Communicating

Water s Value

Melanie K. Goetz

Part 2Stormwater, Wastewater, & Watersheds

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Contents

Acknowledgments, xi

Foreword, xiii

Introduction: The Inadvertent Board Member, 1

1 What We Learned From Hurricane Katrina 7August 29, 2005 . . . 6 a.m. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Walmart’s Support and Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Hurricane Katrina Survivor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10The Purpose of Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11WARN (Water/Wastewater Agency Response Network) . . . . . 12Colorado’s CoWARN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

2 Setting the Table: Perception’s Place in Risk Assessment 15Informed Citizens Perceive Lower Risks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Practice Emergency Preparedness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Provide Tours and Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Lab and Testing Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Interactive Tools and Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Social Media and Web Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20When There Is No Monster. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

3 Place Your Bets: Surviving Public Outrage 23Types of Public Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Do We Have a Choice? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Are We Familiar With the Risks? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Right or Wrong? Who Decides? Who’s in Control? . . . . . . . . . . 28Reducing Public Outrage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Rules of Engagement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30The Takeaway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

4 Perverse Consequences of Misjudging Public Response 35Two Types of Social Norms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Anti-Littering Campaign. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

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Battle of the Norms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Save Water by Reusing Towels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Tell Us Something We Don’t Know. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39What to Flush (W2F) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

5 Rumors and the Cost-Effectiveness of Truth 45Managing Rumors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

6 Communication on a Watercolor Canvas 53Storage, Storage, Everywhere Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54Going With the Flow in the Mountains of Montana . . . . . . . . . 55Lessons Learned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56Emotions Over Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

7 Engaging Mirror Marketing for the Environment 63Through the Looking Glass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64Making It Personal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64Using Rain Barrels to Care for Our Watersheds . . . . . . . . . . . . 65Sometimes You Need to Break the Mirror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68Leveraging Social Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

8 Leveraging Social and Market Norms 73Market Norms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74The Allure of Philanthropy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75Leveraging Norms for Wastewater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76Social World Versus Market Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76Getting On Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77Avoiding False Consensus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77Social Marketing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78Yes, In My Back Yard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78Focus Your Mind-Set on “Normal” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

9 Using the Crowd for Solutions 81What Is Crowdsourcing?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82Crowdsourcing Sometimes Fails. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83Rules of Engagement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84Five Types of Crowdsourcing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

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Engaging the Crowd: It’s Personal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

10 Protecting the Waterways With Crowdsourcing 95Puget Sound Starts Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96About the Puget Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97Protecting the Waters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97Fixing Car Oil Leaks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98Car Wash Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100Picking Up Dog Poop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100Practicing Natural Yard Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102The Power of Crowdsourcing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

11 Why Surveys Work and How They Can Disappoint 105The 12 “Must Knows” for Survey Writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107Case Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109Pulse of the Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

12 Anonymity: Flying Below the Radar 113Leading to Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115Preventing a Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

13 The Value of Framing: What’s in Your Statement? 119Framing the Utility’s Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120Framing Determines Perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121Framing an Illusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122Framing Your Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123Framing the Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124Framing the Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

14 Switching to Lowercase Messaging: A CAPITAL IDEA 129References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

15 Combating TMI: Simplify the Message 135The Difficulty With TMI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136Simple Questions and Answers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137Analogies for Familiarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137Mentally Zipping the Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

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Those Confusing Acronyms (TCAs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139Technical Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140Weasel Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140Complex Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141Tell Your Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141Compelling Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142The Experts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143Score Readability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

16 Branding Your Organization’s Values and Worth 147Wastewater Marketing . . . in Black and White . . . . . . . . . . . . 149No Joking Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149The Learn About “Me” Campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150Perception and Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153Messaging for a Reason. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154Consistently Accurate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154Emotions Sell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

17 The Importance of the Lean Journey to the Customer Experience 159

Decorum, Efficiency, and the Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160A Plant Tour and the Empowerment of the Worker . . . . . . . . 161The Lean Journey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162Lean Gets Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162Getting Past the Bumps in the Road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163Implementing Lean. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164Employee Pride Comes Full Circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

18 Leading by Empowering 167The Power of Focus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168Everyone Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169The Power of Chilean Crowdsourcing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170The Power of Underestimating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171The Power of Plans . . . and of Backup Plans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171The Power of Unity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173The Emotional Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174Leadership: The Ultimate Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

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19 The Power of the Apology 177References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

20 Change the Design—or Change the Person? 185Implementing Environmental Fixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186Technological Fix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187Adding the Cognitive Fix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188Structural Change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188Technology Fix for Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188Looking to the Future. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

21 Emerging Technologies and Public Relations: The Challenge of Scarce Water 193

Obstacle #1: Recognizing There’s a Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194Obstacle #2: Public Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199Obstacle #3: Level of Involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200Knowing Your Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201Beginning and End: It’s All Upstream Marketing . . . . . . . . . . 204References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

22 Beacons of Light in a World of Shadows 207Alone, Alone, All Alone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209The Disappearing Link With Customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210Stilling the Stormwaters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212An Incident of Opportunity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213Caring for DC Water’s Customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214Budgeting in Common Sense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215Where Everybody Knows Your Name. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

23 When It Rains, It Pours 219Final Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Index, 225

About the Author, 231

7

Chapter 1

What We Learned From Hurricane Katrina

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

—GeorGe Bernard Shaw

August 29, 2005 . . . 6 a.m.A half-hour before dawn, Hurricane Katrina shakes sleeping residents of Plaquemines Parish with 144-mile-per-hour winds and relentless rainfall. Cell phone towers lie down before her, broadcast airwaves go blank, and telephone lines thrash impotently in her wake.

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Communicating Water’s Value Part 2

New Orleans, always so full of sass and brio, suddenly goes deathly quiet.

By lunchtime the levees protecting New Orleans are breached, and Katrina romps like a brazen, unwelcome houseguest. From the shores of Lake Pontchartrain to the Lower Ninth Ward, her penetrating, feculent trickles prove as insidiously lethal as the more terrifying power of her for-midable cascades and surges.

Michael Brown, Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), remained in Washington, D.C., assuring a concerned nation that things were under control. He had no idea. The only FEMA offi- cial actually in New Orleans monitored the devastation helplessly from a Coast Guard helicopter. The rotors overhead didn’t miss a beat, but his heart leapt frantically as he struggled in vain to communicate the bur-geoning horror of floating bodies and stranded residents below, pleading for salvation.

With cell towers down, the FEMA representative resigned himself to the fact that email was the only form of communication available. He furiously typed urgent pleas for help, advocating for the declaration of a national emergency in the face of this humanitarian cataclysm.

There was no response. At the time, few top US government officials used email. (Only at a Senate inquiry many months later did they acknowl-edge that the crucial email wasn’t read until the next day.)

In a city 80 percent inundated by Katrina’s wrath, residents like-wise found themselves unable to communicate locally. In despair, 20,000 huddled at the Convention Center, another 20,000 were stranded inside the Superdome, and thousands upon thousands more were scattered on highway bridges and in other refuges. Hospitals languished without power or potable water. Scrounging for survival led to social breakdown in com-mercial and residential districts alike. Looting was rampant. Desperation hung in the air. The dead and dying were everywhere.

Every minute counted, and decisions needed to be made quickly. Yet when frantic locals were finally able to reach FEMA, they encountered the mundane channels of traditional communications protocol. Public service agencies that telephoned FEMA were asked to hold. Dutifully recorded voice mails fell on deaf ears and were heard only months later at Senate hearings.

For days, while the star-crossed city foundered, bureaucrats bickered. FEMA clung to its rigid chain of command. State and local officials blus-tered at the hierarchy, even as they nagged at each other for control and

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What We Learned From Hurricane Katrina

authority. Meanwhile, the Gulf Coast withered and grieved in an other-worldly quagmire.

Buses sat idle on the outskirts of the devastation, lacking official per-mission to deliver crucially needed supplies. Authorities thwarted delivery of bottled water that waited just outside the city. The list of outrages was as long as the list of issues.

It wasn’t that the federal government didn’t care, or that state and local officials were totally lacking in skills and urgency. They were wrangling with fundamental questions of who was to do what, when, and where.

Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff called this communica-tion breakdown a perfect storm, conceding the impotency of traditional command-and-control paradigms.

Most will acknowledge, with 20/20 hindsight, that no advance dis- aster planning could have anticipated the astonishing chain of bad luck, the multitude of horrors left by Katrina’s wrath. Even today few realize that the greatest catastrophe of all lay in failing to recognize what to do when all advance plans, all reasonable actions, are flung onto an apocalyptic scrap heap.

Katrina spawned myriad complex communication needs—a massive demand for a coordinating voice that (and this is crystal clear in retrospect) needed to be pushed outward rather than sucked up into accountability conscious, finger-pointing bureaucracies.

Walmart’s Support and CommunicationsThis story is not without heroes. The management and employees of Walmart assembled an ad-hoc support and communications framework that had a huge impact—more punch, apparently, than our own govern-ments were able to summon. A case study by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (Rosegrant and Leonard 2007) cites the efforts of Walmart CEO Lee Scott, who immediately issued an edict at a corporate upper management meeting:

This company will respond to the level of this disaster. A lot of you are going to have to make decisions above your level. Make the best decision that you can with the information that’s available to you at the time, and, above all, do the right thing.

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Communicating Water’s Value Part 2

Walmart upper management surrendered its claim for employee accountability and simply urged store managers: Get it done! Given that mission—and its implied money-is-no-object license—managers and employees of 126 Walmart stores that were closed by power outages and structural damage acted. Some 20,000 strong, they labored to open more than half of those stores within hours. Quickly suturing their internal wounds, the Walmart family turned outward and began handing out free bottled water and other essentials.

While FEMA was still trying to figure out how to requisition sup-plies to New Orleans, one of Walmart’s managers mounted a bulldozer and rolled through the ravaged aisles of her damaged store, scooping up usable supplies for distribution to locals in the parking lot. She even took a pharmaceutical order for the local hospital—all with the enthusiastic blessing of Walmart’s upper management.

Walmart understood one benchmark fundamental: Crises of this magnitude don’t require instructions. They require empowerment—enabling people to take charge. Walmart employees worked as a team, and even the Red Cross worked with them.

Significantly, however, the federal government refused to team up with Walmart’s efforts.

Hurricane Katrina SurvivorOne Katrina survivor, an upper-middle class guy—let’s call him Michael—was, although not typical, one of those thousands of stranded souls. Michael had grown up in New Orleans, and when the pre-hurricane evac-uation orders came down, he drove his wife and son to relatives a couple states away . . . then drove back home to board up his windows and make the other usual preparations.

Michael knew he had to evacuate, but he wanted a few more prepar-ations before joining his family in Florida. The day before Katrina hit was truly the calm before the storm, he recalls. The air was crisp and silent. But early the next morning he knew there would be no leaving in the days to come. He realized that Katrina would take more than a few hours to fade away, and soon he witnessed devastation that would forever change his life and take away too many others’ lives. It would fundamentally redefine New Orleans.

The water blindsided his home, Michael said, with devastating speed and impact. By the time it reached the attic floor, his newly purchased

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What We Learned From Hurricane Katrina

Mercedes-Benz had long since joined other objects bobbing in the waters like nursery school toys. Michael sheltered as best he could, keeping molds at bay by creating a tent from tarps he’d squirreled away over the years. Communications were dead. The city went dark with the setting sun. The food and water he’d stashed soon began to look meager.

Michael watched as debris accumulated. It resembled nothing so much as a zombie apocalypse, he said. No power. No fuel. No lights. No transportation. Looters, thieves, and the desperate reigned in the barbaric competition for scarce necessities—water, food, medicine, fuel, and trans-port. It seemed everyone carried weapons (he witnessed a Coast Guard helicopter being shot down). Hospital personnel abandoned the sick for their own survival. IVs dripped until they emptied. Graveyards were giv-ing up their dead. Money was worthless, and the skills needed to hide from strangers proved essential.

Some two weeks later, the military brought food and water—precious gifts that Michael stood in line for hours to get. On exceptionally hot, muggy afternoons, ice was dropped onto parking lots for those who could get there.

The Purpose of NetworkingMichael and other survivors of natural disasters attest to the necessity of preparation and practice in anticipation of some actual devastating experience that may never come. But something will happen, and when it does, going through the motions is what qualifies the responder to face any of an infinite number of contingencies. No matter how good the plan or how often it’s written down, nothing commits it to memory like prac-tice. We don’t send the military into combat without training. Doctors don’t master their craft by daydreaming about saving lives. Pilots take lessons—and practice, practice, practice alongside experienced veterans— before flying solo.

Even emergency plans commonly considered to be paragons fail to contemplate coordination with outside entities such as FEMA or energy providers—overlooking the logistics of sustaining life by seeking out remote food sources when nearby stores are looted or waterlogged; overlooking creative strategies for securing safe drinking water, medical personnel, and other essentials. And they often fall short in laying the groundwork for financially recovering from a natural disaster.

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Communicating Water’s Value Part 2

WARN (Water/Wastewater Agency Response Network) California originated an emergency preparedness system in 1992 in the wake of three Bay Area events: the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, a record-breaking freeze in 1990, and the 1991 East Bay Hills firestorm. It’s called WARN (Water/Wastewater Agency Response Network). Encouraged by the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, Cal-WARN is broken down into six regions. Each region has a steering committee of volunteers who are water and wastewater utility professionals. The steering committees meet annually so member utilities can discuss questions and concerns regarding mutual assistance and emergency preparedness. Simi-lar WARN programs can be found in 49 states, the National Capital Region surrounding Washington, D.C., and two Canadian provinces.

At WARN’s core is the mission to facilitate interagency communica-tion and to share resources, both of which would have helped badly needed assistance to reach Katrina’s victims. WARN is designed to expedite responses among water and wastewater utilities by establishing protocols regarding reimbursement and related legal matters prior to any incident.

Such pre-disaster planning minimizes logistical concerns and paves the way for coordinated response along clearly defined, predeter- mined guidelines.

Colorado’s CoWARNLike so many other states, Colorado utilities continue to face crises that threaten to compromise water and wastewater services. In September 2013, the normal trickle of the James Creek swelled following drenching storms. The roughly 300 residents of Jamestown, the historic gold-mining town 40 miles northwest of Denver, hastily evacuated, and when they returned, they found homes crushed and bridges and roads connecting them to the outside world washed away. The town became an island of devastation—its water no longer safe to drink, its delivery system virtually destroyed.

Enter Colorado’s Water and Wastewater Agency Response Network (CoWARN).

Dozens of surrounding entities quickly marshaled resources for an immediate, efficient, and appropriate mission of salvage and repair.

No emails needed to be read. No complex and time-consuming approvals were required.

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What We Learned From Hurricane Katrina

Instead, Jamestown’s water system was flushed and rebuilt as neigh-bors followed preplanned protocols to get the town back on its feet.

The City of Boulder Public Works, Eagle River Water and Sanitation District, and the Colorado Rural Water Association spearheaded the dis-patch of specialized equipment and trained personnel. Meanwhile, the Red Cross and Salvation Army provided bottled water and strategically positioned cisterns to store non-potable water.

The small neighboring town of Empire helped to get the critical treat-ment plant up and running again. Denver Water leaned on nearly a cen-tury of experience in providing water storage tank cleansing and flushing. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment shared in the recovery plans and proved instrumental in restoring safe drinking water by the end of October.

If your water or wastewater entity hasn’t done so already, have it join WARN in your state. Members of WARN recognize that the damage can always top the last natural disaster and the potential for human-caused emergencies must also be respected (not even considering the potential that the rescue effort itself might very well exacerbate an already dis-turbing dilemma). When possible, pre-build or have a plan for potable water stations. And document everything so FEMA can eventually reim-burse expenses.

Then be sure to tell your ratepayers that, although you cannot pre-vent disasters, you have considered a host of contingencies and spelled out strategies and specific methods for quickly and efficiently restoring water and wastewater services.

Water, water, every where, / And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink.

—Samuel Taylor ColeridGe, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

ReferencesAmerican Water Works Association. 2016. “WARN: Water/Wastewater Agency Response

Network.” http://www.awwa.org /resources-tools /water-knowledge/emergency -preparedness/water-wastewater-agency-response-network.aspx, accessed June 2016.

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Communicating Water’s Value Part 2

Dani, David. 2015. Capacity Coach & Training Workgroup Lead Local Assistance Unit, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, CoWARN, Colorado Water Quality Control Division. Interview October 2015.

Minich, Kaitlyn. 2015. Security, Excellence Awards, and Training Specialist, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, CoWARN. Interview October 2015.

Morley, Kevin M. 2015. Security and Preparedness Program Manager, American Water Works Association, Washington, D.C. Interview October 2015.

Rosegrant, Susan, and Dutch Leonard. 2007. “Wal-Mart’s Response to Hurricane Katrina: Striving for a Public-Private Partnership.” Case Study. Harvard Business Review, August 28. https://hbr.org/product/wal-mart-s-response-to-hurricane-katrina-striving -for-a-public-private-partnership/an/HKS150-PDF-ENG, accessed July 2016.