an update on how COVID-19 is impacting the industry. For more Q&As and to see the results of the Follow-Up: SWS Market Impact Survey, check out this digital-exclusive report. 

Katie Johns: How would you say things have changed since we last talked for that report? 

Berg: I think to an extent everybody's been kind of surprised on how at least semi-permanent some of these things have become, you know, the transition to a lot more remote work and virtual conferences and even virtual meetings. I think people have kind of been surprised that we didn't just bounce back to our quote unquote normal ways of doing things. From my perspective, people are starting to recognize that this isn't going to be a month long or two-month long thing, and changing some of their thought processes on how they interact with people and how we engage teams within individual companies and things of that nature. So COVID has become much more impactful than I think anyone realized, is a more concise way to answer to that question. 

Johns: In our original report, the majority of respondents said that they anticipated a sizable impact to their business. And in our newest one, which closed in September, the majority  shifted to them saying they expect a minor impact. So why do you think there was that change in answer? And do you agree?

Berg: Yeah. I think that's an interesting twist of a shift of sentiment, and I guess I would echo that. I think that's probably a more accurate answer that it has been a lot less financially impactful, at least in 2020, than a lot of people thought, and I can only speculate as to why mass sentiment is changing. But my own view there is that we never really saw a stoppage of construction activity. That was deemed essential business. Most projects continued to move forward and even accelerated. So I think that dampened the blow for a lot of folks in that engineers are still moving projects forward and manufacturers are still installing treatment systems and contractors were still out building, but as far as next year goes, I could see if things remain unchanged, you know, no vaccine, and we're kind of left in this world indefinitely, which I hope is not the case, but that could have a much more substantial impact on the industry, in my opinion. 

Johns: Some projects have been postponed in 2020. How do you see that changing going forward?

Berg: Well if things remain status quo, I think there probably is going to be a slow down, especially in new project creation or new investment in development projects. A lot of storm water projects that are developed or are planned a year or more before they actually move forward. So I think once we start to work through the existing pipeline of projects, there is likely to be a slow down if things don't change from where we're at right now. 

Johns: If there is a slowdown or even an uptick in projects, how does that affect the manufacturing side and the supply chain of things? 

Berg: Well obviously any business needs revenue to sustain itself. So if it's a minor slowdown, maybe it doesn't impact things too dramatically, but a major slow down certainly impacts all sectors, not just manufacturing. It could lead to financial challenges for organizations depending on what their financial situation is. Hopefully it doesn't come to that, but too big of a slow down, probably ripples through the entire industry and lots of jobs in some organizations. 

Johns: Do you think that some of these new work policies, such as working remotely and virtual events, will stick around even as hopefully a vaccine comes for COVID-19 and it kind of starts to go in that rear view mirror?

Berg: Yeah, I think they do, honestly. I know I've had a handful of conversations now with folks. Being someone who traveled a lot, and I know there's a lot of folks within this industry that can say the same, I think there probably will be more use of these virtual tools moving forward and maybe a little less travel for those that did a lot of it. I think people are recognizing that maybe we didn't need to be at every single meeting in person. And there's some time savings and value to using these tools, even when we have the option to travel. 

Johns: Is there anything you want to add that we haven't talked about? 

Berg: My experience is more on the manufacturing side of things, but I did talk with a lot of folks in the industry. I know that I'm particularly concerned, as someone that engages with the regulatory community, for what might happen to state and local programs. If we aren't able to address their financial shortcomings that could really slow down, or eliminate, a lot of capacity and really slow down a lot of progress on regulatory initiatives and developing new standards and moving those types of things forward. I think programs could become very bare bones, which could be very challenging in a lot of places. So that's something I'm concerned about as you look at the big picture relative to COVID-19 and how it might impact us over the next couple of years.