Houblog

As in, iceberg dead ahead!

Lemer/Farb/Roberts assessment of City of Houston Finances (22 October 2009)

Bob Lemer has become known as a bit of a “disaster monger”, and has been about as welcome as a global warming skeptic at a Greenpeace convention. Unfortunately, he’s also correct, and he’s not pulling his punches.

The City of Houston is financially broke and it appears that the mayor who takes office in January 2010 may have to captain the City through bankruptcy procedures.

Well if that ain’t telling it like it is.

Ok, here is my non-accountant read on it: Yes, if we honestly ‘fess up to what the (out of date and UNaudited) books say, we are flat broke. As in, we have a negative net value. That’s not the same thing as bankruptcy though, and while he confuses the point deliberately, I think he’s doing it in good faith. Bob and his co-signers, Aubrey M. Farb and Tom Roberts, are trying desperately to turn the Titanic before we hit the iceberg.

I recommend the full read above, but if Accountant Math makes your head hurt, you may want to skim at least the first half. If that’s too hard for you, I have highlights for the really attention-impaired, presented somewhat out of order, below the fold.

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Go here, and read this article, all the way to the end. Especially if you’ve ever listened to a co-worker blathering on about hope and change, and thought, “no, I don’t want to start an argument or stand out…”

Implicit in the Left’s continuous attempts to exaggerate Obama’s perceived support is the belief that “a crowd draws a crowd” and that undecided voters will be drawn to the Obama camp if they think “everyone else” is supporting him. But is that an accurate assessment? Is there any evidence that it’s true?

Well, actually, yes.

And that evidence was collected fifty years ago.

Starting in 1951, Asch, a professor at Swarthmore College, ran a series of unusual experiments to generate a quantitative measurement of the subjective term “conformity.” The experiments, which many now consider somewhat unethical and a bit sadistic, went like this:

A volunteer was recruited to participate in a vision test. He was brought to a room with seven other volunteers who were also to take the same test, in a group. Little did the volunteer know, however, that his fellow “volunteers” were all confederates of the experimenter, and the test was not a vision test but a psychological torture session designed to elicit conformist behavior. The experimenter would then unveil a pair of displays, one showing a single black line, and the other showing three black lines of varying lengths. The volunteer is told to simply state which of the three lines most closely matches the length of the single line.

The volunteer, who was always placed in the second-to-last position, was only allowed to state his answer after he had heard most of the other faux-volunteers give their answers. For the first two rounds, these confederates were instructed to give the obviously correct answer; in each instance, the test subject would then also give the correct answer. But starting on the third round, the confederates, as instructed by Asch, intentionally gave a consistently wrong answer; the goal of the experiment was to see if the volunteer would “break” and also begin to chime in with the wrong answer as well. Most volunteers would resist for a few rounds, but eventually the majority would cave in at least part of the time and give the wrong answers in complete defiance of their own perceptions. Overall, the test subjects gave the wrong answers 36.8% of the time — an astonishing result.

Should you speak up? Should you speak out? Should you engage an Obamabot? Well, yes. Just have an escape route planned; they’re not all rational, when challenged, you know. For the sake of your fellows, (who will probably slink for the shadows, leaving you unsupported, the ingrates).

…the pressure to conform drops precipitously if the subject is aware of even a single fellow dissenter. All it takes is one person to shatter the facade of unanimity, and suddenly the number of conformist answers drop from around 33% to around 8%. With more dissenters, it drops even further.

Now as any of my longtime readers know (Hi, mom!), I wrote off the Republican party back in 2006 over pork and immigration. I may vote for its candidates, or I may vote Libertarian, but I don’t consider myself a member of either one. I’ve supported the Jacksonian Party, with a membership of one. (Or two.)

Next week, I will have more information on how to stand up, en masse, and refuse to conform. Stay tuned.

(Moved from the prior post, edited a bit for improved sarcasm.)

A pair of really stupid responses to a news story got under my skin earlier. I really don’t have a lot of patience for people who only know how to complain that professionals (about whose field they have not the slightest idea) have obviously screwed up. Somehow, the ability to navigate from Webster to Galveston by using a paper map, street signs, and their enormous brain power has made them experts in the field of disaster recovery. (Hint to out-of-towners: drive south on I-45. That’s it.) Obviously, if you place a dump truck in Tiki Island, it can get to the West End more quickly, right?

Theres a reason they say about the military “amatuers study tactics, professionals study logistics.” As an object lesson in that, we’re about to study the profession of Incident Control. Lets say you’re going to pre-position thousands of people for disaster recovery. To be “there” within hours, they’d have to be IN the disaster zone. (There where? Everywhere of course! But especially where I am!!)

This strikes me as unsafe.

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Well, Steven den Beste gave in to temptation and posted an article on the mess the Democrats have made of their nomination process. I started this as a letter back to him, but given its length and how it wanders around, I finally decided to just post it here, as an article.

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The following e-mail just appeared in my mailbox.

Joint Email to City of Houston Employees

City of Houston and HOPE Reach Tentative Agreement on Contract

We are pleased to announce that the City of Houston and the Houston Organization of Public Employees (HOPE) have reached a tentative agreement in contract negotiations. This agreement reflects our mutual commitment to delivering quality public services to all Houston residents while ensuring fair compensation for every city worker.

The proposed agreement runs for three years and takes effect after it has been ratified by HOPE members and approved by the Houston City Council. Highlights of the agreement include:

- Guaranteed raises for every year of the contract for municipal employees.

- Additional performance-based compensation based principally on Employee Performance Evaluations.

- A minimum wage of $10 an hour for every city worker by September 2009, with an immediate minimum of $9.50 an hour.

- A freeze on the percentage of health care premiums paid by employees.

The first step in making this historic agreement a reality begins with the important process of approval and ratification by city employees. From March 6 to March 20, HOPE will be holding informational meetings about the contract at worksites across the city. All municipal employees will be allowed 1 hour to attend these meetings to learn more about the contract. At the close of each meeting, voting will take place. Voting will also be held at the HOPE office. To view a complete schedule of sessions, click here

Sincerely,

Mayor Bill White
City of Houston

Norm Yen
President of HOPE

Ok, now down to the quibbling. (more…)

Today, the city council will be voting on whether to buy five blocks of land for nearly $16,000,000, give away a street, and swap away a piece of the city infrastructure in order to create a place where the Dynamo might build a stadium.

The Houston Chonicle chose to lead its print edition today with a headline story that Yao Ming is out for the season due to a fracture in his foot. The online edition does no better, with two stories about the Rodeo, one the headliner.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. The Houston Chronicle is part of the problem in Houston. We badly need an alternative news outlet, and the Chronicle Houston Press isn’t it.

UPDATE:
So here we are, almost 7 p.m in the evening. Take a look at what the Chronicle thinks is more important than the result of today’s council meeting:

I haven’t had much to say here in a while for various reasons, but I kinda figured I’d be back as soon as someone hit a hot button of mine. Well, I just had the displeasure of watching Channel 2 put on two of the most misleading bullshit stories (consecutively, I might add) since their hit piece on Jordy Tollet a while back. I mean, it’s really hard to respect a station that is so obviously the mouthpiece of a certain political clique as to attempt sloppy character assassinations on people not in the mayor’s good graces. Not that he’s in mine either, but do we really want a major media outlet playing games with the news?

Well, tonight they managed to really get on my bad side with their alleged news story about a City of Houston Public Works inspector being arrested for accepting bribes to leave people’s water on, instead of cutting it off. I don’t have any problem with them doing a story on it; I expect and would want them to run stories on the rooting out of corruption in public officials (although I wish they’d go after the more questionable things we see in property transactions.)

I don’t have a problem with them bringing out that the employee had a criminal record involving drugs and credit card fraud. This points out two things. First, that the city is having to scrape the bottom of the barrel, and then reach under it for the fungus, in order to find people to work for it. Low pay means low quality. Just ask Angleton. (Thanks, Channel 2, for a headline that will leave folks thinking it’s a Houston city employee.) We can lament that all we want, but it’s not going to change until we elect people who are serious about restoring the city’s governance to a semblance of sanity instead of lining their pockets with consulting contracts and prepping for higher office. (Bell, White, Garcia, Fraga, etc.) Second, it points out that either someone was asleep either in HR or the Public Works & Engineering Department, or the laws concerning employee records are seriously screwy.

You see, COH does a cursory background check for criminal history when it initially hires employees. Initially is the key word — you see, inspectors are not hired off the street. It’s considered a promotional position, and you have to have spent time as a meter reader, learning the ins and outs before being given more responsibility. (Exception: PW&E has used contractors to fill in the gaps, but even then prefers to use them in mundane meter reading duties prior to giving them more complex tasks.) So for someone with this background to have an inspector’s job, either Human Resources fell down on the job by not reviewing his record again, or the interview board in Public Works failed to do so, or because of some obscure law or another (I have no idea on this), either or both were prevented from reviewing or knowing about his criminal record again. Apparently no one thought it was a bad idea to put someone guilty of a crime involving commerce (credit card fraud) in charge of an action that involved a commercial transaction (you pay or no more service). This would be analogous to hiring pickpockets for security at a concert.

I should point out that interview panels are nothing more than an ad hoc group of harried supervisors/managers torn away from their daily responsibilities and workload, given little time to prepare, and just enough training to say that they’ve had some. The finer points of reviewing criminal records is not something they’re trained for. Yet if you put the responsibility for culling such applicants on paper shufflers in HR, how do you not end up (eventually) unjustly punishing someone who actually has changed their ways, is a good employee, and deserves a promotion to a better job?

Sometimes, there are no good answers. In this case it was clear that Channel 2 didn’t even want to ask questions. I hardly expect them to engage in a discussion like the above (it’s my job, after all, as a blogger, to deal in analysis and commentary), but I do expect them to engage in factual reporting. They failed to do this when they twice questioned what the City of Houston and PW&E thought it was doing by hiring this ex-con to go into people’s homes.

You see, they’re meter inspectors - not plumbing or home inspectors. City of Houston Water Inspectors generally do not go into customer homes and have few reasons to do so. Inspectors are there for one of two purposes: Inspect, test, or repair the meter/transmitter/box or turn water off/on. (Employees no longer collect payment in the field, due to the number of robberies). Inspectors are not plumbers, and the major plumbing companies would take a pretty dim view of Public Works encroaching on their livelihood by “dealing with water problems.” In the interests of full disclosure, I do have to point out that they do enter commercial buildings from time to time, or those which are split residential/commercial (and disputing whichever status they are assigned). This is not common. The News2 story would have you believing that inspectors enter people’s homes every day. Sheer sensationalism.

In their very next story, they repeat that error, when they discuss the latest NASA flap; anonymous allegations (though you won’t find that out without reading deep into the article on their website) that astronauts have been drunk while flying the space shuttle. It’s titled “Report Finds Heavy Alcohol Use By Astronauts Before Launch.” Only that’s not what the allegations actually say. . . it is true for certain values of “astronaut” and “flying” but if you dig deep into the text on the website, you’ll see something that wasn’t mentioned in the article on TV:

The Aviation Week report doesn’t make clear when the alleged incidents occurred, nor does it say whether the intoxication involved crew members who have no role in flying the shuttle or whether it was the pilot and commander…..Aviation Week said the report citing drunkenness does not deal directly with Nowak or mention any other astronaut by name.

So what we have is a TV station reporting that a magazine is reporting that there are anonymous reports that anonymous crew members who may or may not have been actually flying the shuttle while drunk? Wait, let’s take a closer look at the beginning of the article:

At least twice, astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so drunk they posed a flight-safety risk, an aviation weekly reported Thursday, citing a special panel studying astronaut health.

The independent panel also found “heavy use of alcohol” before launch that was within the standard 12-hour “bottle-to-throttle” rule, according to Aviation Week & Space Technology, which reported the finding on its Web site.

So, unidentified crew members, who may or may not be the actual commander and co-pilot were twice allowed to go on a mission while drunk, and some unknown number (characterized as “heavy”) committed technical infractions by imbibing within 12 hours of launch? (Like maybe, I dunno, toasting the mission?)

Not to defend such stupid behavior and NASA asshattery, but does anyone else see a problem with this sort of sensationalism in news reporting? The ratings-hungry maniacs at News2 would have you believe that NASA is putting drunken revelers in charge of the Shuttle. Thank you, Channel 2, for reminding me why I don’t trust the media in this city.

blogHOUSTON reader “Royko” (a.k.a. Tom Bazan) was kind enough to upload the results of his constant TPIA requests made to the City of Houston and Metro for sales tax revenue. Because numbers make the eyes glaze over, here is his data in a more visual format. It’s pretty clear that the Mayor should not be having problems finding money for the police department. (Click on the chart for full size.)

I’m also working on a chart for the Metro sales taxes, but I will have to get some questions answered first.

In prior segments of this series, I’ve hinted that the new “heavy trash pickup fee” (which we should really be calling the “garbage service tax”) may be impossible to administer fairly. Today, I’ll discuss why, but be warned–there’s a lot of parenthetical comments coming because there are so many interrelated side issues, it’s not funny. Well that, and Office Depot had a sale on punctuation marks.

As with most such garbage programs, the proposal in Houston is to add a flat fee to “everyone’s” water bills, regardless of whether they actually use the heavy trash or recycling services. The problem is, that oft-quoted “30% of users” figure refers to garbage service users. It doesn’t refer to utility service users, and there is a difference between the two groups. It’s especially stark here in Houston, because we have gone on for so long with the two services completely separate. This isn’t just a financial issue; it’s built into the very infrastructure of both Departments, and even subtly, our ordinances. I’m not talking about things like authorization for the fee; I’m talking about problems with implementing it.

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A while back, in the discussions over at blogHouston’s forums, we were having a discussion about the garbage tax, and I made a response to correct the mistaken impression of another reader that we were already paying for garbage with our water bills. While blogHouston has a much larger readership than Houblog (even when I’m writing here regularly), it occurs to me that it was too informative a piece of writing to remain buried in the forums where I feel certain not all readers go. So I have copied the response here below for anyone who may have missed it.

Before the Mayor effectively disconnected the cost / rate equation, the water bill had zilch to do with the solid waste. Now it has zilch to do with anything. The accounting is fairly technical, but the way it’s divided is simple: Solid Waste gets funded from tax revenue every year, whereas Public Utilities is funded from user revenue. The two funds don’t mix at that level. I’ll leave aside what happens when the Council loots any surplus, as happened under Brown. Such funds [go into the General Fund, and] are not directly transferred to any other Department, and there is no correlation between the amount of utility revenue and Solid Waste budget anyway.

What do I mean by disconnect? The way it was supposed to work is that every year, the department would examine the bond service, the cost of operating the system, the labor, and all the etceteras, to determine how much money needed to be raised on an annual basis. Multi-year projections, going forward, blah, blah, blah. However, owing to the asinine design of the department, only the capital costs, debt service, and operation of the Public Utilities Division got counted on the costs side. Guess what got left out? Billing. The costs of the Utility Customer Service Branch, if not all of Resource Management, got omitted from the equation. So, on the surface, COH was running a slight profit on utilities — in reality it was probably running a deficit! A Jefferson Wells audit calculated the per-account cost of administration and billing to be around $2.30 per month. This would mean about $1,000,000 per month, easy.

So in 2004, when the rates were finally increased after 11 years, the Financial Management section of Resource Management proposed a $2.35 fee to be added to the sewer bills of all customer accounts, in order to pay for those costs. At which point the infighting started — to put it bluntly, this would cause one section to be singled out publicly. It made zero sense anyway — if you’re going to split out administrative costs, then do it for the debt service, the treatment costs, the repair and maintenance costs, etc. Furthermore, why add the cost to the sewer? There’s thousands of accounts that have only water, with no sewer (industrial supply, sprinkler systems, fountains, etc.) Yet their administrative cost is virtually the same.

So what happened? Take a gander at this. Look at single and multi-family sewer rates. That’s the fee, reduced to $1.00, with three years of automatic increases added. And businesses don’t pay it. In fact, nobody pays it but homeowners and apartment complexes. If the definition of a compromise is, “a bad solution that pleases no one,” then I think this fits.

Since 2005, the rates automatically increase by the amount of inflation in the tri-county metro area. What this means is that the actual costs of running the department no longer matter. They can be be higher, they can be lower, they can be unchanged. But whatever the overall rate of inflation is according to the U.S. Dept. of Labor, that is how much the bills will increase. And now that I think of it, is this a violation of the city charter, since it doesn’t seem to fit the (non-technical/legal) description of an Enterprise Fund? And if it is a violation of the charter, will the Mayor break the rate structure as fast as he breaks some leases?

I’d just like to add that, while searching for additional links to add to this post, I looked through the City Controller’s site, and noticed several curious things. Firstly, the Consolidated Annual Financial Report for FY 2006, which ended nine months ago on June 30th, is not on the website. The latest is 2005. Second, you’d think that if the site has multiple pages to explain about the Controller’s office, its function, and its history, it could find space for a page of basic information on the city budget, and how it is organized. Some quick facts, maybe even definitions of things like “Enterprise Fund” and so on. Why, schoolkids could use it for civics assignments (if they still have such a class, and it hasn’t been replaced with “How to Hate America” and “Western Civilization is Evil” lessons). Also, there’s been some very interesting audits released recently. Not that we’ve heard much about them in the press…

Unsurprisingly, the Houston Chronicle came out today with an editorial in favor of the “Waste Reduction” fee. No one should be surprised by that; the Chronicle has never met a bit of social engineering it didn’t like. Needless to say, it heaped praise upon the idea’s friends.

Even so, council members including the conservative-leaning Toni Lawrence seemed to quickly grasp the fee’s role in keeping other city services free and accessible. It’s a promising sign that constituents also can put the fee in its proper context.

What "free and accessible" services are those pray tell? The understaffed police department and the fire department? One wonders how much longer those will remain free. Just what is this “context?” (And can you call a tilt that small a “lean?” I guess you can if you’re indulging in Chronicle Newspeak.) But the Orwellian re-definition of “free” and "service" doesnt’ stop there.

The other proposals also are fair — if far less controversial. The panel decided against including a “user fee” for weekly trash pickup. That makes Houston almost unique among major Texas cities, most of which attach that fee to homeowners’ water bills. Heavy trash pickup — a lumbering, wasteful process that dispatches trucks monthly to serve 30 percent of city households —

Stop. Right. There.

Could someone please explain to me how it is "fair" to charge ALL Houston households for a service that only supposedly 30% use? If this is a fee on heavy trash pickup, shouldn’t the fee be charged to people using the service? The mayor, his task force, and the Chronicle want to make it sound like these 30% of users are the problem, yet then they want to charge everyone that receives any city garbage service (provided they get a water bill, anyway), whether they produce heavy trash pickup or not. Could someone explain to me how this is not a universal garbage fee? The mayor’s answer seems to be (paraphrasing here): “Because it’s not labeled as such. We’re calling it a heavy trash reduction fee.”

Labels do not a reality make. I can paint myself in blackface and start singing "Mammy," but I bet calling myself the greatest black musician since B.B. King isn’t going to keep the NAACP off my lilly-white ass. Just ask Michael Richards. Unfortunately, the Houston Chronicle, the task force, Controller Annise Parker, Mayor Bill White, and “conservative-leaning” Toni Lawrence do not appear to be functioning in the same reality as the rest of us. To continue their propagandizing:

– would be reformed in two sensible ways. Gradually, over several years, scheduled pickups would drop to twice annually. Residents, however, could call in extra pickup requests for a small cost.

Ah, so we’re going to charge everyone we can, and then charge the real users too. Which really gives the show away about the $42 fee actually being a universal garbage service fee, not a heavy trash fee, doesn’t it? Only, since they’re not calling it a garbage fee, they can come back in a few years and impose something else with that name too, can’t they? If you think not, look at all the weird fees on your electric and phone bills. Now that’s the art of inventive fee charges raised to the professional level of the private sector. (And some folks wonder why I sneer at “privatization” of government functions. People, businesses have to pay a fair wage and make a profit. The city doesn’t have to do either.)

In the balance of “cost vs. service” lies the biggest problem with this plan, in two respects. In the first place, only a hardcore “social engineer” is going to be stupid enough to want to pay more to get less service. Maybe that “engineer” can afford it, but I’ll bet you a sixty-year-old grandmother with nothing but $819 a month in Social Security can’t. (That’s the poverty level for 1 person.) Hey, remember, according to some folks, 1 in five children in Houston live in poverty! Let’s burden their guardians with more fees. After all, those damn poverty-laden households generate tons and tons of heavy trash every year–they can buy one less pack of cigarettes a month, can’t they? Make them pay! What’s controversial about that?

But the second half of the problem is the real killer: Reducing the scheduled pickups will not reduce the amount of heavy trash produced in Houston. It will however, cause the amount of illegal dumping to skyrocket. We already ticket people for putting out heavy trash one day early. What is going to happen when someone has a load to be disposed of, and it’s three months until the next pickup? It’s going to get dumped in the nearest vacant lot or on a dead-end street. "But don’t worry," proponents say, "the fee will pay for extra enforcement!" So could someone explain how that squares with this?

The projected savings for Houston? $14 million a year.

How much of the savings is going to be eaten by the need for extra enforcement? And how much good will that extra enforcement be? My bet: zero. The only way to really nail a dumper is to catch them in the act. Is Chief Hurtt going to suggest cameras on every vacant lot next?

Let me ask this: Does anyone think it’s strange that the director of the Solid Waste Department picked now to retire? There appears to be no pressing family or medical reason for him to depart at this moment. And as the director of Solid Waste, Thomas “Buck” Buchanan is the natural point man for any proposal to change the ordinances, especially if Mayor Bill wanted to avoid being in the line of fire of a sure-to-be unpopular proposal. Chief Hurtt sure takes it on the chin for red-light cameras, doesn’t he? Go read Matt’s interview of the departing director. Notice how he sidesteps the question on the proposals, while still appearing to support the mayor.

In my opinion, the big news is not what all the noise is being made about. The code of ordinances that defines who is eligible for city solid waste services really hasn’t been modified for decades. . . .The real news is that the task force has devised a recommendation to modify the code of ordinances so that 10,000 or more customers that are not eligible for service will be receiving service from the city.

He sticks to the administrative side of the issue and says nothing about how the fee and related proposals will improve Houston’s handling of solid waste. People, refusing to talk about the “improvements” to recycling and solid waste pickup is a HUGE omission, one that this gentleman is too experienced to make by accident. I thought his absence from the front lines of the publicity for this proposal was odd, but it shouldn’t take anyone with a city employee’s experience in figuring out the city’s inner workings to realize that this means the state of Denmark is having problems with rottenness once again.

The way to reduce illegal dumping is to stop making it so difficult to dispose of garbage in the first place. (Granted, a lot of this is under the EPA’s control; which is why you can’t just drive your truck to the landfill anymore and toss stuff in. Who knows what would end up in there?) All this fee and service reduction is going to accomplish is to trash up our neighborhoods, while enabling the mayor to shift more money to useless bike trails. And I think Col. Buchanan knows that. But like a good soldier, he’s not going to publicly embarrass his commander; he’s going to let the commander pick someone in line with his philosophy.

I guess I’m not a good soldier.

Col. Buchanan makes a good point though; probably the only good part about this set of proposals is that it tries to bring some order to a chaotic area that hasn’t been examined in over 40 years. Simply put, the ordinances and codes that worked for a city of a half-million four decades ago do not work for the fourth-largest city in the U.S., especially given the changes in our society. There’s a lot of things that are creaking along, with the bureaucracy trying to patch over them, often being whipsawed by contradictory directives from successive administrations. Many city ordinances need to be given a comprehensive review and updated to cope with 21st century technologies and trends. (Public Works was also in the middle of such a project, but it has been “delayed” by the current proposals, and my gut feeling is it won’t get done this year due to the controversy.)

The task force also found a way to dampen escalating disputes about who is eligible for free trash pickup and not receiving it, and vice versa. City policy is clear: eligible residences must face a city street. But confusion has ballooned along with the densely-platted townhouse developments city-wide, in which some units face the street — and get trash pickup — and their inward-facing neighbors do not.

But, of course, those inward facing neighbors will still get charged $21 per semi-annual heavy trash pickup, won’t they? I can confidently say that as the projected revenue numbers stand right now, no one has made a count of which townhomes do not face the street, and subtracted them from the revenue. I’m not even sure if the proposal exempts non-served properties from the fees.

And that thought will lead us to part 3 of this series, in which I examine the biggest flaw in this entire scheme: administering it. I’m sure the water department is looking forward to having to keep track of which properties are eligible and which aren’t….

"Oh, don’t worry, that’s Solid Waste’s job."

"OK, so then you’re saying Solid Waste is going to keep track of all 440,000 Public Works utility account numbers and which properties they serve, so they can correctly say "charge these accounts, but not those."

"But! But! They do it in all the other cities, don’t they?"

"Not exactly…."

See you in a few days for part 3.

Rorschach sent me a link to an ABCNews.com story about how the big cities in the northeast are facing a serious breakdown in their potable (i.e.: drinking) water delivery systems. Seems that they’re getting old and crumbling, leading to some serious water leaks. New York probably has the worst. Bear in mind when you read this, that NYC has to draw water from hundreds of miles away, incuding resivoirs in the Catskills and the Delaware river, through huge pipelines, 40+ feet across.

The oldest, largest cities in the country — Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, New York — are all showing signs that their distribution systems are in need of repair, said Eric Goldstein, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental group.

In New York City, for example, the biggest leak in its system loses 1 billion gallons of water a month, he said.

Frankly, someone’s got to be misplacing a decimal point. I remember seeing an episode of 60 Minutes (back when it did respectable TV news journalism), in which an inspector was fighting an uphill battle against laziness and shoddy workmanship in the new lines. I would have to assume that the leak is somehwere in those lines, which supply raw water to the city’s treatment plants; anything else would result in half of Manhatten washing away. There are 1440 minutes in a month, which means that the leak would be losing nearly 700,000 gallons per minute. That might be possible if one of the major supply lines is breached, right next to a river that can accept the flow….

Their biggest problem is that they’re not replacing lines fast enough. According to this article, NYC is replacing only forty miles of water main per year. I don’t know how many they have, but bear in mind that Houston, a city smaller in population, but much less dense, has over six thousand miles of mains.

The overall health of our utility system is an issue I’ve kept a bit of an eye on over the years, because it impacts the health of Houstonians in general.

EPA rules require that water leaving a city’s water plant be tested for microorganisms like cryptosporidium and legionella that thrive in degraded water systems. (The) EPA also requires tests for a slew of other contaminants, including lead, copper and arsenic, which can lead to any number of gastrointestinal or other illnesses.

But once water has been purged of such impurities, different ones can enter the water supply as it courses through miles of old pipe.

“Investigations conducted in the last five years suggest that a substantial proportion of waterborne disease outbreaks, both microbial and chemical, is attributable to problems within distribution systems,” the National Research Council said in a study for the Environmental Protection Agency released in Decembe

Such was the cause of a lawsuit by some Houston homeowners, alledging that the high incidence of cancer in their neighborhood was caused by broken water lines running through a hazardous area containing toxic waste. They failed in their lawsuit only because while they could prove that lines had broken, and contaminants had entered the system, they coulndn’t prove how much, on which occasions, and establsih a direct causal link between specific breaks and their increased cancer. For what it’s worth, water used in my household is filtered; I generally will no longer drink plain tap water straight from the faucet.

Fixing this problem is going to be expensive, nationally.

“We estimate in the next 20 to 30 years water utilities will have to invest $250 to $350 billion just to replace the pipes that are in the ground today,” said Jack Hossbuhr, executive director of the American Water Works Association, the industry’s trade group.

How does Houston fare? I can’t claim to have a lot of inside information, but I’d say I’m a very well-informed layman at the minimum. The summary: we have some minor problems now, and will be facing increasing problems in the next 20-30 years, I think, but not a total system collapse — if we continue to spend steadily on maintenance and line replacement each year. If we get another Mayor Brown slashing spending on both, all bets are off. The biggest headache over the next generation: older inner-loop neighborhoods (especially minority) and the southwest side. A lot of the city’s infrastructure on the SW side was built in the 60’s, and I would assume its estimated lifespan to be somewhere in the range of a half-century to 75 years. I’m not really certain; I can’t find any projections on it. Overall though, I don’t see us as having near the issues of the NE cities; for one thing, our system is a lot younger than theirs — parts of which are well over 100 years old. We’ve also been aggressive about rebuilding and upgrading the system (at least in non-minority neighborhoods…) so most neighborhoods are supplied by water mains built within the last 20-30 years, even if the smaller distribution mains within those neighborhoods are older. The mandated switch to surface water has also impacted our system. Most of our main trunk lines from the new treatment facilities are only 25 years old (and in some cases, less than five).

Our primary disadvantage is that we’re spread out, meaning that for a city of our population we have a huge amount of pipeline; six thousand miles of it, as I said. When we do have to replace it, it’s going to be a lot to do, which is why constantly doing some replacement is crucial. That brings us to our second major disadvantage: the lack of maintenance starting in the Brown years. It only takes a few years of slacking for the problems to snowball; in drought conditions that occurred during his administration, we had 1500-2200 leaks on report. That doesn’t even include the collapsing sewer system, which was blamed on “cold weather.” Having atrophied the city work force, and faced with an angry public, the last years of his tenure were marked by increasing the amount of work farmed out to contractors; the city now keeps several of them on retainer and dispatches them to problems almost as if they were city repair crews. The exception to this is the Kingwood area, which has been wholly contracted out — to Severn Trent. (I seem to recall that one of the reasons we annexed them was to “offer” them city services. Doesn’t contracting those services out suggest the city couldn’t make good on that “offer” to Kingwood?) Whether or not this has been enough to make up the difference, I am not certain, but it appears to be so for now.

What I don’t have access to is information on the average age of the system; how much of it is how old, and so on. The older it gets, the more water we lose, and the more contaminents that enter the lines–or sometimes, the more the old lines contaminate the water themselves, with rust. I can say that the amount of lost water in Houston ran around 11-15% a decade ago, with spikes of up to 18% in drought conditions. “Lost water” is a lot more complicated subject than it seems, as by AWWA definition, it includes all water not sold. This means city facility use, firefighting, free giveaways (such as to the Zoo Development Corporation, which doesn’t have to pay for any water used at the zoo for fifty years), flushing lines, theft, leakage, and administrative error.) That’s actually not too bad; Philly, which takes the subject much more seriously, was routinely losing about 17-21% at that time. Houston, with its “plentiful” water, is not as rigorous in pursuing this subject, and doesn’t even track some categories. It’s a problem with interdepartmental cooperation, and isn’t wholly within PW&E’s control.

We’ve been blessed since the Lanier administration with a strong series of PW&E chiefs who were nuts & bolts guys, and more interested in getting & keeping the city’s house in order than in poltics and graft. That was not true under Whitmire, with two caveats; I can’t point to anyone at the top I know was bad (though some middle and lower managerial ranks barely escaped prosecution), and the housecleaning did start in her last term, when it became obvious how badly the Utilities Group had been mis-managed. For a while, the water and sewer divisions were spun off into their own department, which gave Director Fredrick Perrenot time to start the cleanup. My take on him is that he was not a bad Director, but not much better than middling; interested in his own advancement, and willing to play politics to get it. Then James Schindewolf came back on board with Lanier, at which point Public Utilities was reunited with PW&E, and Perrenot became second fiddle. JS concentrated on both training and system infrastructure, when he wasn’t busy running the city for Lanier. Early on, he paid lip service to the Whitmire administration’s plan to reach as far east as Toledo Bend for future water supplies, but that plan got quietly swept under the rug when it was clear there was no backing in Austin for it. Then things backslid badly under Brown, who brought Perrenot back — until he had to throw him to the wolves after several years of slashed budgets and no maintenance blew up in his face during 2000-2001. Loyally carrying out the orders of his master to chop spending and staffing had left Fredrick with no choice but to fall on his sword when ordered to do so. (Edit: Argh. King was the director under Brown who had to retire, Perrenot had a subordinate position. I think he was in charge of the “Utilities Group” in PW&E — hence the confusion.)

PW&E’s current director, Michael Marcotte, seems to be adequate, but is evidently much more of a manager than an engineer. (Although, for the record, he is a P.E. and D.D.E.) Beset by the loss of a major portion of its institutional talent, he may be exactly what the department needs when it needs it. His insistance on what is called the Continuous Management Improvement process has paid dividends with a department that is much more process-oriented than before. Unfortunately, much of his time has been taken in the last year or two with sorting out the mess in Code Enforcement, so I have no idea if he’s been able to watch the long-term strategic situation. Only time will tell us whether another nuts-and-bolts engineer will be needed to ensure the health of Houston’s water supply in the 21st century, but I can say for certain that future directors will not lack for the information necessary to make decisons. Hopefully, they’ll still have a few employees left to locate and analyze it.

The Municipal Channel (a.k.a. Administration Propaganda Station) has an exciting slate of programs for us all this month. Whoo-weeee, I might have to pass up on the Super Bowl to watch these. Might even have to pass up on the Super Bowl commercials.

Mayor’s State of the City Address — 2007 promises to be another exciting year in Houston. Find out what’s in store for our great city in the New Year as the Municipal Channel brings you the Mayor’s annual address from the Hilton-Americas Hotel.

Summary Translation: “Dear Citizen, in 2007 we will have more bike trails, more pork and debt forgiveness for developers, more acronyms, more red-light cameras, fewer police and a new city park for the existence-challenged!”

City News Update — Catch the news and latest Houston happenings on this edition with Host Carol Herrera. Among this month’s stories are the affects of the new Texas Legislative session on Houston, Project Houston Hope, and the highly anticipated Houston Rodeo. Airing Fridays.

Stories you won’t see: The final fate of the Bonusgate Four, an examination of how the city managed to end up with two subordinated liens on hotels and no money, a close examination of the automated meter reading program, a frank discussion of the merits of putting rail down Richmond, and any examination of the Mayor’s plan to shovel money to an old buddy for a wind generation facility in south Texas. Oh and by the way, in this context, it’s Effects, Effects, dammit!

CIP Meetings - Tune in as citizens get involved and offer their suggestions for improvements in their community. Watch the “Capital Improvement Plan” meetings, beginning in January.

The best cure for insomina ever invented! Until you realize most of the citizens are the not exactly representative of your neighborhood. (Developers and superneighborhood board members rarely are.) And you realize it’s your tax money they’re laconically blowing to the tune of tens of millions. Blasé about big bucks? Anyway, after realizing that, good luck ever sleeping again.

Money Matters — Dealing with downtown parking and parking meters can be a real headache…but help is on the way! Join City Controller Annise Parker and guest Liliana Rambo as they discuss the new parking meter technology that’s invading our city. Mondays, in January.

Aaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Oh please, make it stop! *gasp!* Parking meter technology “invading” the city! Oh yes , that’s how we feel about a lot of the things the Mayor is bringing to town. Parking meters, red-light cameras, Phoenix police chiefs, more fees…. It’s an invasion all right, sort of like the Huns coming over the walls, no? Yes?

Volunteer Journal — Be a part of the largest volunteer tree planting party in the history of Houston - Arbor Day 2007! Get the scoop from Host Walter Black as he discusses “The Big Dig Project” with his guests from the Parks and Recreation Department and Trees for Houston.

I can’t believe they actually had the nerve to use that moniker, considering how good of a year 2006 was for the other big dig! Meanwhile, the current is leaking and the clock is ticking on the rebar in I-45…

Houston Airports Today — Witness the dare-devil aviation acrobats, party with the stars, sing along with famous musicians, and find out what’s hot when it comes to air travel. Go behind the scenes of the Houston Airport System as we revisit the best of “Houston Airports Today” in a special re-mix 2006 episode. There’s a seat saved for you.

What they’re not telling you:
1. That seat is in a Yellow Cab, not the taxi of your choice.
2. The show is a “re-mix” because all the good audio-visual people got hired by Metro to work on their new blog.

The Municipal Channel keeps you in the loop 24 hours, 7 days a week. Log on to our website at www.houstonmunicipalchannel.org to check the show times of these and other new and exciting programs. We care about Houston communities!

Somebody look at the CAFR and tell us what Mr. Goebbel’s budget is, willya?

“I for one, welcome our new programmer overlords.”

Via Instapundit and Slashdot, this news from the National Institute of Science and Technology:

“Paperless electronic voting machines ‘cannot be made secure’ [pdf] according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In the most sweeping condemnation of voting machines issued by any federal agency, NIST echoes what critics have been saying all along, that due to the lack of verifiability, ‘a single programmer could rig a major election.’ Rather than adding printers, though, NIST endorses the hand-marked optical-scan system as the most reliable.”

Already done with my civic duty. I can definately say that my choices were very simple. Since I wrote off the Republicans and despise the Democrats, my choice for every race was simple: I voted a straight Libertarian ticket. They’re not the Jacksonian party, but they’ll do until we get one. Or maybe we should just go take over the Libertarians?