What Elon Musk should do for Flint Michigan

There has been quite a stir from Elon Musk’s July 11th Tweet. He said “Please consider this a commitment that I will fund fixing the water in any house in Flint that has water contamination above FDA levels. No kidding.”

I was stunned when I read this. First of all, this is a generous and kind offer. However, what was shocking to me was how ignorant Elon Musk was about the water situation in Flint Michigan and how little he knew about drinking water and who regulates it. The man is a genius and yet he did not know that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act. We need to teach the basics of how water, sewage, electricity and internet/ phone service are provided. So that the future decision makers will know what questions to Google or ask Suri or Alexa.

Under the authority of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), EPA sets standards for approximately 90 contaminants in drinking water including bacteria from human waste, industrial discharge streams (of great concern back in 1974 when the SDWA was first created) and water disinfection by-products and distribution system contaminants (last revised in 1990’s). For each of these contaminants, EPA sets a legal limit, called a maximum contaminant level. EPA requires that all public water supplies be tested for this list of contaminants on a regular basis (from daily, to quarterly, to every other year or longer depending on the contaminant and water system) and meet these minimum standards on average. In addition, EPA sets secondary standards for less hazardous substances based on aesthetic characteristics of taste, smell and appearance, which public water systems and states can choose to adopt or not.

After hearing from many, Mr. Musk later understood that most Flint homes have safe water and said he would organize an effort to add filters to houses that need them. However, it was promptly pointed out by many sources that the state already offers free filters to Flint residents. So, lets back up and review what happened in Flint, and how Mr. Musk can really fix it; because this could affect many more communities. Flint Michigan was not an aberration nor was it the worst incidence of lead in drinking water supplies, but rather some combination of determined population, blatant misrepresentation by public officials, the public sentiment that allowed Flint to become the poster child for lead in drinking water.  In a 2017 examination of data, Reuters found 3,000 communities that had recently recorded lead levels at least double those in Flint during the peak of that city’s contamination crisis. So what happened in Flint.

In January 2016 the Governor of Michigan and the President of the United States declared an emergency in Flint, Michigan to authorized emergency assistance to provide water, water filters, water filter cartridges, water test kits, and other necessary items to address their water crisis. By then the drinking water supply in Flint Michigan had been contaminated for more than a year. The first contaminant to appear were high levels of viruses and bacteria, and inorganic contaminants such as salts and metals which were a result of inadequate treatment of the water, then high level of lead began to appear in homes. Reportedly, the lead was the result of slightly caustic, inadequately treated water leaching lead from the old distribution system.

The problems began when Flint decided to switch to the Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA) as the City’s permanent water source in a cost saving measure as wholesale water rates from the old Detroit system kept growing in an attempt to support rising maintenance, repair and operating costs in that system. KWA would supply water to the members by building a new pipeline from Lake Huron. While waiting for KWA pipeline to be completed, the City of Flint planned to use the Flint River as a temporary alternative water source.

The Flint Water Treatment staff and their consultants struggled to meet the Safe Drinking Water Act levels at the water treatment plant. Then residents noticed changes in the smell, color, and taste of the water coming out of their taps. Tests showed high levels of bacteria that forced the city to issue boil advisories. In response, the city upped its chlorine levels to kill the pathogens. This created too many disinfectant byproducts, which are carcinogens and corrosive. Then the corrosive water began leaching lead, other metals and whatever else was in the biofilm on the old pipes into the water in the homes. Flint’s water department might have been able to avert the disaster by having a corrosion management plan and using additives to diminish the corrosiveness of the water at a negligible cost, but there was an underlying problem that effects not only Flint.

For decades instead of replacing lead pipes urban water companies (especially in poor cities) have used chemicals to control lead and other chemicals from leaching into the water supply. Many at the American Water Works Association and other trade groups have questioned the wisdom of this strategy, there is always some lead leaching and many scientists believe that there is no safe level of lead in drinking water.

Most existing lead pipes are over 75 years old, are in the older cities of the east coast and mid-west and should have been replaced in the normal course of preventive maintenance program. Unfortunately, that is not how we operate in the United States. A few cities, including Madison, Wisconsin, and Lansing, Michigan, have taken steps to remove all of their lead pipes. Such projects can cost tens of millions of dollars in small communities.

from NRDC on the right a lead pipe treated with Orthophosphate

It was estimated by the American Water Association that there are 6.5 million lead pipes still in service in the United States- and each would have to be replaced at an approximate cost of $15,000. In most water systems, these pipes are either partially or fully owned by the homeowner. Back in 2016 it was estimated that there were about 14,000 lead laterals (water pipes that run from the water mains in the street to the houses) that needed to be replaced for all residents to be assured that the water that reached their taps was as good quality as when it left the water treatment plant.

So, while it would be wonderful if Mr. Musk would pay for the replacement of the lead lateral pipes in Flint Michigan; there are many deserving communities in the United States and a limit to Mr. Musk's wealth. Maybe instead Mr. Musk can apply his creative genius to developing a method for removing pipes and replacing them without having to dig up every street and yard. If Mr. Musk could bring down the cost of  pipe replacement to the $1,000-$2,000 price range Flint and other communities could afford to get rid of the lead pipes. There are at least 6.5 million households  in the United States that could benefit from that invention. 

The Washington Aqueduct Searching for the Best Possible Drinking Water

The Washington Aqueduct is a federally owned and operated by the Army Corp of Engineers. The Aqueduct consists of the Dalecarlia Reservoir and Water Treatment Plant, the Georgetown Reservoir, and the McMillan Reservoir and Water Treatment Plant. The Washington Aqueduct draws water from the Potomac River and treats it to provide finished drinking water to the water distribution companies that buy water from them. Thomas Jocobus, a civilian employee of the Army Corp of Engineers is the General Manager and the Aqueduct produces an average of 155 million gallons of water per day which it sell to the District of Columbia (about 75%), Arlington County, Virginia (about 15%), and the City of Falls Church, Virginia (10%).

The Washington Aqueduct is a very conservative organization reflecting its structure, management, and response to events of the past. Water systems consist of three systems: The first is the water treatment systems that draw water from the source and treats it to meet the US EPA Safe Drinking Water Act standards (SDWA). The second is the water delivery system that moves the water from the finished water storage through the water mains and throughout the community so that there will be on demand water and adequate water for firefighting. The third is the plumbing systems in homes and building that deliver water to your sink, toilet or shower.

Somewhere in the past the Washington Aqueduct had begun to view their mission as providing finished water that met all EPA SDWA requirements. After all, (unlike most water utilities that are regulated by state regulators) EPA Region 3 was their direct regulator and they were attentive and responsive to the regulatory requirement and deeply concerned about the quality and cost of the finished water they sold.  All the costs of the Aqueduct operations are directly passed on to wholesale customers. In the 1990’s something happened to remind the Aqueduct that really they are in the public health (and fire safety) business and that their operations could not be viewed separately from the water delivery and plumbing systems that ultimately brought water to the households and businesses that bought water  from the distribution companies. What happened was chloramine.

from DC Water

In 1994 amendments to the Clean Water Act SDWA resulted in changing from chlorine to chloramine for disinfection. The EPA issued regulations concerning disinfectionby-products formed when chlorine (used for a hundred years) reacts with organic matter in drinking water; the EPA considered these byproducts to be a potential health threat. Chloramines do not produce disinfection byproducts. The treatment process for the Washington Aqueduct was changed to add ammonia after primary disinfection to react with the remaining chlorine to prevent the formation of disinfection byproducts (haloacetic acids and trihalomethanes). When planning the chloramine project as advised by  EPA guidance manual the Aqueduct considered the possibility that the disinfectant change would increase the level of nitrification in the distribution system. Such an increase could cause a lowering of pH in the distribution system, increasing the possibility of corrosion. The Aqueduct put a plan in place to minimize the potential for nitrification and monitored for nitrification for six months following conversion. Unfortunately, corrosion was not caused by nitrification.  Shortly after the change, increasing pipe failures and levels of lead began appearing in the homes of Washington DC residents. It turns out chloramine-treated water picks up lead from pipes and solder and does not release it, resulting in elevated levels and deterioration of the pipes. Extreme lead concentration began appearing in Washington DC homes and water delivery pipe and plumbing systems began to fail at an accelerated rate.

  

Dr. Marc Edwards a MacArthur Prize winning professor of engineering at Virginia Tech ultimately  identified the cause and solution of the increasing incidence of leaks in copper water pipes. The lead problem was addressed by the Washington Aqueduct adding additional treatment steps to add orthophosphate and tightly control the pH of the water.  Orthophosphate controls corrosion in pipes, service lines, and household plumbing throughout the distribution system. It works by building up a thin film of insoluble material in lead, copper, and iron pipes and fixtures. This thin film acts a barrier to prevent leaching of metals into the water, but only works in a narrow pH range. Calcium hydroxide (lime) is also added to adjust the pH of the water to ensure optimal performance of the orthophosphate. In addition, DC WASA spent $97 million to replace a portion of 15,000 pipes and 2,000 full pipe replacements.

The change in the water treatment process prevents the finished water from dissolving lead in the water mains, solder joints, and fixtures. The changes in the operation of the Washington Aqueduct were more profound. The Aqueduct had to rethink the management of their relationship with their customers, how had they made a change in the water treatment without testing the impact on all the other water systems? That is unlikely to ever happen again.  The Washington Aqueduct's customers (District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority, Arlington County, and the City of Falls Church) entered into a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that restructured the business relationship and created the Wholesale Customer Board and Technical Committee to oversee and approve Washington Aqueduct's operating and capital budgets and long term strategy.

The Washington Aqueduct’s official mission became to provide the “best possible” drinking water while: Minimizing any negative effects on the environment, being fiscally responsible to consumer who bear all the operating and capital costs through water rates, and anticipating and avoiding unintended negative consequences. The Aqueduct has been working with their Wholesale Customer Board to navigate the challenges that face drinking water utilities in our modern world; microbial water quality issues, trace chemicals and emerging contaminants in the source water, and water quality issues resulting from treatment and distribution.

Chemicals are everywhere in our modern world. The technology used for chemical analysis has advanced to the point that it is possible to detect and quantify nearly any compound known to human kind down to less than a nanogram per liter or parts per trillion (1/1,000,000,000,000). This enhanced analytical ability has allowed scientists to discover that trace levels of pharmaceuticals, potential endocrine disrupting compounds (EDC) and other emerging contaminants exist in surface water, have appeared in some groundwater and may persist in the water through conventional and some advanced treatment trains to appear in our finished drinking water. The Washington Aqueduct and its partners on the Wholesale Customer Board and technical working group expert panel from consulting, academia, EPA and other Water Utilities are working to develop a framework to make decisions and chart courses of action when faced with these challenges. The first and continuing challenge is to keep evolving the understanding of what is the “best possible” drinking water and remember to consider all consequences before taking any action. The Washington Aqueduct of today is unlikely to be the first water treatment operation to make any change, but is unlikely to be surprised by unanticipated consequences of any changes in treatment that are made in the future. 

The History of Drinking Water in Washington DC

In the first decade of the nineteenth century a group of residents of Washington DC were granted permission to pipe water from the city spring to their neighborhood in the 600 block of Pennsylvania Avenue. Shortly thereafter the city built a pipe to convey water from a city spring to the northwestern Pennsylvania Avenue vicinity, between 9th and 14th streets. These, were the first instances of water deliveries in Washington DC and the beginning of the water system in our nation’s capital. The city-wide delivery of fresh water was still another fifty years away and would arrive with the Washington Aqueduct.

The original portions of the Washington Aqueduct were planned and built by Lieutenant Montgomery C. Meigs of the Army Corp of Engineers. The Dalecarlia Reservoir was completed in 1858 and water first reached the District through the Washington Aqueduct system on January 3, 1859. Initially the reservoir provided water to the city from the adjacent Little Falls Branch, but this soon was inadequate and flow from the Potomac River was added in 1864. At that time the city government believed, the Washington Aqueduct system would be sufficient for all the future water needs of the city. Today the Washington Aqueduct is a division of the Baltimore District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Aqueduct is a federally owned and operated public water supply agency that produces an average of 180 million gallons of water per day at two treatment plants located in Washington DC and sells the water to the District of Columbia, Arlington County, Virginia, and the City of Falls Church, Virginia.

 After the initial construction of the Washington Aqueduct the surge in population of Washington DC during the Civil War, quickly created a human waste problem in the city and there were epidemics of smallpox, malaria, and typhoid from human waste contaminating the water supply which took many thousands of lives during the war years. Dr. John Snow had discovered and proved the connection between cholera and contaminated water during the 1850’s in London, England. Nonetheless, the general belief was that if water looked, tasted and smelled fine it was good and though the Potomac River provided dilution disease survived. The Washington Aqueduct was originally built as a water transportation system, to bring the river water into the city. However, in 1895 the flow from Little Falls Branch was diverted away from the Dalecarlia Reservoir to prevent disease in conjunction with development of the sanitary sewer system. Despite these steps it was clear that, the Washington Aqueduct needed to be expanded and have a filtration system. The Washington Reservoir, which is now called the McMillan Reservoir, was built in 1902 to increase supply and in 1905, a 75 million gallon per day slow-sand filtration system was added at that reservoir and the Bryant Street high-lift pumping station was built.

After World War I an 80 million gallon per day rapid-sand filter was added at the Dalecarlia Reservoir to address the problems created by continued population growth and the sheer amount of raw sewage that was being pumped into the river. Primary waste treatment began for Washington DC at Blue Plains sewage treatment plant in 1937. The continuous population growth of Washington DC during World War II made it necessary to continue to expand and improve the water supply system. In February 1946, Congress approved comprehensive plans from the Army Corp of Engineers and the City Engineer to construct, improve and add to the existing water system. For more than thirty years, implementation of the plan underwent periodic modifications through changing requirements and increases in necessary funding by Congress. This awkward and inefficient oversight and funding was still in effect when I briefly lived in the District in the early 1970s when the water and sewage agency was known as the District of Columbia Department of Environmental Services. Later, in 1985, the District Government established a new Department of Public Works, of which the Water and Sewer Administration was a part of until 1996.

In 1996, the District Government initiated the creation of the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC WASA re-branded DC Water in 2010), an independent authority of the District of Columbia providing water delivery and sewage services to the region. On April 18, 1996, following a 30-day Congressional review period, the District Council enacted DC Law 11-111, "The Water and Sewer Authority Establishment and Department of Public Works Reorganization Act of 1996." This allowed DC WASA to have a separate and dedicated source of funding-water and sewer rates. It was envisioned that DC WASA would then be able to use that funding to meet its statutory obligation to provide sanitary sewer services and deliver potable water to the Washington Metropolitan Area. The Washington Aqueduct remains   federally owned.

Today, the Aqueduct draws water from the Potomac River at the Great Falls and Little Falls intakes and treats the water at two treatment plants, Dalecarlia and McMillan. The Aqueduct filters and disinfects water from the Potomac River to meet current safe drinking water standards. The treatment process includes sedimentation, filtration, fluoridation, pH adjustment, primary disinfection using free chlorine, secondary disinfection with chloramine through the addition of ammonia, and corrosion control with orthophosphate. The EPA sets national limits on residual disinfectant levels in drinking water to reduce the risk of exposure to disinfection byproducts formed when public water systems add chemical disinfectant for either primary or residual treatment. These levels are known as Maximum Residual Disinfectant Levels (MRDLs). The EPA also sets EPA sets limits on the contaminants regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act to ensure that the water is safe for human consumption. These limits are known as Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs). During calendar year 2011, no MRDL nor any MCL violations occurred in the Washington Aqueduct system.

By 1996 some portions of the water delivery system were 100 years old and the sewage system was almost the same age. The water and sewage rates in place in the Washington Metropolitan Area covered the costs to deliver the water and treat the sewage and replace 0.33% of the system each year, an unrealistic and irresponsible repair and replacement rate.  DC Water averages between 400 and 500 water main breaks per year, and they thought that a plan to replace the system over a 300 year time span was meeting their statutory obligations. 

Water delivery systems have a long life span, they are just pipes, pumps and valves, but the life span is not infinite. We reward short sighted behavior. In order to have cheaper water and sewer, a replacement cost schedule was not built into the customer rates for the past 78 years which coincidentally is the current average age of a water main in Washington DC. There are water pipes north of the White House that are reported to have been laid before the Civil War. This past Spring DC Water announced that they have tripled the replacement rate to 1% (with of course the increase in water rates) so that in 100 years the system will be replaced. Sewage rates were increased to finance the District’s portion of the $7.8 billion Blue Plains improvement program called the Clean Rivers Project that will meet the reduced total nitrogen released requirements of their operating permits and increase the control of the system during rain storms in addition sludge treatment will be improved and sewer piping improved in many areas. In truth, according to an interview with the General Manager, George Hawkins on National Public Radio, DC Water has gotten so far behind that they cannot to catch up- it will take decades. It is likely, given the age of the water system in Washington DC the increase in replacement rate was probably necessary to address what was failing each year. One hundred years is longer than the predicated life of a water distribution system, piping systems are rated at 80 years and the average water main in Washington DC is 78 years old. The water pipes in DC are old. They leak. DC Water is trying to use a predictive modeling to determine which pipes need to replace first to keep the good quality* water they are buying from the Washington Aqueduct flowing to the homes and businesses in the District.

Washington DC (and most of America) has always thought about the cost of water wrong, there should have always been a plan for maintenance, upgrade and replacement of the system and the care and protection the water resources; instead we have all taken water (and sewage) for granted. Every pipe should have been on a schedule to be replaced before it exceeded its life and broke. The water rates need to cover these capital replacement and maintenance costs. If we do not maintain our infrastructure we will not have on demand water. DC Water sees persuading customers to pay for the maintenance and improvement of the water and sewer system as their biggest challenge. The investment into water and sewer infrastructure is simply one of the best investments that any community can make.

* Dr. Marc Edwards a professor of engineering at Virginia Tech discovered while doing research in the mid-1990s to identify the cause of an increasing incidence of pinhole leaks in copper water pipes, that chloramine was causing the accelerated pipe deterioration and extreme lead concentrations in DC drinking water. Chloramine-treated water picks up lead from pipes and solder and does not release it, resulting in elevated levels and deterioration of the pipes. The change to chloramine was made after the EPA issued regulations concerning disinfection by-products formed when chlorine reacts with organic matter in drinking water; the EPA considered these byproducts to be a potential health threat. Chloramines do not produce disinfection byproducts. The lead problem was addressed in 2004 by the Washington Aqueduct adding additional treatment steps to the water to prevent the chloramine from dissolving lead in the water mains, solder joints, and fixtures. In addition, DC WASA spent $97 million to replace a portion of 15,000 pipes and 2,000 full pipe replacements. Then after the dust settled on this re-branded themselves as DC Water.