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Technology Stocks : Discuss Year 2000 Issues -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: flatsville who wrote (5615)	4/29/1999 11:23:00 AM
From: C.K. Houston	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9818

U.S. DOESN'T KNOW IF WATER TREATMENT PLANTS ARE READY FOR 2000 - Washington April 28 (Bloomberg) The U.S. doesn't know whether water and wastewater treatment plants will be ready for Jan. 1, 2000 because too few treat plants have responded to requests for information. Water facilities could lose water pressure, under- or over- treat drinking water or cause an overflow of untreated sewage into public waterways if their computer fails, the U.S. General Accounting Office reported. The GAO doesn't know whether water systems are ready because plants have not filled out surveys that would indicate how far along plants are on fixing their computer systems. Only 18 percent of 4,000 water facility operators returned the voluntary survey sent to them by three drinking water associations, GAO said. Year 2000 computer problems, dubbed the Y2K bug, stem from the trouble some computer programs and chips have recognizing the Year 2000 date, which could lead them to read 2000 as 1900 and prompt a system shutdown. Most treatment facilities have manual backup systems if their automated systems fail, though if many systems fail on Jan. 1 it could be more than workers could handle, the GAO report said .... While we wait for more details to emerge, there's a footnote on this. The Bloomberg story also indicated that Congress could pass legislation requiring facilities to disclose their status by September 1999, but the EPA, which regulates water companies, said "putting together rules would take a long time." FM (vidprof@aol.com), April 29, 1999 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the GAO Daybook E-mail Alert this morning they sent this notice of “pending availability.” Should be accessible within the next week or so. Year 2000 Computing Crisis: Status of the Water Industry GAO/AIMD-99- 151, Apr. 21 (PREPUBLISHED). Watch for the GAO New Title reports at gao.gov -- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), April 29, 1999* greenspun.com Cheryl

To: flatsville who wrote (5615)	4/29/1999 12:22:00 PM
From: Ken Salaets	Respond to of 9818

A compromise was worked out on the Y2K-related issues, but unfortunately, the Dems couldn't break free from "politics as usual" and defeated cloture over Kennedy's minimum wage amendment. Unfortunately, their move just provides more grist for the other side to continue to adhere to their partisan ways as well. The bill is certainly not dead yet, but we've got to get both parties to break free of their old ways of thinking before issues like this can move forward. And that was my "polite" version of events. ggg. Ken