Tuesday, August 30, 2011

THE PARADOX OF WATER

While enjoying hours of delay at my O'Hare gate recently, I cracked open my book "Homesteading in the Badlands-1912." Attempting to fly somewhere these days and homesteading in the badlands of South Dakota seemed to have a great deal in common.

Water, of course, had and continues to have great involvement in the formation of the badlands. Originally the product of sea, river and stream deposits, then the carving and erosion by water and wind.

In 1912, the author of my book, Earnest Bormann, began homesteading at the age of 21 on a quarter section of land about 12 miles southwest of what is now Wall Drug, still the home of 5 cent coffee. Under the law at the time, a homesteader could acquire title to such a parcel if the person lived on the land and cultivated it.

The author's parcel comprised 80 acres of flat ground, which he cultivated with the help of his horse "Ike." The other 80 acres were badlands-peaks and gulches of moonscape that today help to make up the Badlands National Park. His house was an 8 foot by 12 foot tar paper shack.

Water in the badlands is an extremely scarce commodity. When found, generally it is alkali in nature and unfit to drink. The author found a good water spring in his 80 acre badlands in a deep crevice, one-half mile from his shack. He had to haul water containers up a steep peak by holding on to Ike's tail as the horse tried to scramble up the slippery slope. He then hauled the water on foot the one-half mile to his shack-in all sorts of weather.

Sometimes, water came to close, as in the form of three day blizzards in the winter. In fact, a late blizzard came in May that killed many cattle in the area, wiping out several local ranchers.

After homesteading for 18 months, the author acquired title to his 160 acres. He then rented his land and returned to his parents in eastern South Dakota. In 1948, he sold his homestead to an adjoining neighbor. With the money, he bought a 1949 Ford.

Water helped to make the badlands, helped to enable living there and helped to make that living difficult. For most in the United States today, drinking water is readily available by a twist of a faucet. But for millions in the world, water still is hauled on foot from great distances, and for everyone everywhere, water in the form of floods, snow and ice still can be difficult.

As I finished my book, my flight began boarding. On the last page, the author quoted a sign he saw in 1912: "Please do not ask any questions. If we knew anything we would not be here." Guess where I was going-the Badlands!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

WHAT IS WATER?

At least since 1805, when Gay-Lussac and Humboldt discovered that water is comprised of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, people have been trying to figure out exactly what is water. What we commonly know is that water can be a liquid, a solid, a gaseous vapor and even a supercritical fluid having properties of both a gas and a liquid.

But the discovery beat goes on. Recently, researchers at MIT have been examining the transition of water between two liquid states. According to MIT's press release, the lead author of a paper on their findings, Yang Zhang, stated that water is "probably the most weird substance on Earth."

The study found that water can be "supercooled" so that it remains a liquid well below the normal freezing temperature. Or, it can be "superheated" to well above the normal boiling temperature without boiling. "Normalization"-freezing or boiling at the normal temperatures requires a nucleation point, such as a bubble or ripple, to start the expected freezing or boiling.

The research appears to suggest that it may be possible to lower the transition points of the various states of water so as to protect animal and plant life as well as certain types of buildings and roads.

So, what is water? It can be in the sky and come down as rain, snow and hail; it can be in the air as fog; it can be on the ground as oceans, lakes, rivers, ponds; it can be in the ground as aquifers. It is in us and all other life; it makes our food; heats our homes; runs our industry; and puts out our fires. What is water? A gift.

Friday, August 5, 2011

SOCIAL ENGINEERING OF UTILITY RATES

The governing principle for water and wastewater utility rates is that rates should be based upon costs of service. These costs are to be assigned and recovered respectively from classes of customers who create such costs. Cross-subsidiztion of one class of customers by another is contrary to the cost of service concept. Well-established case law and AWWA Manual M-1 enunciate this ratemaking principle.

Social engineering of rates can occur when charges are based upon perceived social objectives and/or subsidization instead of costs of service. Recent media stories about federal government subsidization of ticket prices for flights to rural airports provide an example. According to the Wall Street Journal, taxpayers subsidize air service at 109 airports at a cost of $175 million per year. Allegedly, these subsidizes can be as much as $200 to $3,000 per ticket.

Now, it appears that federal social engineering may be entering utility ratemaking. In July, 2011, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) entered an order which apparently allows non-utility developers to construct segments of interstate electric transmission lines to connect remote wind and solar generators to the grid. The obvious purpose of the order is to promote wind and solar generation. FERC asserts that the costs of such new transmission lines are to be borne by utility customers who benefit. It is to be noted that these costs will not be created by utility customers but by developers and the wind and solar generators. Further, determination of who benefits from these costs can be questioned, particularly if the costs of wind and solar generation coupled with the new transmission costs are not competitive with other electric sources of supply. It also should be kept in mind that some jurisdictions may require electric utilities to purchase a portion of their supply as higher-priced wind/solar generation, which suggests that ultimate customers may be bearing no benefit.

There may be another consideration. Currently, some federal regulatory agencies appear to be extending rules and authority into areas where Congress has not spoken. Apparently, there was a Senate bill to socialize the costs of new electric transmission lines. After the Senate bill stalled, FERC initiated its regulatory proposal culminating in the July order. That order, therefore, seems to do what Congress refused to do.

The potential implications of social engineering for water and wastewater ratemaking are not wholly speculative. Simply stated, costs of service can be manipulated to be vulnerable to social "adjustments." Diligent utilities, and their customers, should remain vigilant in their application and acceptance of appropriate cost of service ratemaking.