Water Water Everywhere

Perhaps its the nice weather making me cruise around more on my bike, but the Portland Water District issue has gone from 'I hear rumblings of a ballot initiative' to full-blown 'My God, the lawn signs are everywhere!'.
It could also be that we're now just 43 days away from the May 20th ballot.

My intent in this post is not so much to be political but to use this issue-of-the-moment as a demonstration of the way I think about a lot of issues... and also, hopefully, to demistify what has become a complicated mess.

A lot of the arguments you hear are something like: "$X of water funds wasted on pet project Y" -or-"Rates set to rise X% next year, stop the rate increases" 

Both of these points are examples of a micro-focus perspective. We are talking about who controls ALL of the city's supply and waste-water infrastructure, some $15 billion dollars worth of assets. Compared to this grand scale, what the rate increase is next year or who mis-spent a few million dollars 3-years ago is simply small potatoes.

So lets zoom out and see what the proposed change to a Portland Public Water District really means. 

Currently: The Portland Water Bureau (PWB) is a part of the municipal government and is overseen by the elected members of the city council. The city's Bureau of Environmental Services controls wastewater treatment. PWB sells water wholesale to Tigard, Tualtin, and Beaverton.

Proposed: A Portland Public Water District (PPWD) is overseen by an elected but unpaid board of directors representing different zones of the city, and would control water supply and wastewater treatment.

Functionally there are a few differences. 

Separating the water board from the city council allows it to act independently. The independence of the board could be used to: increase rates; decrease rates; fund water-saving education programs; zealously protect the water supply in opposition to other city projects; fund a celebration of National Ice Cream month on July 19th; zealously guard corporate water interests in opposition to city priorities. Thus the change to an independent board is a neutral change in function, it can cut either way.

City Council members are highly visible and accountable... for everything all at once, you can't simultaneously vote for Dan Saltzman because you like his youth projects and against Dan Saltzman because you disagree with him on water policy. You only get one vote.

With the PPWD board you would be able to vote for candidates with a single issue frame -- in theory. In reality, that far down the ballot, neither you nor I would have heard of any of the candidates or know enough about 'the issues' and 'their stance' to make an informed decision; PPWD board members would be largely invisible. 

Where does the PPWD initiative come from? It is financed by the largest industrial users of water in the system. PPWD supporters often talk of taming rate increases so its not a stretch of the imagination to predict that a newly elected PPWD board would cut rates and necessarily cut spending.  

To add to the confusion there is a proposed People's Water Trust which is entirely unrelated to pipes and infrastructure. The proposed trust names present and future residents and local ecologies of Portland as beneficiaries of the trust (which includes all water resources). The City of Portland is named trustee and is charged with

• Providing water equitably and affordably
• Protecting trust assets through policy and legal actions
• Commissioning independent audits
• Avoiding conflicts of interest
• Ensuring transparency and public involvement
• Avoiding privatization 
• Demonstrating fulfillment of the above

So the debate over a Public Water District appears to be simple case of a few corporations with local facilities and huge water bills stirring a ruckus in order to lower their own water bills.

But lets zoom out once again and see that whats going on here in Portland is actually a symptom of a much larger national issue. 

Cities across the nation have aging water and sewer systems that are not only incompletely mapped but also past design-life, failing, and failing to protect our waterways from sewage-laden stormwater runoff.[1-A] [1-B] [1-C]

A huge amount of money (capital) is needed to repair and maintain our water systems. It is a daunting prospect, one which many cities have responded to by playing the avoid-and-ignore card. But as we see avoiding the necessary spending now only increases the infrastructure deficit. 

[2]

We know that putting off needed infrastructure spending actually increases total costs. [3] 

Another cost pressure on municipalities is the implementation of Phase II of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) as part of the federal Clean Water Act. In brief the EPA is coaxing cities to do more to clean up stormwater runoff. 

How does Portland measure up? Its infrastructure is commensurate to the city's age, which is to say much or it is ~80 years old. Projects of the 21st century have soberly acknowledged the need for better asset management and runoff control. 

The Big Pipe was completed in 2011, and bioswales continue to sprout all over the city. Sewage overflows into the Willamette and Columbia Rivers have been reduced from the rate of 50/yr to ~3/yr. Comparably sized metro areas like St. Louis, San Diego and Baltimore have only begun planning or recently started runoff reduction plans. 

In 2004 the PWB formed an Asset Management Group that worked to get its house in order enough to identify deficiencies in data gathering and management of its infrastructure. In '07 PWB developed an Asset Management Charter and committed itself to best practices in the field of asset management to optimize long term cost. These programs alone place Portland ahead of many other cities in the country. [4]

Still, routine maintenance suffers and the PWB has not followed through on many of its plans from '07.[4]

Rates have increased mostly because of increasing payments to service debt related to construction of The Big Pipe. PWB now spends 32% of its revenue servicing its debt, up from 18% in '07. [4]

By zooming out twice from day-to-day muck slinging we have gained the perspective to see the big picture: water rates are going up nationwide to pay for overdue maintenance and systems to protect our waterways from urban pollutants. 

Rates have gone up in Portland because we have already completed our stormwater runoff reduction plan and are starting to deal with antiquated pipes in need of replacement. This puts our city ahead of the curve, other cities will face the same issues and will also have to raise rates. In short we're doing well but need to recommit to maintenance objectives already laid out. 

Where does ballot measure 26-156 fit into Portland's needs? 

In my view replacing one group of elected officials with a different group of elected officials to oversee Portland's water system does nothing to prioritize routine and long-term maintenance of the ~$15 billion in assets at stake. It would impose a large switching cost as PWB becomes PPWD. 

Ballot Measure 26-156 did not come out of left field. It is a stems from a serious national issue, increasing water infrastructure and maintenance costs to deal with crumbling sewers and overdue EPA rules. 

Portland should be proud that our city has moved further than most other cities in dealing with these expensive issues. Rates have gone up but not without good reason. The debate over BM 26-156 is simply a distraction. With whatever energies we have to devote to water systems, we should recognize the challenge, be thankful that Portland's leaders have met the issues head-on over the past 15 years, and we should recommit to maintaining our water infrastructure.