Ten Ways to Save the DEP

One of the first actions of Mayor Bloomberg’s third term was to appoint Caswell F. Holloway as the new DEP Commissioner. Commissioner Holloway has his hands full. The Water Board is blaming conservation for projected double-digit increases in water/sewer rates. Environmental groups and the New York Times are focusing in on raw sewage in the Hudson River. Gas drilling is about to begin in the watershed and the Delaware Aqueduct may spring a leak at any time! Yet no one is proposing affordable  solutions. And so, in the coming weeks, WaterWatchNYC will be rolling out a list of “Ten Ways to Save the DEP,” ten steps that we think the DEP, the Water Board and the Mayor should take in order to save money and the environment.

Former DEP Commissioner Albert Appleton

This is not the first time that a Mayor or the  Water Board  faced daunting challenges.  Back when Mayor Dinkins appointed Albert Appleton as the DEP Commissioner in 1990, the agency was beset with  problems. NYC  was  coming out of a Stage III Emergency drought (little did we know that another drought was only a year and a half away), spending was out of control and water and sewer rates were rising at unprecedented levels (from Fiscal Year 1989 to the second half of Fiscal Year 1990, the combined water/sewer rate went up over 40%!). New Yorkers were clamoring  for additional sources of water. The federal government was pressuring NYC to begin filtering its drinking water and the environmental lobby was suing the city to build huge sewer treatment plants.

Commissioner Appleton approached each problem in a novel manner without significantly increasing the financial burden on New Yorkers by thinking outside the box. He did not take existing policy as a given. At every turn he challenged the status quo. In his own words: “Essentially what we did was change the department’s policy from one of building new facilities as needed and managing the existing system within the resources the budget bureau gave us, to a much more proactive, integrated financial-environmental infrastructure strategy.”

He questioned every solution proposed by the DEP’s engineering department and the federal government. When the federal government mandated that NYC start filtering our drinking water, Commissioner Appleton’s priority wasn’t the cheapest and most effective way of building and operating filtration plants. His priority was the cheapest and most effective way of improving the quality of our drinking water.

There is a subtle difference here, but that subtle difference is magnified when you examine the actual outcome. Appleton didn’t build a single water treatment facility. He purchased the land around our reservoirs and ensured that from the very first stages of our water delivery system, the water is clean. At a minimal cost, Commissioner Appleton eliminated the need for billions of dollars of spending.

Appleton’s solution to the drought was no less courageous.  Rather than spend tens of billions of dollars to build new reservoirs, the city spent only $250 million to replace over one million toilets. Now we have more water than we know what to do with. (As of this writing our reservoirs are at 93.6%, over 20% greater than normal.) NYC was told to spend billions and the commissioner said I’ll just prevent this from even becoming an issue and save money in the process.

I bring this up in my introduction because Commissioner Appleton and his approach to creative financial and environmental problem solving is a perfect example of what we need to see from the DEP. All the existing problems can be solved on the cheap by daring to think outside the box. We are currently facing many of the same problems that Appleton faced when he took office (out of control spending and consistent double digit rate increases just to name a few). If there’s one thing Commissioner Appleton has taught us it’s that whether the problem is financial or environmental, all it takes to be one step ahead is thinking outside the box and a little creative problem solving.

And by the way, when Appleton left office, the DEP was in the middle of a three-year freeze on water/sewer rate hikes. All is not lost.

A Prediction

Now that New York City’s mayoral election is officially over (though, unofficially, it was over before it started), it is safe to discuss what we at WaterWatchNYC expect of the DEP and the Water Board in the near future.

We have already heard about how water consumption continues to drop drastically in NYC. If I remember correctly, at the last Water Board hearing it was announced the consumption is down another 6-7% so far this year. We’ve also heard a little bit about Booz Allen Hamilton’s preliminary findings in their water/sewer rate study and we know that they were the ones that suggested last year’s disastrous Theft of Service and Denial of Access penalties.

With this in mind, here is what we predict is going to go down at the next Water Board hearing: Because New Yorkers are using less water, the DEP has less money to work with.  Therefore, we can expect to see another double digit rate increase. However, because Booz Allen has made it their job to come up with ways of increasing the DEP’s revenue at the expense of us New Yorkers it is likely that the rate increase will be limited to a figure around 12%. While this sounds like good news, and while the DEP and Water Board will certainly present this as good news, the reality is that the only reason the rate increase will be able to stay that low is because we expect the DEP to implement (at the recommendation of Booz Allen, of course) new fees in addition to the rate increase. Look out for new connection fees and fixed service fees as well as serious increases in all existing fees.

Lindsey Ganson Appointed Acting Water Board Treasurer

At a special meeting of the Water Board this morning, the Board members approved the appointment of Lindsey Ganson, Chief of Staff of the DEP, as Acting Treasurer of the Water Board. Ganson was hired as former DEP Commissioner Emily Lloyd’s Chief of Staff in early 2008. We wish her much luck and hope for much success in her new position.

As a side note, the Water Board also approved the DEP’s consulting contract with Appleseed regarding the “economic impact… of DEP’s operations and investments in the upstate watershed.” We’ve been critical of the DEP’s actions upstate in the past and we look forward to the results and findings of this report.

Water/Sewer Rates Going Up Today

As it does on every July 1, the DEP’s water and sewer rate goes up today. The new rate is $6.76 per hundred cubic feet (hcf) of water, or $2.61 per hcf as a water charge and $4.15 per hcf as a sewer charge (159% of the water charge). One hcf is approximately equal to 748 gallons.

One of the most popular links on this blog during the last 12 months was a graph of the DEP’s Water/Sewer rate from 1980 to 2009. An updated version of the graph, from 1980 to 2010, can be found here.

Conservation or Economy?

At last Friday’s Water Board meeting, it was announced that the 6% drop in water consumption has increased to above 7%. While the DEP, Water Board and this blog have in the past attributed this reduction in water use to conservation, we would now like to explore the possibility that something else is going on here.

While we are sure that some of this reduction in consumption is due to conservation, the possibility was raised on Friday that more than just conservation may be at play here. As the economy continues to suffer and more and more businesses close their doors, it stands to reason that less water will be used. Therefore, it makes sense to say that this unprecedented drop in water consumption should not be entirely attributed to conservation, but some “credit” should go to the weak economy.

This makes the DEP’s job of predicting future water consumption extremely difficult. In the past, the DEP could safely predict an annual 1% drop in water consumption due to conservation. Now that the economic climate is affecting water consumption, the DEP must predict how much longer and to what degree consumption will continue to drop above and beyond the 1% per year figure. And when consumption starts picking up again, the DEP must predict how long it will take and how much consumption will increase.

In the past we have been hard on the DEP. I don’t mean to say that we won’t continue to be hard on them. Hopefully, our past and future criticism of the DEP will enable changes that benefit both New York residents and the DEP. But we do have to recognize that every now and then the DEP is thrown a curveball and we hope they continue to do their best to deal with those curveballs as they come.

DEP Lays Out Specifics on Amnesty Program

We’ve been tracking the DEP’s new Denial of Access and Theft of Services regulations for a long time. The last thing the DEP told the public about these new regulations was that there’d be a 120-day amnesty period beginning July 1 during which time customers found to be stealing water and/or denying access will not pay the full amount demanded by the new regulations.

The DEP recently released the specific numbers that they intend to use during the amnesty program, and I must say, they are quite reasonable. The new regulations authorize the DEP to charge customers found to be stealing water and/or denying access for water consumption at the 90th percentile. The attributed consumption and charges are detailed in this post. (Be aware though, that since Fiscal Year 2010’s water rate increase was only 12.9% and not the originally announced 14%, the actual costs for this attributed consumption is slightly lower than is listed.)

During the amnesty period, customers are only going to be charged at the 50th percentile, which is the following for commercial properties:

Meter Size -       Annual Attributed Consumption Rate (Gallons per Year)

5/8″ and less                                                                                50,000
3/4″ or more and less than 1.5″                                                   80,000
1.5″ or more and less than 3″                                                    280,000
3″ or more and less than 4″                                                       550,000
4″ or more and less than 6″                                                    1,300,000
6″ or more and less than 8″                                                    2,300,000
8″ or more and less than 10″                                                  4,600,000
10″ or greater                                                                       38,000,000

and the following for residential units:

First Dwelling Unit                                                                         70,000
Each Additional Unit                                                                      60,000

In dollars, this comes to:

Meter Size -                                                          Annual Attributed Cost

5/8″ and less                                                                            $       452
3/4″ or more and less than 1.5″                                                        723
1.5″ or more and less than 3″                                                        2,530
3″ or more and less than 4″                                                           4,971
4″ or more and less than 6″                                                         11,748
6″ or more and less than 8″                                                         20,786
8″ or more and less than 10″                                                       41,572
10″ or greater                                                                            343,417

and:

First Dwelling Unit                                                                            $633
Each Additional Unit                                                                           542

I expressed my frustration when I thought it was too high; it would be unfair of me not to express satisfaction at these extremely reasonable figures.

Big Surprises at the Rate Approval Hearing

The Water Board held its annual meeting this morning (May 15, 2009) to approve the changes to the Water/Sewer Rate Schedule for Fiscal Year 2010. As you know, WaterWatchNYC protested three major elements of the new rate structure pertaining to the DEP’s proposed “Denial of Access” and “Theft of Services” regulations. Thanks to you, the concerned, active New Yorkers who read this blog, there were many surprising changes to rate schedule announced this morning.

Firstly, as we requested, the Denial of Access notices now have to be sent out via certified mail as opposed to regular mail.

Also, there will be an appeals process put in place for New Yorkers to defend themselves from the DEP’s Theft of Services claim. We have not been informed of the details of this process but it’s certainly a step in the right direction.

Finally, there will be a 120-day grace period for those found to be stealing water, during which time these people will only pay half of the previously announced maximum water/sewer rate. This 120-day grace period is from the beginning of July to the end of October, not the first 120 days after each customer is found to be stealing water.

We want to commend everyone that spoke out against the unfair regulations and helped create these new caveats, especially Councilman Jim Gennaro and the other council members who joined his charge, the property owners and managers that spoke out at the City Council hearing and Water Board hearings and anyone else who voiced their concern and made a difference.

One final thing about this morning’s meeting to take note of is that the proposed 14% rate hike is actually only going to be a 12.9% rate hike. That means that starting in July, out water/sewer rate is $6.76 per hcf and not $6.82 per hcf. Sure, it may have been a tactic to publicly announce 14% when they only needed 12.9% just so they could gain public favor when they announced the lower rate. But either way, what matters is that the rate isn’t as high as initially expected and Commissioner Lawitts and Chairman Moss deserve recognition for that.

Could this be the beginning of a kinder, gentler DEP/Water Board? I guesss we’ll just have to wait and see.

The Delaware Aqueduct Leak

The 85-mile long Delaware Aqueduct, which is the longest continuous tunnel in the world, provides New York City with about half of its drinking water and as residents of Wawarsing, New York know all too well, it has been leaking for about twenty years. Your average New Yorker doesn’t know this, so why does everyone in Wawarsing? The answer is simple: It’s leaking into their homes and yards.

Unfortunately, little can be done at this point to actually fix the leak. There is no system providing any redundancy to the Delaware Aqueduct, which means that if the water was drained from the Delaware Aqueduct’s water tunnels in order to fix the leak, there would be no other system to carry the Delaware Aqueduct’s water to NYC and New York’s water supply would be cut in half.

Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV)

A lot has been done to try and understand the leak. For example, in June, 2003 a self-propelled, submersible Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV), specially designed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, was sent to survey the damage to the Rondout-West Branch Tunnel, where the aqueduct is currently leaking. The AUV was underwater for 16 hours, captured 160,000 digital images and measured the tunnel’s pressure and velocity. Although first thought to be a success, it turned out that the untethered vehicle passed through the tunnel too quickly to obtain any useful information.

Unfortunately, all we are left with are guesses and estimations. For years, the DEP has been estimating the leak’s loss of water at about 36 million gallons per day. For a recently published press release stating this figure, click here and scroll down a little more than halfway.

Sure, 36 million gallons of water a day is a lot of water and something needs to be done about this, but the point I would like to make here is not about the magnitude of the leak. The point I would like to make is about the DEP and the way they are handling educating the public about this leak. I already mentioned that the average New Yorker knows nothing about it, which is one way in which they’ve failed but it appears that they’ve also been spreading misinformation.

Here is an example: In this New York Times article from 2000, “the city acknowledged the leak” of “about 35 million gallons of water… flowing every day out of cracks in the Delaware Aqueduct…

but the city said that the leak, which represents 3.2 percent of the Delaware Aqueduct flow, was relatively minor and that the risk of further damage was slight. Charles G. Sturcken, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, said the amount of water escaping from the aqueduct every day was equal to the amount from seven open fire hydrants.”

There are two things I’d like to take issue with here. The first is that in this press release, the DEP claims that “one illegally opened hydrant wastes up to 1,000 gallons of water per minute.” Let’s do the math: 1000 gallons of water per minute x 60 minutes in an hour x 24 hours in a day means that one open fire hydrant uses 1.44 million gallons of water per day and seven open fire hydrants use 10.08 million gallons of water per day. Therefore, a 36-million gallon a day leak does not by any means equal seven open fire hydrants. QED.

There is a bigger issue here. In the above New York Time article, the city said that the leak “was relatively minor and that the risk of further damage was slight.” Additionally, the first press release that I linked to claims that “monitoring has shown that the leakage rate is stable and has not grown.” In 2007, the New York State Comptroller’s office released this report that claims (in the first column on page two, in the section “Audit Results – Summary”) that “over the past 18 years the estimated amount of water leakage during full tunnel flow has increased [emphasis mine] from 15-20 to 30-35 million gallons of water per day.”

Isn’t this good news, you ask. We thought that we’ve lost 36 million gallons of water per year for over 20 years as the DEP claimed but now we see that we’ve only been losing that much water for less than five years. Sure, that part of it is good news. But it also means that the leak is growing. So not only are we going to be losing more than 36 million gallons per day in the future, no efforts are being made to fix this leak!

To be fair, Anthony DePalma of the Times asked former DEP Commissioner Emily Lloyd about this report when it came out. “She said it is probable that the earlier estimate of the size of the leak was inaccurate and that the true amount of water that was being lost in 1992 was about the same as today” (full article here).

I bring this issue up because it is exactly why this blog was started in the first place. The DEP has been getting away with too much for too long. The public needs needs to be educated about what’s going on so that we can make sure that our government agencies are working for us.

Does Conservation Equal Higher Water Bills?

I would just like to quickly clarify something about the relationship between conservation, water rates and water bills.

Conservation necessitates higher water rates. There is no way around it: If we consume less of a product (in this case, water) then the product’s variable costs go down. But its fixed costs remain the same which equals a higher cost per unit.

But there is another thing to take into account. If we are conserving water, if we are truly using less of it, then even at a higher cost per unit, our total cost should go down.

Now let’s evaluate the opinion of Coucilman Vacca in the previous post, an opinion shared by many who spoke at last week’s City Council hearing. How can New Yorkers who are conserving water be seeing their water bills go up even as they are dying of dehydration?

The answer is that approximately one-third of the percentage points of the rate hike (4-5%) is going to fund things that are only remotely related to the cost of water, like the unfair rental agreement!

So to conclude: The DEP must stop blaming their rate hikes on conservation. Sure, conservation contributes but if you’re conserving water and your bill is too high, conservation is not to blame. Economics has proven that. The fault lies with the DEP and their enormous budget that continues to spiral out of control.

The Blog Would Like to Recognize Council Member Vacca

City Council Member James Vacca

There was a lot of outrage directed toward the DEP and the Water Board at the recent City Council hearing over numerous issues that we have discussed at length on this blog. Among the more prominent issues were the lease agreement, a lack of accountability and the new “Denial of Access” and “Theft of Services” charges.

One member who I would like to single out (in a good way) for his comments is Council Member James Vacca from the Bronx. His questions were tough, direct and well-researched. He called out Acting DEP Commissioner Lawitts regarding his claim that the DEP has been supporting the efforts of conservation for years. The essence of his question boiled down to the fact that the DEP blames much of the need for such a high rate increase on the fact that revenue has gone down 6% because of conservation. How can you claim support for conservation when your answer to those that conserve is to go ahead and charge them more for it?

Councilman Vacca put it more succinctly: A New Yorker could be saving water to the point where they’re dying of dehydration and their water bill would still go up.

Well said, Councilman. Well said.