Manganese in Madison's Water: What Went Wrong?

For a city that prides itself on activism and public participation, the unfolding saga of manganese in Madison's water is quite a blow.  After all, our city claims to be environmentally conscious, and for two decades adhered to making Madison a 'safe and healthy place to raise children and families.'

Mayor to lay out water plans

More than two years after complaints about brown tap water began surfacing, Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz will announce plans Monday to improve water quality and oversight of the Madison Water Utility...

...Cieslewicz acknowledged that the utility has not received enough attention and oversight from his office. Both the rise of manganese complaints and recent publicity have changed that, he said.

"They have been out of sight, out of mind," Cieslewicz said...

An examination of the ten point program to rectify the problem is probably more telling of the situation than the Water Utility reports on manganese.

• Develop and put in place wellhead protection plans for all 24 of the city's wells by 2010 at the latest.

It should not take two years to come to this simple and obvious conclusion. There was no oversight of the Water Utility and there was an obvious breakdown in the Public Works team, if they are still functioning. Between the (1) mayor who has direct supervision over the Water Utility General Manager, (2) the Public Works team, (3) the Water Utility Board, and (4) the Board of Pubic Health, someone either failed to speak up or others failed to listen. There is ample precedent for handling problems like this, such as the remediation of landfills in the 1990's.

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• Continue an aggressive water main flushing and monitoring plan to address the problem of high manganese levels in Madison water.

A statement of the obvious, emphasis on the word continue.  This was necessary the first instant manganese was found in excessive levels two years ago.

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• Improve public outreach by scheduling a joint hearing of the Board of Water Commissioners and the Joint Board of Health for Madison and Dane County. At the hearing, the public would be given the opportunity to discuss concerns about the city's drinking water.

Gee, that one feels good. The city will receive testimony on ground water levels, ground water runoff, and leaching into the water table, not to mention a good deal of discussion about urban sprawl.

I want to know why the Board of Health wasn't on this from day one. If this was a privately operated water system you know the regulators would be all over it.  My own priority is having the city and the health authorities protect me from unsafe drinking water in my home, rather than carcinogens in bars I do not frequent.

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• Change city ordinances to make the city's public health director a member of the Board of Water Commissioners. This is part of an overall effort to strengthen the connections between drinking water and public health.

This is overall bullshit. Anyone ever hear of a telephone?  Does anyone know how to arrange a meeting?

It's funny how progressives forget their history and the reason for doing things. The idea is to have a citizen board, not a board with public employees.  That is part of the checks and balances.  In fact the progressive left in Madison went though considerable time over the years gradually removing city staff from committees so they would not dominate and squelch the citizens who are more likely to be 'whistleblowers.'

The classic refuge in a time of mismanagement is to make structural changes in the organization. There is nothing structurally wrong. Anyone who read the daily newspapers for the past two years knows that.  The question is why was there a lack of interest in this matter by the mayor, the health authorities, the Water Utility Board, and its staff.  Where the hell was the mayor's own staff?  Every city agency has a mayoral aid assigned to monitor it and make sure this does not happen.  Who is that? 

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• Develop an enhanced water utility Web site, including an interactive program with which residents could look up information about the water in their home.

Interactive websites always help; they make you feel all warm and fuzzy.  This is little comfort for the elderly, who don't surf the internet.  As for liability, the city better make sure it has confirmation that every home served by the utility has notice of this problem.

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• Implement enforceable performance standards for the utility and its general manager.

Last I heard, every city agency prepared goals for the year, most of them with measureable standards.  Then the department head meets with the mayor and they periodically review to see how things were moving along.  For those who found this too confusing, the budget for the coming year served as a good road map.

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• Accelerate efforts to replace aging infrastructure and plan for new growth.

This was already done.  Nothing new here.

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• Create a technical water quality peer review task force to assist the Board of Water Commissioners in reviewing technical data.

This is already available from the American Water Works Association; all you have to do is ask.

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• Create a citizen focus group to review the annual water report and ensure it adequately answers questions about drinking water.

And disband the Water Utility? Well, nothing like a focus group for a little publicity and more names for a mailing list.

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• Build collaborative relationships with neighboring water utilities that share Madison's aquifer.

Collaboration feels almost as good as a focus group.

None of this answers the real question: what went wrong?

For the last several years, with rare exceptions, I restrained myself from commenting on the management of city government, lest anyone mistakenly construe it as an indicator that I was silly enough to contemplate another run for public office.

The ineptness and management failures both in this area, and in coping with gangs brings that silence to an end. New York City and Los Angeles, both headed by very politically correct mayors, both elected Republicans to head their cities when the public would not take any more of it.  Dave Dinkins, the former mayor of New York was a wonderful, inspiring leader.  He was also a lousy manager. Rudy Giuliani succeeded him in 1993 and the Big Apple had a Republican mayor ever since.

"They have been out of sight, out of mind," Cieslewicz said...

Out of sight and out of mind of whom?

Someone has some explaining to do.

Comments

[Jenny]

Run, Paul, Run!