Fort Wayne Water

I thought it’d be fun to do a little comparison between my hometown (Fort Wayne) and Bloomington in terms of water resources, and then I got a little out of control.

First and foremost is quality: I used the 2011 Drinking Water Quality Report for Fort Wayne (http://www.cityoffortwayne.org/utilities/images/stories/docs/water%20quality%20report2011.pdf) and the 2010 Bloomington Water Quality Report (http://bloomington.in.gov/media/media/application/pdf/7157.pdf) to compare them.

A few of the significant differences include:

Disinfectants

Bloomington has more chlorine and haloacetic acids (disinfectant by-products) in their drinking water, probably because they have a significantly higher level of total coliform (a microbial contaminant).  This really surprised me since Fort Wayne has a combined sewer system, with 50 combined sewer overflow (CSO) sites (http://www.cityoffortwayne.org/utilities/clean-river-team/41-where-are-the-csos.html).  I thought for sure all that raw sewage getting dumped in the rivers during big rains would cause major bacterial problems, but I guess I was wrong (Roseland mentions CSOs in chapter 5 on page 65).  We’re one of only 772 cities in the U.S. that STILL HAS this grossly outdated wastewater treatment system (http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/cso/demo.cfm?program_id=5)! 

But don’t worry, the city is on it.  Two CSO upgrades are in the works, one for Glenwood Park and the other for Fairfax Avenue.  Glenwood is near IPFW and Canterbury Green, two big tax revenue sources, with about a 4% minority population.  Fairfax is farther south in “old town” Fort Wayne and is composed of 57% of the city’s African American population (http://zipatlas.com/us/in/zip-code-comparison/percentage-black-population.htm).  According to the article, the Glenwood Park project should be taking bids soon, with estimated completion by next summer, EVEN though there’s already a contractor lined up for the Fairfax project and it costs $46,000 less (http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20110707/LOCAL/307079964/1002).  No estimated time of completion on the Fairfax upgrade; they’re still weighing its “cost effectiveness”.  Did someone say environmental justice?

Ag Runoff and Industry

Fluoride, atrazine and nitrate levels are much higher in Fort Wayne.  This one is a no-brainer: fluoride comes from fertilizer runoff and aluminum factories (hello Alcoa), atrazine is a common herbicide, and nitrates come from fertilizers, septic system leaching, and sewage discharge (there’s those pesky CSOs rearing their ugly heads). 

Rusty Pipes

Copper, sulfate (5x Bloomington’s detected level) and ESPECIALLY lead (23 ppb!) are also higher in Fort Wayne, due to corroded plumbing systems.  “Homes built before 1986 are more likely to have lead pipes” (http://water.epa.gov/drink/info/lead/index.cfm) which would be most of Fort Wayne homes.

One note on water policy:

Both Fort Wayne (http://www.cityoffortwayne.org/utilities/customer-services/rates.html) and Bloomington (http://bloomington.in.gov/media/media/application/pdf/8076.pdf p. 30) have water rates that get cheaper as you use more!  A method recommended by Roseland uses the “rate structure as a conservation tool” with “a three tiered inclining block structure…that increases costs for high water users” (p. 64).  This is a simple and effective way to encourage people to conserve, rather than waste, water resources.

One note on political management:

“One of the greatest barriers” to ecologically responsible water management “is the departmentalization of city, municipal, or regional water and wastewater services” (Roseland, p. 70).  This difficulty is illustrated perfectly as Huntertown (population 2,900) approves building an $11.2 million sewage treatment plant, despite the fact that they could save $7 million by staying with Fort Wayne City Utilities.  Why?  Well, first they’re afraid yearly rates will increase too much, and secondly “…that Fort Wayne sewage connection fees and the expansion of service area requests could stifle Huntertown’s future growth” (http://www.indianasnewscenter.com/news/local/Huntertown-Approves-112M-Sewage-Treatment-Plant-129350253.html).  Huntertown is on the far north side of Fort Wayne, and fast becoming another victim of suburban sprawl.  And to add fuel to the fire, the proposed sewage plant is going to be located on land that was originally saved for a community park (http://www.indianasnewscenter.com/home/Big-Stink-Huntertown-Residents-Fight-Proposed-Sewage-Plant-124229879.html).  Citizens seem to be vehemently against the treatment plant but the Town Council is for it, so we’ll see how it pans out.

Personal Sustainability Project

For my project I think I'm going to try to encourage my grumpy landlord to install recycling at my apartment complex.  I plan on getting some feedback from my fellow tenants to see if it would influence them either way; hopefully they'll jump on board.  We've got a nice big spot right next to the dumpster where recycling could go, so space is not an issue.  And it would be really nice to not have to bring all my recycling on campus (shh) or take it to the Monroe County recycling center...by car!  What hypocrisy. 

"We cannot realistically expect most people to choose sustainable options if they appear to be more difficult or expensive..." (Roseland, pg. 31).

Hands down, I'm one of the cheapest people you'll ever meet.  My dad was a Depression-era baby and grew up crazy poor, so cleaning your plate after you're very full, sitting in the dark unless you're reading (because glasses are more expensive than electricity), and turning off the water when you shave your legs was (I thought) what everybody did.  We had an amazing garden, but it wasn't because it was healthy or the flowers were pretty.  It was free food, and child labor didn't count (trust me, that tactic was tried many times).  Need furniture, kitchen appliances, clothes?  Hello Salvation Army.  Buying a school lunch instead of packing one was considered an outrageous frivolty.  I could go on, but it's really endless and I don't want to bore you (too late).  As a kid, I didn't really get on the family thrift-wagon until I started getting an allowance, at which point the world in terms of property ownership and cost for services became all too real for me.  And I became monstrously cheap.

So you can imagine when I stumbled upon the concept of sustainability it was like discovering the holy grail.  It was a whole group of people/way of life/economic system based on ideas like zero waste, systems design in production (see http://zeri.org/ZERI/Home.html and http://www.interfaceglobal.com/), and reduced/smart consumption.  And an extra special bonus was all this "thriftiness" helped out all the green things and fuzzy critters that I hold so near and dear.  For a cheapskate with a sweet spot for nature, it was love at first sight, like Dorothy coming home to Kansas.

But wait! There are some caviats.  Sustainable development ain't free.  There's investment required in things like organic agriculture (but it's so much easier to throw pesticides on it and over-irrigate), green building, alternative fuel sources, renewable energy infrastructure.  This is going to cost alot of money for alot of people, which means some big decisions must be made.

That brings me to the line that every cheapskate must come to in their life: when their thrifty ethic comes up against other ethics.  Just because I can get something for free (clean air and water) or make somebody else pay for it (environmental externalities) doesn't mean it's okay.  If you were in industry, and you could dump effluence into a river for free (and get away with it) versus disposing of it properly for a fee, would you do the right thing?  Leopold said "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.  It is wrong when it tends otherwise" (Wheeler, pg. 28).  When no one is looking, which ethic wins?  And more importantly, how much will it cost to do so?

I don't know about you, but I don't want the health of the ecosystem to depend on whether that industry guy chooses the bottom line over the bottom of the river.  I struggle enough with this issue (cheap vs good) on a much smaller level of finance, so I can imagine it would be difficult.  Not everyone was blessed with cheapskate parents that also happen to have an ethic towards other living things (I got that) and also towards people (I'm working on this).  So let's make the decision easy for him: creat incentives that make it cheap to be good to the environment.  We've got a government for a reason, create policies that encourage good behavior.  Did somebody say "Pigovian subsidy"?

You know what? I feel a little sorry for these industry guys sometimes.  I bet it's hard to make costly, "environmental" changes to the way you do business when you've been getting by on the cheap for so long.  But not that sorry.

So the next time I'm in the grocery store agonizing over whether or not to buy the more expensive, organic carrots I'll not feel so guilty when I go the cheap route.  Because once I get a "big girl" job that comes with some political/economic sway, I am going to work as hard as I can and dedicate all my time and brains to making the world as sustainably affordable as possible.  And that (thank GOD) is priceless.

Story of Stuff, Full Version; How Things Work, About Stuff