“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.”

This story popped up in the aftermath of a heavy Northeastern storm this weekend, one which also knocked out power to nearly 500,000 residents (which is another example of how our infrastructure fails us so often). But more to the point here, and this is one whose context extends beyond the shoddy line work of the Northeast, rainstorms have been backing up sewer systems and causing other infrastructural havoc for as long as such systems have existed. The consequences of these systematic inefficiencies are gross. The consequences of the inability of a system to handle the volume of precipitation is what caused the city of Chicago to raise its streets by more than 30 feet before the 20th century. The costs associated with fixing these problems are serious, but that is not surprising considering the scale upon which sewer and water systems exist, but also considering the degree of the consequences it is hard to imagine that people would not support a taxpayer investment into their infrastructure:

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. (3/14/10 NYT)

That is disgusting. Beyond disgusting. For those of us wishing to keep up the guise that we live in an advanced, modern society, this fact destroys any pretense of our modernity. Our own nation’s capitol cannot even prevent its shit and piss from coursing through its heralded, historic waterways.

But where there exists a shit filled river on the East coast, there exists a better solution on the West coast.

Oregon is no stranger to rain, and the fact that we get basically all of our annual precipitation in only 8 months, peak flow of waterways is a real problem. The Willamette river, traversing Northward to Portland through the valley below, once made new tracks through the valley each decade, but now as a product of our creation of cities and the ensuing desire to prevent those cities from flooding, the Willamette river has been entrenched in the same path for some time. This makes Portland a particularly crucial juncture in considering the health of this waterway, as Portland is the last stop along the way for the Willamette to the Pacific Ocean, before it meets the great Columbia. In Oregon, we protect our waterways, or at least try to be proactive in doing so.

That is why the city of Portland, much like Chicago a century ago, has been going through great pains to devise a city-wide plan for mitigating their stormwater and reducing the amount of polluted surface water that reaches the Willamette river (the river divides the city on its east and west, so nearly the entire city has the potential to drain into the river). And they’ve found a workable solution.

The creation of green streets and other low impact on-site treatment facilities such as green roofs:

A Green Street is a sustainable stormwater strategy that meets regulatory compliance and resource protection goals by using a natural systems approach to manage stormwater, reduce flows, improve water quality and enhance watershed health. (Portland Bureau of Environmental Services)

The city has endorsed pilot programs, drafted a city-wide resolution supporting their use and installation and is now tracking these facility’s impact on the city’s storm sewer system. The latest round of monitoring results (from December 2008) show that the existing green street facilities have reduced peak flow by a minimum of 80%. These results were gauged as being indicative of the facility’s ability to perform in a 25 yr. storm (the statistically worst storm that is likely to occur in 25 yr period of time).  That 80% reduction is significant enough to forever prevent untreated sewage from entering waterways, and they’ve done so without having to unearth ancient infrastructure at an enormous cost to the taxpayer, because green street retrofits consist of altering solely the streetscape at ground level.

When comparing these two historical solutions – Chicago’s lifting of its city by 30 feet and Portland’s installation of bioswales and strategic curb cuts that form Green Streets (because trust me, Portland’s program is becoming a model for how cities can deal with their water and sewer system problem), it is easy to see how much more realistic, implementable, affordable and inviting the latter is.

For what it is worth, there are obviously going to be detractors claiming that any municipality’s investment in such a project is wasteful, overstepping or inefficient. Especially if such a project was undertaken in DC, I can almost hear the lunatic reactionary Congress people of the GOP spouting off about government spending. But when you propose the two simple alternatives – shit flowing through the Potomac every time there is a bit of a rainstorm (the same Potomac that George Washington infamously crossed, mind you), or sidewalk planters filled with native grasses and beautiful tree-lined streets, I don’t think any rational human beings would opt for the feces river.

That said, this problem in Washington DC is being approached through a fairly narrow lens. The current head of DC’s Department of the Environment, George S. Hawkins (who is tasked with providing a solution to fixing the ancient infrastructure that courses beneath the city), is proposing a rate hike to replace the old pipes. That is his entire solution to the fact that raw sewage enters the Potomac when it rains, to the fact that the same sewage also appears in DC resident’s basements during those rains, and to the fact that during those times water service often is disrupted for most of the city: rate hikes. He is offering to allow residents to pay more for a service they already expect that currently and compulsively under performs, and his solution would provide no relief or benefits to any of the residents who would be effected by the rate hike – none whatsoever. Because when you boil it down to how these folks are really considering this issue, Hawkins’ plan is a 100 year plan to fix the infrastructure which should be translated into the perception that nothing will improve anytime soon. That is his solution.

Does this guy even know that there is more to water and sewer infrastructure than the pipes themselves? Does he realize that there are larger issues at play here, surface runoff and pollution, peak flows and volume retention, that have caused basements and rivers to be inhabited by raw sewage? New pipes sound nice, but the work involved with unearthing and replacing the miles and miles of piping would make the city’s residents lives inconvenienced, it would disrupt their service almost inevitably, and they would have no tangible payoff to their putting up with this plan.

If this Hawkins character was at all adept in his ability to get the people of the city behind his plan to fix the water and sewer infrastructure, he would have paid attention to how more than one thing can be accomplished through the city’s investment. He would offer better streets, safer streets, cleaner air, more shade, less urban-heat-island effect, less greenhouse gases, more jobs, and oh yes – no more shit in your river or basements.

Time will tell how his plan works out though, whether city residents will sit idly by while their rates increase by nearly 60% and they continue to experience the same service interruptions and sewage backflow or whether someone with a better idea and more support from the community will raise their voice and offer the residents of DC a way forward.