How many cities face water cut-offs? For more than 3 days?<<good news and bad news>>>
(how many fires will start and ravange cities when water shuts down?
awwa.org
The American Water Works Association gives its members a clean bill of health. Well, not exactly. But it has put a happy face on very bad news.
It surveyed water utilities. Most refused to respond. Of those that responded, the news was incoherent. It's good news and bad news, all mixed up. For example:
This shows that of all systems about 92 % have been shown to be 100 % Y2K compliant. This state of readiness is admirable, and demonstrates that communities across North America can rest assured that their water system will deliver safe and sufficient water on January 1, 2000. . . .
However, only a very few systems are 100 % Y2K compliant at this time.
Responders were few. They were not under oath.
My comments are in brackets.
Bear in mind that the Navy assessment posted by Jim Lord focused on water and sewer systems. The most vulnerable systems are water and sewers. Koskinen and the dutiful press corps dismiss the results because the surveys were based on old data.
These are the latest dats. The water utilities are still stonewalling. The Navy's assessment still looks accurate. The best news is bad.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Results of a Survey by AWWA, AMWA,NAWC
Preliminary Report
July 16, 1999
A clean and safe water supply is a critical to the proper functioning of modern day society, and professionals throughout the water supply industry have worked diligently to ensure that these supplies are available. Throughout most of North America, people world-wide know that you can safely and securely drink from the local municipal supply without fear of illness. The combined efforts of water supply professionals and the regulatory community that stands watch over this industry deserve considerable credit for the excellent job they have done.
[So what? This has nothing to do with y2k. This is press release blather that introduces the story of an entire industry that is not compliant.]
However, continued surveillance, diligent operation of treatment systems, distribution systems and watersheds is required to ensure that this safe record is maintained. Many routine and extraordinary events can compromise the safety of our water supply, and the industry must remain ready to respond to these events as they occur. Emergency preparedness is one of the cornerstones of being ready to respond to such events, and should be an integral part of every utility's operating principles.
[More blather.]
The effect of Y2K on continued production and delivery of safe water, including compliance with all environmental and health regulations, has been raised as a question by many people, both nationally and internationally. As nearly everyone now knows, the programming of older computers included shortcuts in date reporting in order to save valuable storage space in the computer memory. These same conventions have been continued for many years, even though storage space is now considerably cheaper. The conventions have been spread from mainframe computers to distributed networks of computers and even to embedded chips that run everything from alarm clocks to complex industrial plants. Water treatment plants are no different, and contain a wide variety of computer controlled processes.
[There is a problem. Everyone knows this. They admit this. They have no choice.]
Many processors are required to keep track of date and time information, but there are many more that have no need for time functions. The lack of a need doesn't always mean that there is no date function in a controller, since many manufacturers use "off the shelf" computer chips that run date processes, even if they are not needed. This complicates the search for solutions, because it is not always clear when a malfunctioning date processor might affect other functions of the computer chip. It has been estimated that billions of dollars are being spent fixing automated systems throughout North America.
[The problem is big. Nobody knows how big.]
As everyone recognizes, water utilities are only one part of a large chain of services to a community, and the utility likewise depends on a chain of services to continue to effectively provide water supply to the community. First and foremost in the supply chain of a utility is power. With few exceptions, water distribution is one of the largest consumers of electrical energy in most communities. This requires the maintenance of the power grid throughout the community, since the pumping stations are most often distributed throughout the community, not isolated at the treatment plant where standby generators could provide an alternative energy source. Therefore, continued supply of clean, safe drinking water requires a continuous power supply.
[The domino effect is real.]
Water treatment relies on chemical addition to remove or deactivate contaminants in the raw water. While utilities can (and should) stockpile a reasonable quantity of chemicals, it will be impossible for most utilities to have available more than a 30 day supply of most chemicals, and some may only be stored in 15 day quantities. Replenishment of these supplies depends upon the trucking and rail industries, as well as the original chemical manufacturers. If these parts of the supply chain are not able to function effectively, water treatment could suffer, along with the many other parts of modern society that also depends on these services to maintain our supply of goods and materials.
[There is an inventory shortage of chemicals. 30 days is the maximum. After this, don't drink the tap water.]
BASIS OF SURVEY(S)
AWWA has worked cooperatively with AMWA and NAWC to respond to questions asked regarding the state of preparedness of the water industry through several mechanisms. One of these is the development and collection of survey information that will tell us how prepared water utilities are. An initial survey was conducted in August 1998 to establish a baseline of preparedness, and report on the status of water utility preparations at that time. The results of that survey have been widely distributed. Some of those results indicated that utilities still had considerable work to do in order to be completely prepared for Y2K. Over the ensuing 10 months, many utilities have worked hard to get their systems ready for the turnover to the year 2000. In June 1999, AWWA, AMWA, and NAWC conducted a second survey to ascertain the current state of readiness of the water industry.
[They're working on it.]
Readers should be aware that in April 1999, the General Accounting Office (GAO) of the United States issued a report entitled Year 2000 Computing Crisis, Status of the Water Industry. This report was critical of the depth of knowledge of the readiness of water utilities, particularly when compared to electric and gas utilities. The report identified several key shortfalls, including a limited response to the industry association survey (725 out of 3500 faxed surveys), lack of regulatory authority to mandate Y2K readiness reporting, and lack of time to prepare such authority. While it can be debated that a response of 20 % is inadequate, it is actually a very high response rate for a voluntary survey, delivered by fax, to a group of organizations being bombarded with surveys and questionnaires from vendors, customers, regulators, and other interested parties.
[There are major reporting problems. They are on the wrong side of Pareto's 80-20 rule.]
It is in this light that the three associations have attempted to fill in some of the data gaps. For the June 1999 survey, follow-up phone calls to non-respondents will be made, attempting to solicit additional response. However, since this is a voluntary survey of many large and small water utilities, it is not sensible to anticipate anything close to 100 % participation. When compared to a small collection of very large utilities, such as those that exist in the railroad, electric and gas areas, greater response may be expected. For many smaller utilities, responding to surveys is not viewed as a priority item among all the competing demands for the time and resources of the limited staff available. In addition, many utilities have responded with the same standard letter they provide to all requests for Y2K information. Since these letters are all different, and cannot be incorporated into the database developed for this survey, they are counted as responding, but not providing the required information. Those fax responses that were spoiled or were incomplete have also been counted, although these utilities have been contacted in an attempt to get a complete response.
[The survey is statistically useless, but it's all they've got.]
SURVEY
The survey, as distributed by fax is shown in Attachment 1. In the survey, we asked utilities to report the status of their planning and implementation for two key parts of their operation, infrastructure and support systems. This separation was done to provide information that can help determine if the utility will be capable of providing safe and sufficient water to its customers (the result of infrastructure readiness), and the capability to continue providing administrative support to the primary function of water production and delivery. These support functions include the utility's payroll, billing, security, etc., and do not relate directly to the production and delivery of safe water. Obviously, a utility that is unable to distribute bills and process payments cannot continue to operate indefinitely, but those functions may be fixed at a later time without compromising the safety of the community.
["Tell us how you're doing. If you lie, you can't be punished."]
Contingency planning is an important part of preparing for Y2K, just as it is a key element of being ready to handle emergencies and more routine disruptions of service. We focused considerable attention on the contingency planning of utilities to see if they are able to handle disruptions due to internal or external problems.
[What is contingency planning for day 31 without replacement chemicals in a city of a million people?]. . . .
RESULTS
Analysis of the surveys indicate that water utilities are currently much better prepared for the new millennium than they were only 10 months ago. The Survey shows that overall, 92 % of all systems have gone through the inventory, assessment, remediation or replacement, and testing required to become completely Y2K compliant. This breaks down to 92.5% for the very large systems, 88.7 % for large, 90 % for medium, and 93.6 % for small systems. In 1998, only 51 % of all systems had even completed their assessment, although 81 % expressed confidence that they would be ready before December 31, 1999. In general, it appears that utilities will be prepared to handle the issues confronting them when the new year begins. In addition, very few systems still require remediation or replacement, as shown in Table 2 below.
[Assessment completes the initial 7% of a project, not counting embedded chips. In 1998, 51% had completed their assessments. Now they want us to believe that these outfits are 80% compliant and tested. Most people who hear about this will believe it. I don't.]. . . .
It is easy to see that the utilities reporting have an average of 80 % or more of their systems completely through the Y2K compliance process. With more than six months remaining (reporting is as of May 1999), it is reasonable to believe these utilities will complete the necessary work before the critical date of December 31, 1999 is reached. . . .
This shows that of all systems about 92 % have been shown to be 100 % Y2K compliant. This state of readiness is admirable, and demonstrates that communities across North America can rest assured that their water system will deliver safe and sufficient water on January 1, 2000. . . .
However, only a very few systems are 100 % Y2K compliant at this time. Figure 2 shows those utilities that are 100 % complete with all steps of their Y2K Preparedness Program, by utility size. When looking at the last steps, testing and contingency planning, only 40-50% are 100 percent ready at this time. The encouraging finding is those utilities that are not 100 percent compliant at this time are only a few steps behind, and have tested most of their systems. . . .
[This is very bad news.]
Contingency planning is similarly at a high degree of completion for most of these water systems. However, the details shown for each specific element of the contingency plan provides more information about how utilities are preparing for such things as community interaction, loss of power or supplies, etc. While contingency planning is somewhat unique to each community, it is obvious that most utilities have used a wide variety of techniques to ensure they are ready for problems that result from systems that fail due to Y2K issues. These results are shown in Table 4 and Figure 3.
[What are these techniques? Nobody ever says.]. . . .
Testing is one of the last steps in ensuring fixes to Y2K problems have actually accomplished the desired result. As seen above, over 80 % of utilities reporting have completed their testing program. The survey asked them to describe the type of tests employed, the results of which are shown in Figure 5 and Table 7.
[You rus final tests when your system is 100% finished with code remediation. Now, we have been told that almost no stystems are 100% finished.]. . . .
As might be expected, the number using the most sophisticated testing is much smaller than those testing individual components or operational assemblies. Depending on the degree of inter-relationships with the different components, more complete testing would be desirable for more of the utilities. It is not possible to determine if the testing provided is adequate due to the brief nature of this information gathering exercise.
[So, nobody knows whether these systems will work next year.]
CONCLUSIONS
We can see from the results of this survey that water utilities have greatly enhanced their understanding of the Y2K problems they face since late 1998. We can also see that those utilities that have responded are well prepared to face the issues that might confront them on December 31, 1999. The overall compliance of 92 % of automated systems means that water production, treatment, and distribution will proceed without serious interruptions as our clocks tick down the last seconds of this millennium, and begin the year 2000. This does not mean that there will be no interruptions in service to everyone, however. Isolated instances of malfunctioning equipment may result in pockets of consumers not having adequate supply. Contingency planning is widespread and thorough, however, and these interruptions should by limited in scale and short in duration
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