Data collection and analysis is the basis for sustainable water resources planning.
Knowledge is a funny thing. If you actually know something, and you're actually correct, then you're OK. If you don't know something, and you know that you don't know it, then at least you know what you need to go figure out. But if you don't know that you don't know something, you're in trouble. Even worse is when you don't know that you actually do know something (as in, you have all the pieces but don't see that they're supposed to fit together). OK, maybe funny isn't the best word.
"Water Wise: What We Need to Know about our Water Resources," the most recent in MPC and Openlands' ongoing roundtable series about sustainable water resource management was somewhat unique in that the focus wasn't water so much as it was our current ability to understand what's happening with our water. How well do we understand water table levels and the feasible lifespan of wells? Where are leaks happening and to what extent? Where will sewer back-ups occur during a storm of X intensity for Y hours? Even most basically, how much water do I actually use?
The point is, we tend to take knowledge for granted, and assume that information exists to answer whatever questions we might have. We believe we can easily know everything that we don't currently know. Unfortunately, that's not really true. You have to measure things, collect those measurements, tell a story from them, and make decisions based on the lessons of that story. You can't manage what you don't measure, and when it comes to sustainable water resources, for some reason, there's a whole lot we don't measure.
There are four fundamental kinds of knowledge. They affect decision making in different ways, and, not coincidentally, they provided the framework for "Water Wise."
- Things we know we know: We know that the fastest growing communities of northeastern Illinois tend to rely on groundwater, while many of the places currently losing population rely on Lake Michigan. That in itself is not necessarily a problem. Groundwater can be sustainably managed so long as consumption rates don't exceed recharge rates. That's a big "so long as," but it's possible. Water reuse, aquifer recharge, public education, and rate structures that fully cover costs all go a long toward sustainable management. The good news is that this region has a plan for all those measures and more—Water 2050: Northeastern Illinois Water Supply/Demand Plan—and the Northwest Water Planning Alliance is poised to delve even deeper into the challenges of groundwater management, including establishing consistent water use reporting standards, and improving data and modeling tools to support more timely and informed decision making by its members. That's a good thing, because managing Lake Michigan water and groundwater are fundamentally different. With the lake, we know how much we pump into pipes, and we know roughly how much comes out at the other end (it's more complicated than that, see below), and that's relatively straightforward to measure. Groundwater requires frequent modeling informed by a range of variables, some of which depend on constant monitoring of research wells, which brings us to....
- Things we don't know we don't know: Al Wehrmann, Head of the Center for Groundwater Science at the Ill. State Water Survey (ISWS), explained his groundwater monitoring predicament. The more consumption pressure we put on groundwater resources, the more we need to monitor them, and yet ironically, the more we need to monitor them, the less we actually do. Case in point, before 2010 water use reporting (for any individual, business, or utility using more than 100,000 gallons a day) was totally voluntary, and the information was collected, stored and analyzed through the Ill. Water Inventory Program (IWIP) for the low annual cost of $125,000 (or just under 1 cent per Illinois resident per year). In 2010, thanks to Senate BIll 2184, that reporting became mandatory, and in theory would have given us a dramatically better picture of just how much pressure we're putting on groundwater resources. Why in theory? Because funding has been cut for the program. In general the ISWS and the Ill. Dept. of Natural Resources (IDNR), which supports regional water supply planning like the process that led to Water 2050: Northeastern Illinois Water Supply/Demand Plan, face comparable cuts and funding raids to cover other state obligations. I personally think that ensuring a sustainable water supply is a state obligation, and hopefully you agree. In Wehrmann's own words, "While we are not necessarily running out of water, we need to better manage our water resources so that we can continue to enjoy plentiful water, and that starts with implementing Water 2050 and updating it on a regular basis. That in turn, means we also need to support the long-term basic data collection activities of ISWS and IWIP. Unfortunately, a lot of people just don't know that this is even an issue."
- Things we know we don't know: More optimistically, but no
less daunting, is data management within better
understood systems like Chicago's 4,200 miles of water mains. Michael Sturtevant, Acting Deputy Commissioner for the city's Dept. of Water Management (CDWM), give a thorough update on efforts to replace mains, improve leak detection, and meter residential water use. All of these reduce the amount of non-revenue water in the system—that's water that we pay to pump out but that never shows up on anyone's meter due to leakage, theft, accounting errors, etc. The added benefit of leak detection and comprehensive metering is that they help give a clearer picture of which mains are under the most stress, which allows for preemptive replacement (as opposed to a catastrophic break). CDWM, knowing full well that most of its water mains were installed between 1880 and 1920, and that with an aging system it's imperative to find and repair leaks, has been investing time in money doing just that. Between 1999 and 2004, CDWM surveyed more than 2,000 miles of water main, and found approximately 1,000 leaks per year, with a high of almost 2,000 in 2000. The effort has been scaled back since 2004 due to budgetary constraints and the successful identification of so many leaks previously. Yes, that's a lot of leaks and lost, but better to understand the problem than not. Chicago is way ahead of most communities in the region (and behind some others) when it comes to detecting leaks and fixing water mains. As I laid out in a few opening slides (see 5-8), throughout northeastern Illinois many communities are losing the battle against non-revenue water. One community in western Cook County lost a total of 8.8 percent of its total water pumpage in 1999 (which is very respectable), but that escalated to 31.9 percent in 2009. In contrast a community in southern Cook County reduced its loss from 36.9 to 14.7 percent of total water over the same period, which is a dramatic improvement. The two main culprits for worsening water loss, and conversely the two keys to successfully reducing it, are intimately related—awareness of the problem and accounting for the full costs of water service (including maintenance and repair).
- Things we don't know we know: This is worst kind of knowledge, because it's the one that leaves you kicking yourself and saying "Dang it! I knew that!" It typically comes from having all the right pieces of information, but either not knowing how to put them together or simply not bothering to. Getting over that hurdle also happens to be a specialty of Carey Hidaka, Business Solutions Professional at IBM. In the simplest terms, IBM's increasing efforts in Smarter Water Management take different streams of data and make them speak to each other in order to optimize decision making. They make a unified model out of disjointed pieces, and in so doing, reveal knowledge that was there all along, but not realized. Case in point, IBM worked with Fort Wayne, Ind., to synch meteorological, pipe capacity, hydraulic, and water quality data in order to reduce sewer backups and flooding during storms by channeling water from areas without available capacity elsewhere in the system. In addition to environmental benefits, the system also helps prioritize repairs, and maximizes the usefulness of the existing infrastructure, helping to delay or avoid new construction costs. All the data was there, IBM was simply able to derive trends from it.
Knowledge is power—it's trite but true—particularly when it comes to resource management. From fully funding ISWS and IWIP, to reconciling the difference between the price of water and the cost of providing it, it all comes down to investing in our ability to collect, analyze, and make decisions based on current, comprehensive data. If you live in Chicago and don't have a water meter, get one. Wherever you live, actually read your water bill and get a sense of whether your usage matches your needs. Contact your state legislators and tell them that raiding and cutting funds for sustainable water resource management isn't... sustainable. Ask your elected officials how your community is combating non-revenue water. We know what to do, we just need the will to do it.
Lunch for "Water Wise" was was graciously provided by Hannah's Bretzel.