THE BEACHES ARE CLOSED

As depicted in the painting pictured above, nothing speaks more of summer than the warm sands of beaches.*  They serve vital recreational and social purposes, such as for swimming, picnicing and plain sunburning.

However, beaches also serve a less romantic purpose.  They provide essential barriers between advancing waves and currents of water and vulnerable adjoining land so as to mitigate erosion.

Unfortunately, beaches have been closing--in effect disappearing-- in two ways.  First, this year several local governments--Chicago, for example-- have prohibited beachgoers as an assumed measure to limit the spread of Covid-19.  The sands have remained naked of footprints.

Second, rising water levels such as in the case of Lake Michigan, coupled with more intense storm driven winds, have caused sand to migrate from beaches.  As a result of diminishment of beaches as barriers to wave and current water action, adjoining bluffs have been eroding and houses have been tumbling into water.

Much attention has been given to protection of surface water sources of water supply.  Perhaps, more attention may be required to the protection and restoration of beaches adjacent to the surface waters.  As beaches diminish, so may their purposes.

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*Painting by George Barrel (1923-2003), Oil, 24"x36", Available for purchase, $550, at Odana Antique Center, Booth 33, Madison, WI

© Daniel J. Kucera 2020                                                                                                 

THE EARTH IN HOT WATER?

The asteroid that crashed into the Yucatan Peninsula over 60 million years ago apparently did more than liquidate dinosaurs. According to a recently published report, scientists now believe that the impact which created the Chicxulub crater also superheated groundwater under the crater, plunging the Earth's crust into hot water for one or two million years.* Hydrothermal systems can be created when molten rock heats water in the crust. The report suggests water initially heated to over 300 degrees C, and eventually cooled to about 90 degrees C.

The report suggests the possibility that hydrothermal systems might create habitats for microbial life, including the first life on Earth. Bt analogy, some Yellowstone hot pools evidence such life.

It can be noted that "hot water" can exhibit different meanings. For example, to be in hot water " is to be in or get into a difficult situation in which you are in danger of being criticized or punished." (Cambridge Dictionary Or, "I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean." (G.K. Chesterton)

Given the current conditions and events in the world today, one might easily conclude that the Earth continues to be in hot water.

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*Gramling. "Impact Left Earth's Crust
In Hot Water", Science News, July 4,18
2020, p. 10

© Daniel J. Kucera 2020

MOON LIQUIDITY

Hey, Water Fans! There's going to be a complete water cycle on the Moon, soon.

First, NASA has announced that it is going to explore the Moon for fresh water to support humans living on the Moon. In late 2023, it plans to launch a rover, referred to as VIPER, to the south pole of the Moon. It "will roam several miles and use its four science instruments to sample various soil environments in search of water ice. Its survey will help pave the way for a new era of human missions to the lunar surface and will bring us closer to developing a sustainable, long-term robotic and human presence on the Moon..." It is expected to find locations of water that can be harvested to enable extended human expeditions.*

To complete the water cycle, according to a recent published report, researchers believe that cement can be made from lunar soil and human urine.** Water ordinarily is needed to make cement. With probable limited water resources on the Moon, human urine may be able to be a workable substitute.

So, future human Moon residents may have water available for living and use resulting urine to build their houses and other cement infrastructure.

Yes, Dorothy, there is a yellow brick road--not in Kansas or OZ, but on the Moon.


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*NASA Release 20-063, June 11, 2020

**Grossman, "Astronauts Could Use Their
Urine To Make Cement", Science News,
June 20, 2020, p.4

© 2020 Daniel J. Kucera

CAN RATEMAKING ENHANCE WATER UTILITY SERVICE?

Under well-established ratemaking principles, the primary objective of water rates is to recover the costs incurred to provide water service to a utility's customers. In practice, however, this objective can become overlooked or disregarded. For example, unregulated municipal-owned water utilities often hesitate to raise rates to cover costs of service for political or or reasons. Regulatory agencies often deny recovery of certain costs for various reasons, or lower allowed rates of return on rate base.

Provision of adequate water service involves more than recovery of current operating expense and use of depreciating infrastructure acquired at historic original cost. It is not a steady state photograph of cost Rather, provision of water service involves a dynamic and ever-changing scenario of cost. For example, today water utilities are exposed to a moving target of environmental regulatory compliance, increasingly more serious security risks and vulnerabilities, the necessity to replace basic infrastructure having expired useful lives, and diminishing sources of supply, among other things.

Statutes, regulations and insufficient rates that only cover at best some historic operating costs do not, and cannot, mitigate the growing risk costs being experienced by water utilities. However, perhaps creative and anticipatory ratemaking can. Determination of rates, whether by a municipal-owned system or a regulated system can seek to look beyond current or historic operating expense recovery. For example, rates could be set based upon estimated costs in a future test year that can take into consideration costs to be incurred to deal with anticipated risks. Or, rates could be determined to fund reserves in addition to operating costs, reserves in particular related to infrastructure replacement. Rates could be established that include automatic adjustment clauses for increases in certain costs. Finally, rates could be determined so as to encourage or facilitate possible consolidation of smaller systems to achieve economies of scale or public-private partnerships.

Perceptive ratemaking not only may benefit a utility. It may also benefit customers with continued assurance of adequate water service.


© Daniel J. Kucera 2020

ANXIETY

It goes without saying, but still worth saying, that COVID-19 has created unprecedented anxieties on all levels of society and in all world societies. The pandemic offers no exception or reprieve to water utilities and their obligation to provide safe and adequate water to their customers no matter what. There are no furloughs, or quarantines, or shelter in place in homes for water operations and their operators.

A prime anxiety facing water utilities today is concern over staff. How do you keep staff safe and what do you if they become ill? Many water utilities generally do not have a surplus of personnel, particularly qualified or specialized personnel available to replace a key employee who becomes ill with the virus. Utility personnel are not necessarily fungible, particularly when certain positions are licensed or require expertise such as accounting or engineering.

COVID-19 also can create financial anxiety for water utilities. When customers become unemployed, or businesses become shuttered, water bills tend not to be paid on time or at all. Obviously, revenue shortfalls can adversely impact a utility, particularly a smaller one, hindering the ability to pay employees and bills. Revenue shortfalls also create the risk of default on debt obligations, such as revenue bonds.

Anxieties, however, can offer a learning experience for the future. For example, a water utility may be able to negotiate a mutual assistance agreement with a nearby utility. In the event that one party suffers an employee on leave with illness, it may be able "borrow" an employee from the other utility even part-time to replace the missing staff member. Anxiety over financial concerns demonstrates the importance of creating financial reserves. The "rainy days" for which reserves are created are not just for replacement of worn widgets. They can help mitigate unfavorable operating climates.


© 2020 Daniel J. Kucera

RIGHTS

We have rights. What is a "right." A precise definition can be elusive and may require a journey into the mysteries of philosophical thought. However, a rough, simplistic definition might be a right is an entitlement to something; for example, a freedom or a protection against interference with a freedom.

Perhaps, the best definition is by examples; and the most obvious example is the Bill of Rights, comprising the ten first amendments to the U.S. Constitution. In particular, the First through Fifth Amendments illustrate such prominent rights as freedom of speech and due process.

However, less familiar, but not less important, is the Ninth Amendment, which states:

"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

What are these "other rights"? Perhaps the Declaration of Independence can suggest an answer in this passage:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." In addition, "other rights" may include rights created or recognized in federal and state statutes and regulations, state constitutions and court opinions.

Among other things, water utilities should be aware of the need to consider and respond to how rights may affect their operations.


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© 2020 Daniel J. Kucera

TO GO OR NOT TO GO? WHERE, IS THE QUESTION

For a long time, there has been no question. Public toilet facilities have been identified by signage as either "men" or "women", based upon physicality. However, more recently, culture and laws have dictated a more complicated scenario. Facilities now are to be identified on a gender neutral basis. For example, appropriate signage can be "restroom", "bathroom", "washroom" and the like. Choices can be complicated. For example, one does not go to a public restroom to rest, to a bathroom to bathe or to a washroom merely to wash. More importantly, one does not know who one might meet in such a room, making secure door locks a must.

One is reminded of far earlier times when toilet facilities were called out houses, for good reason, as they usually were little wooden shacks located some distance from living quarters to as to assure uncomfortable winter weather walks in the middle of the night. Our family cottage had such an outhouse, a two hole one. I often wondered why it had two holes, side by side, as I did not find usage to foster potential moments of togetherness.

Sometimes the availability of a facility or a choice is not apparent at all when a need arises. Consider the following case.* A customer came to a grocery store to buy feed. While there, he expressed a desire to urinate and asked to use the store's toilet. The store had no toilet. He was told to go into the back room to the dark corner behind the hay, "that was the place used for such purposes." The room had no light. In entering the room, he fell into an open freight elevator pit. While on his hands and knees in the pit, an employee of the store lowered the freight elevator onto him. It was unclear if he was able to urinate under such circumstances.

The court affirmed judgment for the customer, finding negligence by the store to its invitee. However, on a motion for rehearing, the appeals court changed its mind, finding that there was no invitation to the customer to use any part of the feed compartment as a place to urinate.

The conclusion, perhaps, is that finding an appropriate toilet facility is much like looking for a needle in a haystack.

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*M.N. Bleich & Co. v. Emmett, 295 S.W. 223
(Tex. C.C.A. 1927)

© Daniel J. Kucera 2020