Saving U.S. Water and Sewer Systems Would Be
Costly
As head of Washington's water department, George Hawkins, left, is on
the scene every time a major sewer or water line breaks.
Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times
By CHARLES DUHIGG
Published: March 15, 2010
WASHINGTON - One recent morning, George S. Hawkins, a long-haired
environmentalist who now leads one of the largest and most prominent
water and sewer systems, trudged to a street corner here where water was
gushing into the air.
A cold snap had ruptured a major pipe installed the same year the light
bulb was invented. Homes near the fashionable Dupont Circle neighborhood
were quickly going dry, and Mr. Hawkins, who had recently taken over the
District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority despite having no
experience running a major utility, was responsible for fixing the
problem.
As city employees searched for underground valves, a growing crowd
started asking angry questions. Pipes were breaking across town, and
fire hydrants weren't working, they complained. Why couldn't the city
deliver water, one man yelled at Mr. Hawkins.
Such questions are becoming common across the nation as water and sewer
systems break down. Today, a significant water line bursts on average
every two minutes somewhere in the country, according to a New York
Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data.
In Washington alone there is a pipe break every day, on average, and
this weekend's intense rains overwhelmed the city's system, causing
untreated sewage to flow into the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers.
State and federal studies indicate that thousands of water and sewer
systems may be too old to function properly.
Mr. Hawkins's goal is to replace, within the next
century, the pipes that were installed in Washington a hundred years
ago.
For decades, these systems - some built around the time of the Civil War
- have been ignored by politicians and residents accustomed to paying
almost nothing for water delivery and sewage removal. And so each year,
hundreds of thousands of ruptures damage streets and homes and cause
dangerous pollutants to seep into drinking water supplies.
Mr. Hawkins's answer to such problems will not please a lot of
citizens. Like many of his counterparts in cities like Detroit,
Cincinnati, Atlanta and elsewhere, his job is partly to persuade the
public to accept higher water rates, so that the utility can replace
more antiquated pipes.
"People pay more for their cellphones and cable television than for
water," said Mr. Hawkins, who before taking over Washington's water
system ran environmental groups and attended Princeton and Harvard,
where he never thought he would end up running a sewer system.
"You can go a day without a phone or TV," he added. "You can't go a day
without water."
But in many cities, residents have protested loudly when asked to pay
more for water and sewer services. In Los Angeles, Indianapolis,
Sacramento - and before Mr. Hawkins arrived, Washington - proposed rate
increases have been scaled back or canceled after virulent ratepayer
dissent.
So when Mr. Hawkins confronted the upset crowd near Dupont Circle, he
sensed an opportunity to explain why things needed to change. It was a
snowy day, and while water from the broken pipe mixed with slush, he
began cheerily explaining that the rupture was a symptom of a nationwide
disease, according to people present.
Mr. Hawkins - who at 49 has the bubbling energy of a toddler and the
physique of an aging professor - told the crowd that the average age of
the city's water pipes was 76, nearly four times that of the oldest city
bus. With a smile, he described how old pipes have spilled untreated
sewage into rivers near homes.
"I don't care why these pipes aren't working!" one of the residents
yelled. "I pay $60 a month for water! I just want my toilet to flush!
Why do I need to know how it works?"
Mr. Hawkins smiled, quit the lecture, and retreated back to watching his
crew.
On Capitol Hill, the plight of Mr. Hawkins and other utility managers
has become a hot topic. In the last year, federal lawmakers have
allocated more than $10 billion for water infrastructure programs, one
of the largest such commitments in history.
But Mr. Hawkins and others say that even those outlays are almost
insignificant compared with the problems they are supposed to fix. An
E.P.A. study last year estimated that $335 billion would be needed
simply to maintain the nation's tap water systems in coming decades. In
states like New York, officials estimate that $36 billion is needed in
the next 20 years just for municipal wastewater systems.
As these discussions unfold, particular attention is being paid to Mr.
Hawkins. Washington's water and sewer system serves the White House,
many members of Congress, and two million other residents, and so it
surprised some when Mr. Hawkins was hired to head the agency last
September, since he did not have an engineering background or the résumé
of a utility chief.
In fact, after he had graduated from Harvard Law School in 1987, he
spent a few years helping companies apply for permits to pollute rivers
and lakes. (At night - without his firm's knowledge - he had a second
career as a professional break dancer. He met his wife, a nurse, when he
fell off a platform at a dance club and landed on his head.)
But he quickly became disenchanted with corporate law. He moved to the
E.P.A., where he fought polluters, and then the White House, and
eventually relocated his family to a farm in New Jersey where they
shoveled the manure of 35 sheep and kept watch over 175 chickens, and
Mr. Hawkins began running a series of environmental groups.
The mayor of Washington, Adrian M. Fenty, asked Mr. Hawkins to move
to the city in 2007 to lead the Department of the Environment. He
quickly became a prominent figure, admired for his ability to
communicate with residents and lawmakers. When the Water and Sewer
Authority needed a new leader, board members wanted someone familiar
with public relations campaigns. Mr. Hawkins's mandate was to persuade
residents to pay for updating the city's antiquated pipes.
At a meeting with board members last month, Mr. Hawkins pitched his
radical solution. Clad in an agency uniform - his name on the breast and
creases indicating it had been recently unfolded for the first time -
Mr. Hawkins suggested raising water rates for the average resident by
almost 17 percent, to about $60 a month per household. Over the coming
six years, that rate would rise above $100.
With that additional money, Mr. Hawkins argued, the city could replace
all of its pipes in 100 years. The previous budget would have replaced
them in three centuries.
The board questioned him for hours. Others have attacked him for playing
on false fears.
"This rate hike is outrageous," said Jim Graham, a member of the city
council. "Subway systems need repairs, and so do roads, but you don't
see fares or tolls skyrocketing. Providing inexpensive, reliable water
is a fundamental obligation of government. If they can't do that, they
need to reform themselves, instead of just charging more."
Similar battles have occurred around the nation. In Philadelphia,
officials are set to start collecting $1.6 billion for programs to
prevent rain water from overwhelming the sewer system, amid loud
complaints. Communities surrounding Cleveland threatened to sue when the
regional utility proposed charging homeowners for the water pollution
running off their property. In central Florida, a $1.8 billion proposal
to build a network of drinking water pipes has drawn organized protests.
"We're relying on water systems built by our great-grandparents, and
no one wants to pay for the decades we've spent ignoring them," said
Jeffrey K. Griffiths, a professor at Tufts University and a member of
the E.P.A.'s National Drinking Water Advisory Council.
"There's a lot of evidence that people are getting sick," he added. "But
because everything is out of sight, no one really understands how bad
things have become."
To bring those lapses into the light, Mr. Hawkins has become a
cheerleader for rate increases. He has begun a media assault
highlighting the city's water woes. He has created a blog and a Facebook
page that explain why pipes break. He regularly appears on newscasts and
radio shows, and has filled a personal Web site with video clips of his
appearances.
It's an all-consuming job. Mr. Hawkins tries to show up at every major
pipe break, no matter the hour. He often works late into the night, and
for three years he has not lived with his wife and two teenage children,
who remained in New Jersey.
"The kids really miss their father," said his wife, Tamara. "When we
take him to the train station after a visit, my daughter in particular
will sometimes cry. He's missing out on his kids' childhoods."
And even if Mr. Hawkins succeeds, the public might not realize it, or
particularly care. Last month, the utility's board approved Mr.
Hawkins's budget and started the process for raising rates. But even if
the bigger budget reduces the frequency of water pipe breaks by half - a
major accomplishment - many residents probably won't notice. People tend
to pay attention to water and sewer systems only when things go wrong.
"But this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Mr. Hawkins said
recently, in between a meeting with local environmentalists and rushing
home to do paperwork in his small, spartan apartment, near a place where
he was once mugged at gunpoint.
"This is the fight of our lifetimes," he added. "Water is tied into
everything we should care about. Someday, people are going to talk about
our sewers with a real sense of pride."
Toxic Waters: Articles in this series are examining the worsening
pollution in America's waters and regulators' responses. Toxic Waters
ONLINE: Previous articles in this series: nytimes.com/water
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