Wastewater Engineering in Extremistan
Wastewater treatment plan in Siloam Springs. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
In his book The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb described a “black swan” as an event that is unpredictable and massively impactful, and an event for which we later come up with explanations to make it seem less random. 9/11 was a black swan. The COVID-19 crisis, according to Taleb, was not. Also in The Black Swan, Taleb differentiates between “Extremistan”—a place where black swans occur, and a single event can be more significant than all previous events—and “Mediocristan,” a place without black swans where no single data point can affect the average.
Wastewater Civil Engineering is a profession seemingly out of Mediocristan. Its principles were developed over millennia. Sewage will always flow downhill. Water does not compress.
On the other hand, the water needs pipes, pumps, and treatment plants to move through a system. These systems rely on money, politics, and humans, which all reside in Extremistan.
This begs the question, do civil engineers have a black swan problem?
Ask a wastewater engineer why he or she works, and you will get an answer straight out of Mediocristan. They will respond with a discussion about regulations forcing cities to upgrade their systems. The Clean Water Act (CWA) passed in 1972 has been in place, for many of us, for all living memory. CWA regulations and funding have created an overarching purpose for the entire wastewater industry. The regulations protect public health and the environment by requiring treated wastewater to reach specific chemical/biological parameters.
The CWA required cities to install modern sewerage systems. The federal government funded the projects with 90% grants and required only 10% local funding (usually as a 40-year loan). The cities were expected to cover the cost of owning and maintaining the infrastructure. This is the epitome of a “free” Great Dane puppy.
When the Clean Water Act was passed, rural towns in the United States were relatively productive places. Most had successfully transitioned from agricultural production to industrial production. But since the 1970s, most factories moved overseas, and nothing filled the void. Many rural communities saw a rapid rise in poverty and have experienced stagnant or declining populations. At the same time, environmental regulations became more stringent, requiring more expensive equipment, and construction costs rose in excess of inflation. Funding for wastewater projects has also shifted, from 90% grant funding to 30-50% grant funding.
Currently, the federal and state governments issue regulations to minimize the presence of pollutants in the waterways. The small rural city receives this new regulation and is required to renovate their wastewater treatment facility to remove a new pollutant that was previously unknown to them. To complete this process the City is required to hire an engineer to design the renovation, access funding, and see the project to completion.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Consulting engineering firms’ business model is predicated on the assumption that this process will continue indefinitely. They assume that the federal government will always issue new regulations, the state government will inspect existing facilities, and conduct enforcement actions against municipalities that do not comply.
Is it possible that rural communities and civil engineers have a black swan problem? Could they think they exist in Mediocristan, but actually exist in Extremistan? The suburban development pattern has saddled our cities with more infrastructure than they can afford. The wastewater systems in rural communities are no exception. If the federal funds were to stop flowing, many rural cities would simply stop upgrading their wastewater systems. They would violate current environmental regulations, but I doubt there would be repercussions against all the insolvent cities. The demand for engineering services would fall to pre-Clean Water Act levels, which would shock the engineering industry.
In a sense, rural communities and engineers may be suffering from the same illusions: rural communities assume there will always be money to pay for the latest renovation, and engineers assume there will always be rural communities able to pay them to make those renovations. They assume the good life will continue forever. Nassim Taleb compares this delusion to turkeys leading up to Thanksgiving. Will the existing, fragile system continue for another five years or 50? Or perhaps even less?
About the Author
Patrick Quigley is a Strong Towns member and a licensed water and wastewater treatment operator. He lives in Smyrna, GA with his wife Caitlin and their two children.
Waterways today are engineered systems that are more orderly than natural rivers, but they are increasingly dumb.