The Proposal

November 2010

A request for voluntary and codified changes to the way Portland City offices treat records requests from Neighborhood Associations and other community-based groups.

We Request:
1) Commissioners voluntarily direct bureaus to allocate a portion of their 2010-11 budgets to providing free-of-charge access for document requests supported by Portland’s Neighborhood Associations or other community-based, non-profit organizations.

2) Commissioners voluntarily direct all City offices and bureaus to accept a default working principle of “digitize and post publicly” for work products moving forward. Direct offices to innovate fast and affordable information sharing methods that reduce paper consumption, with the goal of making it simple for the public to stay informed without formal information requests. Direct offices to accept and respond to regular citizen input (by phone, email, or online form) about the specific information the public deems valuable and would like to find shared online by default.

3) Craft and execute an adjustment to the City’s Public Access to Records policy (BCP-ADM-8.03) to codify no-charge access to information requests supported by Portland’s Neighborhood Associations or other community-based organizations.

Discussion of Financial Impact
The funds required to fulfill public records requests from community-based organizations and Neighborhood Associations should represent a relatively small portion of a bureau’s “public involvement” budget. As an example, consider the Portland Water Bureau public records requests for a one year period in comparison to its public involvement budget for a one year period. Recently, the Portland Water Bureau conducted a “snapshot” study of ALL public records requests (not just those from community groups, but all requests) at their bureau for fiscal year 2008-2009. Including requests for correspondence, email communication, publications, maps, billings, customer account water consumption data, and financial documents the bureau amassed $37,000 in that one year period (described as “staff time” and “resources”). This bureau’s public involvement budget was listed as $614,759 for the one year period of FY 2009-10. All requests to this bureau represent just 6% of their “public involvement” budget, and less than 1/16th of 1% of their total budget for the year (total PWB budget for FY 2009-10 was over $148 million).

Increasing digital access will reduce the impact of formal records requests, both by reducing the number filed and by reducing the time required to fill each request. Requiring bureaus to offer free access to certain citizen groups, minimally impacts bureau budgets and will likely inspire City offices to quickly innovate less resource consuming ways to publish public information.

Why this proposal benefits Portlanders
Information is essential for an involved and engaged public. Portlanders value civic engagement, and information fosters the vibrant civic life that characterizes our city. Engaged citizens provide invaluable support to city government initiatives. In 2009 alone, Solarize Portland, the SE Tool Library, and massive neighborhood clean-up events exemplified how engaged citizens can generate incredible support for government initiatives, amplifying the effectiveness of those initiatives at little or no-cost to government. An informed citizenry is a smart investment in a volunteer-labor force that returns tangible dividends.

But who decides what information interests the public? Publishing decisions are usually made by the bureaucracies generating the information. It’s important to remember that in delegating authority, the citizens of Portland do not give their public servants the right to decide what is and what isn’t good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created. Citizens fund the staff, the computer and the overhead that go into creating our public records. At the heart of this proposal is the belief that, when practicable, citizens should be given free-of-charge access to the final product of work they’ve already funded.

The supporters of this proposal believe the fee structure currently employed in City Policy is restricting the citizenry’s access to information. A 2007 study of government transparency in the 50 states gave Oregon an “F.” As stated in Binding City Policy 8.03, “the City of Portland prides itself in citizen access to City records, which is a fundamental component of democracy.” As such, we request that the City continues to evolve the policy in reaction to citizen input.

This year, Oregon’s Attorney General surveyed sunshine laws around the country, revealing a number of practices that seem to foster information access better than our local policies. For example, at least 11 states limit document request fees by excluding the cost of staff time, such that inspecting records is generally free (this is true in cities like Seattle and Austin). Contrast this with Portland’s policy, which allowed a neighborhood volunteer to be charged $57 for the time it took her to read a document while sitting in a bureau office. Many states that permit the inclusion of staff time do so only after a certain threshold -- in Austin, Texas, for example, a requestor does not pay for labor on requests requiring less than 50 copies. Several states set a flat hourly rate for all staff/labor charges, usually between $10 and $15 dollars. Contrast that with Portland’s staff time charges which are laboriously calculated for each City employee involved in a request, resulting in staff charges that run the gamut from $20 to almost $200 an hour (for upper level employees).

Meeting the Public Interest Test
According to the Oregon Attorney General’s Manual on Public Records, a “matter or action is commonly understood to be 'in the public interest' when it affects the community or society as a whole, in contrast to a concern or interest of a private individual or entity." In applying the public interest test, custodians are directed to decide if the information requested is a personal matter of interest solely to the party requesting it, or if the subject involves public business of interest to the broader community.

Community-based, non-profit organizations and Neighborhood Associations can effectively telegraph true citizen-interest from the community to the government. Community-based organizations are often formed around a very current issue of great community concern. Neighborhood Associations are uniquely integral to the proper functioning of this city. As active participants in land development processes, including long-range city planning and code enforcement, they keep the land’s use grounded in the will of the citizenry. Volunteers from NA’s and other community organizations carry community issues down to city hall and meet face to face with Commissioners and decision makers, keeping them current and informed with a wide variety of perspectives. Made-up of citizens themselves, these organizations can act as a first-level filter on defining “in the public interest” from the community’s perspective.

Providing access to the information communities deem valuable without the limiting burden of onerous fees is a reasonable investment of public funds. Community-based, non-profit organizations and Neighborhood Associations can provide a means by which information can flow from government to citizens, according to the values shared by both government and citizen (those shared values being free access to public information without over burdening either party with unreasonable associated costs). When a request is backed by a community organization or a Neighborhood Association, and the information is intended to be shared with the community (i.e. the members of that community-based organization), that information should be regarded as meeting the standard of “in the public interest”.

Summary
Clearly, opportunity exists for Portland to improve its public records policy. The supporters of this proposal seek to start with just one change, that declares the city’s commitment to transparency and an engaged citizenry by providing free-of-charge access to public records when the request represents a plurality of public will. We seek to clarify for City document-custodians that requests supported by Neighborhood Associations and other community-based organizations inherently meet the Public Interest Test, and therefore will be offered codified relief from public records access fees. We believe this specific policy change will simplify request fulfillment for City employees, it will help keep Portland’s government transparent, and it will inspire the City to innovate information access so as to reduce waste and the need for formal requests.

FAQs

Won’t it be expensive and time consuming for city employees to digitize their work?
Just about everything produced in today’s workplace is done so on a computer, so the data originates in a digital form. City employees can simply save or print to “PDF” any document the public requests.

Digitizing older work products is an entirely separate issue requiring more resources. However, we have to jump in at some point and make it the standard to print to PDF; the longer we wait the more catch-up we have to do. These issues, digitizing as you work vs. catching-up digital access for older documents should not be confused, as one is sometimes used as an excuse to avoid launching the other.

Doesn’t this amount to special treatment for one group?
The public interest test inherently grants government the opportunity to treat entities differently. The factors to be weighed in this test include not just an analysis of the material requested, but an analysis of the requestor. For instance, whether they have the ability to disseminate the information (news organizations are allowed to be treated differently under this analysis).

The law provides equal access for all and current policy meets the law. Dropping the fee for one party doesn’t in any way further restrict another party’s access. Every citizen in Portland has access to a Neighborhood Association from which he/she can seek support for a document request. This allowance will benefit the broader community, not just one special interest.

Endnotes.....
*1 - “Results and Criteria of BGA/NFOIC survey,” available at http://www.nfoic.org/uploads/results1.pdf
*2 - Attorney General’s Government Transparency Report, October 2010

An Idea...

During my time as the Land Use Chair of the Mt. Tabor Neighborhood Association, I have requested access to a wide range of publicly owned information on behalf of my neighborhood. I am dismayed to report that despite the era’s technological advances, a citizen’s access to information appears to be growing more and more limited. I have a proposal regarding fee waivers and the lack of clarity posed by the phrase “in the public interest.” At the heart of my proposal is the belief that every community should have multiple portals through which information can be accessed free-of-charge, as fees prove to be a significant factor limiting the public’s access to said information.

Information fosters civic engagement. Engaged citizens provide invaluable support to city and state initiatives. In 2009 alone, Solarize Portland, the SE Tool Library, and massive neighborhood clean-up events exemplified how engaged citizens can generate incredible support for government initiatives, amplifying the effectiveness of those initiatives at little or no-cost to government. An informed citizenry is a smart investment in a volunteer-labor force that returns tangible dividends.

But who decides what information will engage or interest the public? More often than not, the decision about what to publish is left to the bureaucracies generating the information. A structured dialog between government and citizenry is impractical here, with any real frequency. However, community-based non-profit organizations can, effectively, telegraph true citizen-interest from the community to the government. Community-based non-profits are on the ground with the citizens, and they are, often times, formed around a very current public interest. Made-up of citizens themselves, these organizations can act as a first-level filter on defining “in the public interest” from the community’s perspective. When a request is backed by a community organization, and the information is intended to be shared with the community (i.e. the members of that community-based organization), arguably that information could be regarded as meeting the standard of “in the public interest”.

Providing communities access to the public information they deem valuable, without the limiting burden of onerous fees, is a reasonable investment of public funds. Community-based non-profit organizations could provide one portal through which information could flow from government to citizens, according to the values shared by both government and citizen (those shared values being free access to public information without over burdening either party with unreasonable associated costs). My specific proposal is that all information access requests generated from within a community-based non-profit be granted codified relief from associated fees, especially those fees levied for supervised reviews, reviews, research, and staff time.

For most government agencies, the funds required to fill public records requests from community-based organizations will represent a relatively small portion of their existing “public involvement” budgets. As an example, consider the Portland Water Bureau public-records requests for a one year period in comparison to its “public involvement” budget for a one year period. Recently, the Portland Water Bureau conducted a “snapshot” study of ALL public records request activity at their bureau for fiscal year 2008-2009 (including requests for correspondence, email communication, publications, maps, billings, customer account water consumption data, and financial documents); the bureau amassed $37,000 (described as “staff time” and “resources”) in that one year period. This bureau’s public involvement budget was listed as $614,759 for the one year period of fiscal year 2009-2010. All of this bureau’s requests represent just 6% of their public involvement budget. As information is key to getting the public involved and engaged, I believe it is a reasonable request to allocate some portion of funds to subsidize public access via community-based organizations.

In Portland, Neighborhood Associations are uniquely integral to the city’s proper functioning, yet they are completely un-funded and they operate solely on volunteer labor and donations. Neighborhood Associations are active participants in land development processes in our city, including long-range city planning and current code enforcement. Neighborhood Associations keep the land’s “use” grounded in the needs and desires of the citizenry. Neighborhood Association volunteers carry community issues down to city hall, meeting face to face with Commissioners and decision makers, providing valuable ground-tested knowledge about life in this city. Often our efforts help keep decision makers current and informed with a wide variety of perspectives. Additionally, all of the volunteer-based initiatives I cited earlier are direct outgrowths of Neighborhood Associations. I am a volunteer with my neighborhood’s Association, which represents roughly 10,000 people. Our board and our meetings are open to the public. We field requests for support and information on any number of issues that make their way to our meetings. Portland’s Neighborhood Associations serve as communication tools between the citizens and their government, arguably acting as a filter for defining what meets the standard of “in the public interest”. I propose that Neighborhood Associations be granted codified relief from public information access fees, especially those fees levied for supervised reviews, reviews, research, and staff time.

My Solarizing Experience

My family installed a 4.2 kW solar PV system on the roof of our 1912 craftsman style, SE Portland bungalow in October 2009. We did so through the first Solarize Portland project, which brings neighbors together for a bulk-purchase of panels and labor. As if we weren’t already excited every time the sun comes out… now we have CLEAN POWER to celebrate.

The Nitty Gritty

• 4.2 kW grid-tied array of 20 Sanyo 210W PV Modules (2 strings of 10 modules); mounted with a 32 degree pitch, 180 degree orientation (south)
• Sunny Boy 4000US inverter located in our basement laundry room. Note: the inverter makes a high pitched humming sound when it is on, so if you are sensitive to these frequencies (most women are) be sure to locate it away from living space.
• Total cost of this system, purchased through the Solarize Portland group-buying project: $28,560 (I estimate this system would have cost us $37,800 without the Solarize Portland group discount.) Energy Trust Incentive payment: $9,450. This payment came from ETO to the contractor before I even got the bill, so the check I wrote to the contractor was $19,610. That is still a heck of a lot of money. But, after all of the tax credits are taken this system will have only cost us $6,700. That’s a little better.
• We estimate the system will have paid for itself at around the 10 year mark (2019). In the meantime, we’ve factored it all out and our solar panels are generating power for us at a cost of 6 cents/kWhr (prepaid). Given that rates are already above 10 cents/kWhr with PGE and rising, we feel we’ve locked in a nice power production rate. As PGE rates continue to rise, our payback time frame will shorten.
• Our contractor was Imagine Energy, and I can’t say enough good things about them.

Earliest Measurements
In February of 2009, our PGE bill reflects we consumed an average of 23kW hours of grid-power per day. In February of 2010 (after our panels were installed), our PGE bill reflects we consumed an average of 5kW hours of grid-power per day. It was indeed a sunny February this year, and we were thrilled to have a solar power plant on our roof to make use of all that unusual weather.

Unintended consequences
The female head of household (that’s me) is quite pleased to report that having a power plant on the roof has increased the entire household’s awareness about power consumption. All my failed strategies to get people to turn off the lights were, evidently, missing one component that measurable, in-house production provides. When you can see your production, it becomes a game to make your consumption match (or even fall below) that production number. Now we’re all thinking about ways we can lower our consumption, which means we’re REALLY thinking about (and even measuring) our consumption in ways we hadn’t before. Like, item by item. Activity by activity (note, this could become crazy making). And the fact that even the resident 5 year old is in on the race is thrilling to me.

How we came to our solar panel decision
The female head of house (me again) helped start the first Solarize Portland project with Tim O’Neal of SE Uplift and Lizzie Rubado of the Energy Trust of Oregon. “Find out if solar panels make sense for our home” had been an item on my to-do list for like 7 years. When the opportunity presented itself to start this program, I hesitated at all the work it would mean… finally sorting out all my questions about solar. But within a few minutes of having met with Tim and Lizzie, I learned there was a wealth of solar information in Portland that just needed to be pulled together in one spot for homeowners like myself. So, that’s what we did. And, we made some of the key big decisions that ALWAYS trip me up in any home related project = like, who to hire. Once the project sorted out all of the details that normally SLOW me down so much I stall out, it was clear solar PV was practical and within reach.

Which left one big decision we had to make for ourselves = how big of a system do we buy? In the end, I have to give the credit to the male head of household (credit? blame?) for the size system we purchased. He made a number of arguments in favor of the 4kW system (I was initially more comfortable with the cost of the 3kW system). I liked the “give the boot to Enron” argument a lot = you’re going to spend this money on electricity anyway, why not divert the money from a company the likes of Enron and channel it into your own system. I also liked the “reduce volatility argument” he made one morning over breakfast. Obviously, the energy market is volatile and prices are generally only expected to tick upwards, but at what rate no one knows really. With a 4kW panel investment we’d be locking in a 30 year electricity production cost of $.06 per kWh from our solar panels… that is already lower than the price we pay per kWh to PGE. So, I’m sort of pre-paying for $6700 worth of energy and getting a discount for doing so… I think. But here is the volatility argument only I could love (and I REALLY love it). We’ve owned a few stocks and I’ve disliked 95% of them. The very arrival of a stock statement represents volatility, for my moods, as the principal of what we’ve invested evaporates. But I can divest myself of “stock” investments (reducing volatility in my moods as statement time arrives) AND channel that money into my own little power company right on my roof. It’ll even pay dividends. Fewer stock headaches + dividends + boot Enron = we bought a 4kW system for our house.

The Kelly Butte tank teaches us a lesson about big consultants

On March 17, 2010, Portland's City Council gave the go ahead to the Portland Water Bureau to start the uber-expensive and unnecessary new water tank at Kelly Butte. The contract is going to Montgomery Watson Harza (MWH). MWH has secured most of the largest PWB contract awards over the last decade, MWH employees were involved in writing the LT2 Rule that Portland is now citing as the reason they must build this new tank at Kelly Butte, and reportedly, it was MWH that originally conceived of this idea to build a tank we don't need at Kelly Butte almost a decade ago. One might also note, MWH constructed the famously faulty buried tanks in Seattle which have contaminated that city's water supply.

There were two companies on the official “short list” to get the Kelly Butte contract; one was MWH and the other was a company called AECOM. AECOM is another mammoth global engineering firm. This year, Friends of the Reservoirs and I have found CH2MHill and MWH bidding on contracts, such as the Powell Butte contract, under other names. For instance, with the Powell Butte project we saw two bids come in: one from CH2MHill and one from Tetra Tech. The Tetra Tech bid turned out to be a consortium of multiple players, including MWH and Black & Veatch. AECOM has a history of working with CH2MHill on lucrative contracts. (Note the consortium called “Transcend” that was developed this time last year for a large rail project in the UK).

Also note on the Kelly Butte meeting sign in sheet, CH2MHill listed itself as a “SUB” or subcontractor for this project and AECOM listed itself as a “PRIME” or the prime contractor for this project. Which means AECOM was planning on submitting its bid under its own name, and CH2MHill is/was planning on working under some other company on this project.

As citizens become more alarmed at the influence particular firms have over large projects in Portland, we should expect to see those firms occasionally mask their participation in large contracts so as to lesson appearances of impropriety. Something to be aware of as more contracts move forward. The top name does not necessarily tell you who the real players are behind the contract. The only way to know which companies are truly benefiting from these large contract awards is to request to see every bid -- a costly prospect given the Portland Water Bureau's refusal to recognize fee waivers for community organizations and their insistence on charging for every form of access to these bids.

Cost without Cause

If you've read my PURB testimony from March 3, 2010, you've read this paper.

In 1973, citizens sued to protect the Bull Run watershed from logging. At the time, logging was being promoted by both the federal government and the Portland Water Bureau.*1 These citizens asserted that logging in the watershed was destructive to water quality. The judge on the case, Justice James M. Burns, rather pointedly identified one of the flaws in that 1973 debate surrounding our water system. He drew a distinction between statements of policy or purpose and statements of fact, noting that one should not be confused with the other. At that time, the federal government issued policy statements like, “logging will protect Bull Run from catastrophic fire,” but upon investigation the facts proved logging increased both the risk of and the damage caused by fire. The policy to log Bull Run as a means to control fire risk or damage in our watershed, was a policy based on an erroneous assumption about the relationship between logging and fire. Asserting that assumption unchecked, in a policy worded as a doctrine to protect, almost allowed a destructive practice to move forward under the guise of a policy meant to help.

Portland is again in a position where the federal government has asserted a statement of policy. And again, when Portlanders investigate the assumptions underlying these policy statements, the facts just don’t bear out.

Unsupported Policy #1: Covering your reservoirs will protect public health. Fact: EPA has documented multiple cases of death and illness caused by infectious Cryptosporidium outbreaks in drinking water systems. Every single case was either in a system with covered drinking water storage, or in a system where sewage, industrial, and farm runoff mixed with drinking water.* 2 The policy to “protect people from infectious Crypto” can be supported. The facts, however, don’t seem to support the use of lids as a meaningful treatment technique for microbes. Debris of all sizes enters all forms of water storage devices. If there is an inlet and an outlet for the water, there are entry points for non-water matter including microbes; covering a reservoir does not eliminate the need to manage contamination. Covers do not provide a silver bullet in the effort to protect public health.

New York City’s Department of Environmental Quality has spent significant resources collecting data on one of their large open reservoirs, known as Hillview. Their question was simple and quantifiable: Is water any more likely to contain Crypto or other protozoa once that water has been in the Hillview open reservoir than water that has not been in this open reservoir? The answer also seems to be simple: No. Time in the Hillview open reservoir does not increase the incidence of protozoa found in that water.* 3

Portland, too, has spent significant resources documenting the safety of the city’s open reservoirs. Between May 2008 and May 2009, the Portland Water Bureau paid to participate in a study conducted by the Water Research Foundation (WRF project #3021 *4); this was a large-volume collection study, analyzing finished drinking water gathered at the outlet of our open reservoirs (water sampled spent time in the open reservoirs). A preliminary report from this study has been published and the basic results found in Portland were communicated throughout the year-long test period. There was no infectious Crypto found in Portland’s drinking water.

Unsupported Policy #2: Constructed facilities are superior to engineered, protected watersheds when creating quality drinking water. Fact: There is no substitution for starting with the purest water possible. Portland’s drinking water system is uniquely engineered within a substantial framework of protection (possible because this system was established more than 100 years ago), and the result is some of the purest tap water in the country. The federal LT2 Rule favors construction over protection, without much data to support that favoritism.

EPA can produce surprisingly little evidence to verify chemical filtration plants perform the duties we expect them to perform. Drinking water exiting a chemical filtration plant is assumed to meet a particular set of standards; but that water is not tested to confirm that it meets those standards. When Portland tests its source water as part of the Variance process this coming year, it will be testing to see if Bull Run water meets the standards chemically filtered water is assumed to meet, with little evidence that chemically filtered water can actually meet these same standards. Furthermore, if ratepayers in Portland do buy an additional treatment plant, in theory so that Portland’s water can meet these standards, consumers have little in the way of a guarantee that they will actually get the results for which they are paying.

Recently, EPA scientists publicly revealed that EPA policies are often politically motivated rather than scientifically motivated. In testimony before a US Senate Committee this past summer (June 9, 2009) the Director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (USC) exposed an EPA producing compromised work-products between the years of 2002 and 2007 (these are the same years LT2 draft and then final rule was issued; * 5) , because of undue interference largely driven by industry lobbyists. Responders to a survey of EPA scientists revealed 22% had personally experienced the “selective or incomplete use of data to justify a specific regulatory outcome.” The percentage of scientists reporting interference was highest in the program offices with regulatory duties (68%) and at EPA headquarters (69%). One survey-responder explained that in cases where regulation is industry driven rather than scientifically driven, “the regulations contain a scientific rationale with little or no merit,” because, “the real reasons can’t be stated.” *6

One can begin to see evidence of possible industry influence on the LT2 Rule by reading the 2004 public comments from the Unfiltered Systems Working Group (comments made while LT2 was still in draft form * 7 ). This group calls-out a particular favoritism being afforded, at that time, to one specific industry by EPA with LT2’s mandate to use an exact treatment technique (UV).

We are also concerned with Calgon’s UV patent and its cost impact to unfiltered
systems, which, based on the proposed rule, will have to rely on the operation of UV to
meet the Cryptosporidium inactivation criterion. We believe it is inappropriate that the
proposed rule’s reliance on “UV only” causes the unfiltered systems to pay a substantial
patent fee annually to Calgon to meet the LT2 requirements.*7

Note that representatives from Calgon served on at least one of the Federal Advisory Committees funneling information into the LT2 Rule. *8 A number of participants on these federal committees, some of whom were Portland grown, *9 appear to have conflicting interests including connections to the various industries that stand to gain lucrative contracts as municipalities attempt to comply with the LT2 regulation.

One can see further evidence of possible industry influence on the LT2 Rule when considering the Rule’s open reservoir requirements, which heavily favor constructing new facilities without providing sound scientific reasoning. The open reservoir requirements found in LT2 are a perplexing insertion into a Rule which is otherwise dedicated to source water issues, not storage issues. EPA does not offer a single citation of a public health incident linked to open storage; EPA does, however, cite public health incidents in water systems employing closed storage devices. Yet, the LT2 Rule does not prescribe any new requirements for closed storage (the devices with incidents on record). EPA’s focus here seems less about protecting public health than it does about promoting the financial interests of industry lobbyists.

EPA’s application of this cookie-cutter regulation on a water system as unique as Portland’s, has always been a questionable approach to ensuring the public’s interests. As evidence mounts that EPA regulations are grounded less in science than in special interests, cities like Portland must carefully question the efficacy of compliance.

Unsupported Policy #3: Microbes are a threat to public health, while chemicals are not. Fact: The overarching goal in drinking water management is to produce water that supports the public’s good health. Portlanders should question the underlying assumption that the public’s health will subsequently improve with an even further reduction of microbe exposure (beyond the low-microbe levels already achieved by first-world, modern drinking water systems). Does completely eliminating all microbes from drinking water make people healthier?

There is data that suggests otherwise. A 2004 study by the Water Research Foundation (WRF) suggests a surprisingly complex relationship between microbe levels found in American tap water and the incidence of chronic diseases associated with microbes found in an American’s everyday environment. *10 Decreasing the microbes found in a drinking water supply clearly increases health, up to a certain point. Modern drinking water systems have mastered this point by separating sewage and drinking supplies (among many other conventions). Beyond a certain point, however, a further reduction of microbes seems to be linked to an increase in the number of people suffering from chronic, related diseases. The WRF study would seem to suggest that there may be a point at which the public is dependent on some small amount of microbe exposure in the drinking water to provide them immunity and increase resistance to those microbes encountered in the normal course of a person’s day. Which sounds familiar = small, occasional exposure builds immunity and increases resistance to chronic disease. Employing large chemical treatment plants as an additional barrier between taps and a well protected, clean water supply like Bull Run may unnecessarily deny the population a chance to incrementally build immunity to microbes, while dramatically increasing the chemicals to which the population is exposed. Modern drinking water is increasingly laced with a myriad of chemicals, many of which are employed to adjust the composition of said drinking water. There is remarkably little recognition among water industry officials and municipality managers of the long-term effects those chemicals have on humans, in various stages of life.

Endnotes:

1 Cooperation and Conflict in a Federal-Municipal Watershed, by Roy R. Wilson. Available online: http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/jspui/bitstream/1957/9685/1/Wilson_Roy_R_1989.pdf

2 EPA whitepaper Finished Water Storage Facilities, prepared August 2002. Available online: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/disinfection/tcr/pdfs/whitepaper_tcr_storage.pdf

3 www.dos.state.ny.us/watershed/2009presentations/AlderisioWSTCHillview091409ppt.ppt

4 Project snapshot available online: http://www.waterresearchfoundation.org/research/topicsandprojects/projectSnapshot.aspx?pn=3021

5 Also the same years during which the open reservoir requirements were inserted into the LT2 Rule.

6 Testimony by Francesca T. Grifo, Ph.D., Senior Scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, Director of the Scientific Integrity Program. Delivered June 2009, before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Written testimony available online: http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/scientific_integrity/Grifo-EPW-Testimony-June-9-2009.pdf

7 A copy of the Unfiltered Systems Working Group comments, January 2004, can be found on the Friends of the Reservoirs website: http://friendsofreservoirs.org/LT2/LT2comments-USWG.pdf

8 http://www.epa.gov/EPA-WATER/2000/December/Day-29/w33306.htm

9 http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=22165 As a representative of MWH, Joe Glicker served on various federal advisory committees with influence on the LT2 Rule. In recent years, Joe Glicker has joined CH2MHill, another global engineering firm specializing in water system projects. CH2MHill has secured several of the most recent LT2 related contracts, including the design contract for the Powell Butte reservoir and a contract to perform at least part of the work associated with the Bull Run treatment plant ( see Notice of Intent to Award associated with solicitation WTR082 https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B0FLHRhrA9yaMTMxZmY3ZjctNTA2YS00YzljLThmMTItYzQwYTRmZWVlNjA1&hl=en).

10 Water Research Foundation, Northwest Epidemiologic Enteric Disease Study, Project # 2637; project summary available online: http://www.waterresearchfoundation.org/research/TopicsAndProjects/projectProfile.aspx?pn=2637

Church of Water

This week, citizens turned out to speak before the Portland Utility Review Board about the PURB Water Subcommittee's recommendation to "expeditiously" close the open reservoirs. Speakers unanimously opposed this PURB recommendation, and they did so with passion as they cited a trove of research.

Most notable was the testimony given by Dr. Gary Oxman of the Multnomah County Public Health Department, declaring there isn't any sound science linking open reservoirs to any public health risk/problem. In other words, there is no public health justification for discontinuing use of our reservoirs. There is no public health justification for spending $400 million to build new tanks.

People have been doing some not-so-light reading. Citizens touched on everything from relevant test data to questionable consultant influence to derivative backed bonds. I don't think I heard an actual, "amen," but I might have heard a, "sing-it-sister," or two. The mood in the room was more like an old-time Southern church than a board meeting. The message from citizens, for like the umpteenth time, was clear: Portlanders don't want what EPA's LT2 is selling.

A local filmmaker (Brad Yazzolino) captured the meeting on video, and it is available online (be patient, it takes a while to download). At least for now, the city has posted an audio file of the hearing. Reportedly, the city will eventually make the transcript available online along with all of the "for the record" written comments that were submitted before the meeting. I submitted a 34 page packet on behalf of the MTNA land use committee. I'd be glad to share it (it is one PDF of 4mg) but I don't know how to post a PDF on this blog. For now, I'll excerpt my letter and post it here.

Comments For the Record, PURB meeting - March 3, 2010

Public Comment on Water Open Reservoirs, PURB Meeting
5:30-8:30 pm; Room C, Portland Building

Dear PURB members,

The Mt Tabor Neighborhood Association (MTNA) opposes disconnecting Portland’s open reservoirs. The community has noted numerous flaws in the LT2 Rule and in the process by which the LT2 Rule came into being. We consider all LT2 related construction projects to be a waste of ratepayer monies, as they will not measurably increase the public’s health. We hope you will take the time to read a sampling of MTNA position statements (offered as attachments to this letter) as well as some of the items on the suggested reading list we are submitting today.

In 1973, citizens sued to protect the Bull Run watershed from logging. At the time, logging was being promoted by both the federal government and the Portland Water Bureau.*[1] These citizens asserted that logging in the watershed was destructive to water quality. The judge on the case, Justice James M. Burns, rather pointedly identified one of the flaws in that 1973 debate surrounding our water system. He drew a distinction between statements of policy or purpose and statements of fact, noting that one should not be confused with the other. At that time, the federal government issued policy statements like, “logging will protect Bull Run from catastrophic fire,” but upon investigation the facts proved logging increased both the risk of and the damage caused by fire. The policy to log Bull Run as a means to control fire risk or damage in our watershed, was a policy based on an erroneous assumption about the relationship between logging and fire. Asserting that assumption unchecked, in a policy worded as a doctrine to protect, almost allowed a destructive practice to move forward under the guise of a policy meant to help.

Portland is again in a position where the federal government has asserted a statement of policy. And again, when Portlanders investigate the assumptions underlying these policy statements, the facts just don’t bear out.

Unsupported Policy #1: Covering your reservoirs will protect public health. Fact: EPA has documented multiple cases of death and illness caused by infectious Cryptosporidium outbreaks in drinking water systems. Every single case was either in a system with covered drinking water storage, or in a system where sewage, industrial, and farm runoff mixed with drinking water.*[2] The policy to “protect people from infectious Crypto” can be supported. The facts, however, don’t seem to support the use of lids as a meaningful treatment technique for microbes. Debris of all sizes enters all forms of water storage devices. If there is an inlet and an outlet for the water, there are entry points for non-water matter including microbes; covering a reservoir does not eliminate the need to manage contamination. Covers do not provide a silver bullet in the effort to protect public health.

New York City’s Department of Environmental Quality has spent significant resources collecting data on one of their large open reservoirs, known as Hillview. Their question was simple and quantifiable: Is water any more likely to contain Crypto or other protozoa once that water has been in the Hillview open reservoir than water that has not been in this open reservoir? The answer also seems to be simple: No. Time in the Hillview open reservoir does not increase the incidence of protozoa found in that water.*[3]

Portland, too, has spent significant resources documenting the safety of the city’s open reservoirs. Between May 2008 and May 2009, the Portland Water Bureau paid to participate in a study conducted by the Water Research Foundation (WRF project #3021*[4]); this was a large-volume collection study, analyzing finished drinking water gathered at the outlet of our open reservoirs (water sampled spent time in the open reservoirs). A preliminary report from this study has been published and the basic results found in Portland were communicated throughout the year-long test period. There was no infectious Crypto found in Portland’s drinking water.

Unsupported Policy #2: Constructed facilities are superior to engineered, protected watersheds when creating quality drinking water. Fact: There is no substitution for starting with the purest water possible. Portland’s drinking water system is uniquely engineered within a substantial framework of protection (possible because this system was established more than 100 years ago), and the result is some of the purest tap water in the country. The federal LT2 Rule favors construction over protection, without much data to support that favoritism.

EPA can produce surprisingly little evidence to verify chemical filtration plants perform the duties we expect them to perform. Drinking water exiting a chemical filtration plant is assumed to meet a particular set of standards; but that water is not tested to confirm that it meets those standards. When Portland tests its source water as part of the Variance process this coming year, it will be testing to see if Bull Run water meets the standards chemically filtered water is assumed to meet, with little evidence that chemically filtered water can actually meet these same standards. Furthermore, if ratepayers in Portland do buy an additional treatment plant, in theory so that Portland’s water can meet these standards, consumers have little in the way of a guarantee that they will actually get the results for which they are paying.

Recently, EPA scientists publicly revealed that EPA policies are often politically motivated rather than scientifically motivated. In testimony before a US Senate Committee this past summer (June 9, 2009) the Director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (USC) exposed an EPA producing compromised work-products between the years of 2002 and 2007*[5], because of undue interference largely driven by industry lobbyists. These are the same years EPA inexplicably and quietly omitted the mitigation option for open reservoirs from the LT2 Rule, despite the lack of scientific evidence for such action.  Responders to a survey of EPA scientists revealed 22% had personally experienced the “selective or incomplete use of data to justify a specific regulatory outcome.” The percentage of scientists reporting interference was highest in the program offices with regulatory duties (68%) and at EPA headquarters (69%). One survey-responder explained that in cases where regulation is industry driven rather than scientifically driven, “the regulations contain a scientific rationale with little or no merit,” because, “the real reasons can’t be stated.” *[6]

One can see other evidence of industry influence on the LT2 Rule by reading the 2004 public comments from the Unfiltered Systems Working Group (comments made while LT2 was still in draft form*[7] ). This group calls-out a particular favoritism being afforded, at that time, to one specific industry by EPA with LT2’s mandate to use an exact treatment technique (UV).

We are also concerned with Calgon’s UV patent and its cost impact to unfiltered systems, which, based on the proposed rule, will have to rely on the operation of UV to meet the Cryptosporidium inactivation criterion. We believe it is inappropriate that the proposed rule’s reliance on “UV only” causes the unfiltered systems to pay a substantial patent fee annually to Calgon to meet the LT2 requirements.*7

Note that representatives from Calgon served on at least one of the Federal Advisory Committees funneling information into the LT2 Rule. *[8] A number of participants on these federal committees, some of whom were Portland grown,*[9] appear to have conflicting interests including connections to the various industries that stand to gain lucrative contracts as municipalities attempt to comply with the LT2 regulation.

One can see further evidence of possible industry influence on the LT2 Rule when considering the Rule’s open reservoir requirements, which heavily favor constructing new facilities without providing sound scientific reasoning. The open reservoir requirements found in LT2 are a perplexing insertion into a Rule which is otherwise dedicated to source water issues, not storage issues. EPA does not offer a single citation of a public health incident linked to open storage; EPA does, however, cite public health incidents in water systems employing closed storage devices. Yet, the LT2 Rule does not prescribe any new requirements for closed storage (the devices with incidents on record). EPA’s focus here seems less about protecting public health than it does about promoting the financial interests of industry lobbyists.

EPA’s application of this cookie-cutter regulation on a water system as unique as Portland’s, has always been a questionable approach to ensuring the public’s interests. As evidence mounts that EPA regulations are grounded less in science than in special interests, cities like Portland must carefully question the efficacy of compliance.

Unsupported Policy #3: Microbes are a threat to public health, while chemicals are not. Fact: The overarching goal in drinking water management is to produce water that supports the public’s good health. Portlanders should question the underlying assumption that the public’s health will subsequently improve with an even further reduction of microbe exposure (beyond the low-microbe levels already achieved by first-world, modern drinking water systems). Does completely eliminating all microbes from drinking water make people healthier?

There is data that suggests otherwise. A 2004 study by the Water Research Foundation (WRF)*[10] suggests a surprisingly complex relationship between microbe levels found in American tap water and the incidence of chronic diseases associated with microbes found in an American’s everyday environment. Decreasing the microbes found in a drinking water supply clearly increases health, up to a certain point. Modern drinking water systems have mastered this point by separating sewage and drinking supplies (among many other conventions). Beyond a certain point, however, a further reduction of microbes seems to be linked to an increase in the number of people suffering from chronic, related diseases. The WRF study would seem to suggest that there may be a point at which the public is dependent on some small amount of microbe exposure in the drinking water to provide them immunity and increase resistance to those microbes encountered in the normal course of a person’s day. Which sounds familiar = small, occasional exposure builds immunity and increases resistance to chronic disease. Employing large chemical treatment plants as an additional barrier between taps and a well protected, clean water supply like Bull Run may unnecessarily deny the population a chance to incrementally build immunity to microbes, while dramatically increasing the chemicals to which the population is exposed. Modern drinking water is increasingly laced with a myriad of chemicals, many of which are employed to adjust the composition of said drinking water. There is remarkably little recognition among water industry officials and municipality managers of the long-term effects those chemicals have on humans, in various stages of life.

MTNA Position Letters
The Mt. Tabor Neighborhood Association has written many letters on LT2 issues; we are including a sampling from the last 12 months (all attached for your convenience):

Communications with Oregon’s Congressional Delegations
Letter- Urgent request for assistance with a Waiver – March 2009Communications with City Councilors
Comments before Council on March 25, 2009 opposing resolution – March 2009, MTNA rep
Letter - Seek deadline extension with the EPA – May 2009, via email
Letter - Opposing chemical filtration – July 2009, via email
Comments before Council on July 29, 2009, opposing resolution 1071 filtration – July 2009, MTNA repLetter - Highlighting flaws with the source water variance tests – August 2009, via email
Letter - File the Reservoir Variance; negotiate protocols for SW Variance – Sept 23, 2009, via emailLetter - Position on Reservoirs – Feb 2010, via email

Reading Suggestions
MTNA members know this is a complicated issue. We are sure you have had a number of great resources put before you since joining the PURB, but we’d like to ensure a few items have made your reading list.

· LT2 and Portland’s Open Reservoirs, June 28, 2009. Letter to the community, by Friends of the Reservoirs. Available about halfway down the homepage on http://friendsofreservoirs.org/ .
· Finished Water Storage Facilities, August 15, 2002. The EPA’s Whitepaper on storage facilities – it highlights the considerable problems caused by storing water in closed tanks (which seemingly would highlight considerable benefits to storing water in open tanks). Reportedly, this Whitepaper was available at the time of the community Reservoir Panel in 2004, but the Water Bureau did not provide it to the panel. Despite not having access to this data, the Reservoir Panel still recommended to keep our water storage open. Whitepaper available: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/disinfection/tcr/pdfs/whitepaper_tcr_storage.pdf
· One member of the Reservoir Independent Review Panel (2004) wrote a first person accounting of what it was like. Dave Mazza’s account is attached, but can also be found at: http://www.theportlandalliance.org/2004/june/reservoir.htm
· Unfiltered Systems Working Group Public Comments on LT2 Rule, Jan 2004. A copy is available online at the FOR website: http://friendsofreservoirs.org/LT2/LT2comments-USWG.pdf
· Mayor Potter/City of Portland Whitepaper on LT2, June 2005. A copy is available on the Friends of the Reservoirs website: http://www.friendsofreservoirs.org/LT2/LongTerm2-WhitePaperFinal.pdf
· For a primer on the complicated history of Bull Run, this Ph.D. thesis specifically addresses 100 years of competing influences in the watershed. Cooperation and Conflict in a Federal-Municipal Watershed, by Roy R. Wilson. Available online: http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/jspui/bitstream/1957/9685/1/Wilson_Roy_R_1989.pdf
· The Boiling Point, by Allan Classen. An article in the Jan 2010 issue of the NW Examiner; exposes a PWB culture of hostility towards citizen oversight, including that oversight offered by the PURB. This article is attached, but can also be found at: http://www.nwexaminer.com/issues/
· A blog post about a Jan 2010 incident an MTNA rep had while trying to access public records at PWB. This article is attached, but can also be found at: http://mtna-landuse.blogspot.com/2010/01/water-bureau-doesnt-want-to-give-me.html
· Forget it, Jake, it’s just P-town by Phil Stanford. An article in the Portland Tribune, originally written 2003, updated 2009. This article is attached, but can also be found at: http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=22165

Sincerely,
Stephanie Stewart
Mt. Tabor Neighborhood Association Land Use Chair

Endnotes:[1] Cooperation and Conflict in a Federal-Municipal Watershed, by Roy R. Wilson. Available online: http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/jspui/bitstream/1957/9685/1/Wilson_Roy_R_1989.pdf
[2] EPA whitepaper Finished Water Storage Facilities, prepared August 2002. Available online: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/disinfection/tcr/pdfs/whitepaper_tcr_storage.pdf
[3] www.dos.state.ny.us/watershed/2009presentations/AlderisioWSTCHillview091409ppt.ppt
[4] Project snapshot available online: http://www.waterresearchfoundation.org/research/topicsandprojects/projectSnapshot.aspx?pn=3021
[5] These are the same years LT2 draft and then final rule was issued; also the same years during which the open reservoir requirements were inserted into the LT2 Rule.[6] Testimony by Francesca T. Grifo, Ph.D., Senior Scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, Director of the Scientific Integrity Program. Delivered June 2009, before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Written testimony available online: http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/scientific_integrity/Grifo-EPW-Testimony-June-9-2009.pdf
[7] A copy of the Unfiltered Systems Working Group comments, January 2004, can be found on the Friends of the Reservoirs website: http://friendsofreservoirs.org/LT2/LT2comments-USWG.pdf
[8] http://www.epa.gov/EPA-WATER/2000/December/Day-29/w33306.htm
[9] http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=22165 As a representative of MWH, Joe Glicker served on various federal advisory committees with influence on the LT2 Rule. In recent years, Joe Glicker has joined CH2MHill, another global engineering firm specializing in water system projects. CH2MHill has secured several of the most recent LT2 related contracts, including the design contract for the Powell Butte reservoir and a contract to perform at least part of the work associated with the Bull Run treatment plant ( see Notice of Intent to Award associated with solicitation WTR082 http://cityofportland.ebidsystems.com/public/solicitationDetail.asp?Solicitation=WTR082).[10] Water Research Foundation, Northwest Epidemiologic Enteric Disease Study, Project # 2637; project summary available online: http://www.waterresearchfoundation.org/research/TopicsAndProjects/projectProfile.aspx?pn=2637

PURB reprimands spending, then calls for more spending

On Feb 18, the PURB Water Subcommittee issued some budget recommendations to the Portland Water Bureau, and I'm having a mixed reaction to them.

On the one hand, the subcommittee recognizes rates are out of control, and that spending is inappropriate (sometimes inappropriately allocated, as in the case of transportation projects paid for with water bills). But this PURB subcommittee is recommending PWB spends $200,000 to have an outside consultant look at their spending. I sort of thought that’s what PURB was supposed to do, for free. Some of the language used to introduce this recommendation reminds me that the newest subcommittee member, Mr. Crean, once served on a taskforce to “investigate” privatization options for a water utility in Maryland. http://www.msa.md.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/004000/004342/unrestricted/20071180e.pdf

Then there is the other hand, and the very poignant “conclusion” in this newest recommendation:

The current system for setting water & sewer budgets and rates has the systemic problem that it lacks effective checks and balances. This situation is made even worse by Portland’s commission form of government where each commissioner directly oversees a portfolio of city bureaus. The upside is that commissioners have more freedom to innovate. The downside is that there is minimal oversight of bureau operations by the other commissioners.

In our opinion this is a severe shortcoming when considering the utility bureaus because the commissioners have unlimited authority to raise rates to match spending for those bureaus. After noting that the PURB has unsuccessfully tried to deal with this issue in the past, we are now convinced that the current system cannot ensure that water services are provided to consumers at just and reasonable rates. We believe all of our concerns also apply to how the council handles BES. However, because we are the water subcommittee of PURB we have much deeper awareness of the situation with PWB.

For these reasons we are recommending taking steps to move toward a new process, with substantial checks and balances, for establishing budgets and setting rates for PWB and BES.

Bull Run land-swap not a good deal for citizens

We often hear the City Council assure us that logging and development could never happen in the Bull Run watershed because the land is Federally managed and therefore Federally protected. Today, the Portland Water Bureau brings to City Council a land-swap proposal involving land in our watershed. This swap will remove some of our watershed lands out from underneath significant Federal protections.

Oregon Wild, formerly known as the Oregon Environmental Resources Council, has been involved in the development of this proposal and they have flagged a serious flaw with it; you can read their article alerting citizens to this flaw here: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1780/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1168789

Stakeholders like Oregon Wild have worked with the City to write a new “protection code” for City land, so that the Bull Run watershed land that is about to move from Federal hands to PWB will be similarly safeguarded as if it were still Federally managed. According to Oregon Wild, this new code goes a long way to offering solid protection but falls short in one key area: it is weak on public involvement when management makes major decisions (like, say, choosing to log).

In an email to one concerned community member who contacted City Council this week regarding this land-swap, David Shaff of PWB assured there would be plenty of time to weigh in on this discussion in the future. Don’t worry your pretty little head, what we are deciding today is of little consequence, you can speak later (clearly, my own editorializing of what I read in Shaff’s letter). Portlanders know better; weighty agendas are furthered with incremental decisions like this one. There is no reason to move forward with any land-swap discussion if we can’t first all agree on how to protect that land once it is removed from Federal hands. PWB has historically been hostile to public involvement, and as long as that culture persists within PWB, citizens must be cautious and not let go of any leverage.

Bull Run has a long and sordid history. The parties involved and their agendas are nothing short of complicated. At times, both the Federal government and the Portland Water Bureau have promoted logging and commercial development within our watershed; at every turn, involved citizens have been the protectorates of our watershed and our drinking water. I once read a great PHD thesis exploring 100 years of competing influences in Bull Run, which presented differing definitions of “natural resources”. The paper is “Cooperation and Conflict in a Federal-Municipal Watershed,” by Roy R. Wilson (I found pages 84-124 quite educational and enjoyed reading about the 1973-76 legal case regarding logging in Bull Run).

Be suspicious. We have arrived in a new era in which Wall-Street discusses water as “the new oil”, while it leverages water-system investments as awkward as the ones it made in real estate. If competing influences in our watershed have been complicated before, they will be mind-boggling from here on out. Citizens will need to actively police decisions made in Bull Run. These new City Land protection codes don’t offer the public the kind of oversight access they will need in this new paradigm. If Oregon Wild says this proposal is flawed, you don’t want it to move forward.

UPDATE 2-21-10: Unfortunately, Portland's City Council approved this agenda item regarding the land-swap proposed in the Bull Run watershed. Only Commissioner Amanda Fritz stood with the myriad of citizen-groups requesting more substantive public participation policies; Commissioner Fritz voted to halt the land-swap discussion until the flaws in the city-land protection codes are addressed.

Commissioner Nick Fish was disappointing on this vote, contending his yes vote was just the beginning of a conversation; he fails to recognize the leverage sacrificed by allowing the discussion to move forward while so much of the community is already dissatisfied. Nevermind the fact that they aren't listening to citizen input right now, they promise to listen more, later on in the conversation.

This vote allows the Portland Water Bureau to formally open the next phase of the land-swap process. If left unchanged, these new city-land protection codes (now the only safeguards on the land to be held by PWB) seem to eliminate all environmental impact review processes, previously provided for under Federal regulations and open to public input. PWB can now move on any development on their new land holdings without a review. You can view the City Council discussion on this topic, items 220 and 221: http://www.portlandonline.com/index.cfm?c=49508&a=286230

Letter To City Council - Facts Don't Support Policy

Via email 2-1-2010

Dear Commissioners -

The Mt. Tabor Neighborhood Association respectfully urges Portland’s City Council and the Portland Water Bureau to press on in the fight to keep Portland’s open reservoirs, so as to avoid wasting millions (if not billions) of dollars for unnecessary new facilities. We find the January 17, 2010, letter from Friends of the Reservoirs raises a number of substantive points, and it advises a course of action we support.

In the 1973 case to protect Bull Run from logging, Judge Burns rather pointedly put his finger on one of the flaws in that debate. He drew a distinction between statements of policy or purpose, and statements of fact. At that time, the Federal government issued policy statements like “logging will protect Bull Run from catastrophic fire,” but upon investigation the facts proved logging increased both the risk of and the damage caused by fire. Portland is again in a position where the Federal government has asserted a statement of policy: “covering your reservoirs will protect public health.” And once again, when Portlanders investigate, the facts just don’t bear out. EPA has documented multiple cases of death and illness caused by infectious Cryptosporidium outbreaks in drinking water systems. Every single case was either in a system with covered drinking water storage, or in a system where sewage, industrial, and farm runoff mixed with drinking water. The policy to “protect people from infectious Crypto” can be supported. The facts, however, don’t seem to support the use of “coverings” as a meaningful treatment technique for microbes.

We once again respectfully urge City Council to resist giving in to LT2 projects that waste ratepayer monies.

Stephanie Stewart
On behalf of the Mt. Tabor Neighborhood Association

Mayor's office recognizes Solarize Portland

Last week a representative from the Mayor's office (Megan Ponder) said some very nice things about the Solarize Portland project as she presented Tim and me with Certificates of Appreciation. I came home and proudly posted my certificate on the frig, which is where these sorts of things live in my house. The resident 4-year old was noticeably delighted by the notion that Moms can get certificates too.

The award was a surprise, so I had a little trouble catching up with what was happening and I missed taking notes on some of the statistics Ms. Ponder cited about the project. But she was nice enough to share her comments in writing, so I can share some of them with you now:

The City of Portland would like to recognize the efforts of Stephanie Stewart from the Mt. Tabor Neighborhood Association and Tim O’Neal the Sustainability Coordinator for SE Uplift for their joint efforts to bring the volume purchase model for solar photovoltaics to Portland. Their efforts have created an unmatched demand for solar that no other private or public entity has yet been able to create.
...
The program had 300 people sign up, and we expect about 150 of those households to go solar. Southeast has approximately 60 systems already installed through the Solarize program and over 50 of those were in 2009. Solarize SE held approximately 50% of the market share of all Portland area installs and the program didn’t even kick off until June. Other co-benefits to the program include re-roofing work, energy efficiency upgrades and enhanced community spirit....

Appling for a BDS permit online

Have you tried purchasing a building permit online from Portland's Bureau of Development Services? Not every permit is eligible for this type of transaction, but as I understand it, any permit available as an "over-the-counter" building permit can be purchased and managed online (I think the over-the-counter designation goes to permits that don't require a plan review of some sort). Here is a link to the Permits Online page: http://www.portlandonline.com/bds/index.cfm?c=42781

I tried this out yesterday with a small project on my house, and it worked pretty nicely for us. On Tuesday morning (between feeding my 4 year old and starting a load of laundry) I pulled an over-the-counter plumbing permit for a rain drain. It cost $100, and it was immediately issued. Eight hours later the ground was trenched and the piping was in place, so I went back online to request an inspection (while sauteing the onions for the dinner dish). At 7:30 am on Wednesday morning the inspector left me a message saying he'd arrive between 9:30 and 11:30 am. He arrived at 9:26 am, took about 6 minutes, and we were approved to finish. While the $100 seems like a high tax on this job, the process was relatively painless and efficient.

Not Your PURB Anymore

After being criticized for a recommendation that seems to ignore years of substantive public input (representing countless hours contributed by thousands of citizens), PURB*1 has decided to give the public 2 hours. In March, forty Portlanders can have 3 minutes each to say their peace regarding a recommendation formed without citizen input,*2 that urges massively expensive changes to the city’s drinking water system. First, Portlanders will listen to a panel of presenters which, remarkably, doesn’t include a single citizen-based stakeholder group.*3 Then, if the panel doesn’t drone on too long, citizens can have a few sentences, and that’s it. Seemingly, PURB will consider their job done and the pesky public finally dispensed with on this controversial topic. (UPDATE: the March PURB public hearing on the reservoirs is now set for Wednesday, March 3rd from 5:30 - 8:00 pm in Room C on the second floor of the Portland Building; across the street from City Hall.)

The current PURB water subcommittee recommendations, for Portland’s reservoirs and for Bull Run, are a complete reversal of the last PURB’s recommendations regarding the community’s water system (issued August 2004), and they seek aggressive changes to that water system. Not only is the PURB now advocating for reservoir closure, but members employ language indicating PURB may aggressively support a new treatment plant at Bull Run. When I asked PURB members what new data they have seen, that the last PURB had not seen, that would in turn cause them to reverse major water system recommendations, one PURB member (Marks) replied that the PURB has new people that simply take a different position on the same data. New people, but no new data. (One might note here that all of the newest PURB members seem to have been appointed through the office of the Commissioner in charge of the Water Bureau.)

Another PURB member (Johnson) confirmed that the 2009 PURB, “did not do any comparisons to prior PURB positions.” New people, no new data, and a conscious effort to ignore the historical knowledge offered by a previous PURB whose members were both 1) well versed on local water topics and 2) actually present when most of the “public process” surrounding the reservoirs took place in this community (Scott Fernandez and Frank Ray as examples).

The current PURB water subcommittee recommendation on open reservoirs presents two supporting documents, both written by the Bureau for which this PURB is supposed to be providing independent oversight. PURB is presenting to Portlanders the case Portland Water Bureau presented, with seemingly very little examination of the range of alternatives. When Mayor Adams asked PURB subcommittee members (Jan 12 Council Work Session) if they’d consulted the well-educated stakeholder groups (like Friends of the Reservoirs) before making their subcommittee recommendations, Dave Johnson asserted that while he’d attempted to contact those stakeholders, he hadn’t succeeded. This PURB water subcommittee did not interview Friends of the Reservoirs representatives – by far some of the most water-system versed people in the city -- before issuing their recommendation. And, when Friends of the Reservoirs (FoR) attempted to share its organization’s research with PURB members during recent PURB meetings, FoR representative F. Jones was reportedly rebuffed with comments that suggested her presence was a nuisance (one PURB member wondered aloud why Jones was there to badger them, another pressed that they’d heard it all before).

The prior PURB recommendations about Portland’s water system issued in August 2004 were an outgrowth of a period of intense public discussion, and they were influenced by the exhaustive work of other groups like the Reservoir Independent Review Panel. In fact, one of the previous PURB members, Frank Ray, sat on both the PURB and the Independent Review Panel, which means he provided the PURB first hand participation in an intense public process that took place 3 hours every week for 3 months. The previous PURB also had Scott Fernandez, a microbiologist with water quality expertise and an unusually sophisticated understanding of Portland’s water system. Fernandez no longer serves on the PURB, after officials inexplicably denied his reappointment in 2008. None of the previous PURB members that were active in the public part of the discussion surrounding our water system are associated with the 2009 PURB.

If the 2009 PURB is devoid of participants active in the era of public process for these issues, and if the 2009 PURB rebuffs historical knowledge available through community groups long-active in this decade long discussion, then isn’t the 2009 PURB a bit like a judge and jury that arrives after the trial is finished… they’ve missed the airing of the arguments, the points and counter points to both sides of the case, they’ve arrived in time for one side’s closing, and that’s it. This begs the question: can the current PURB offer advice the citizens will find legitimate?


End notes:
*1 – PURB = Portland Utility Review Board

*2 – PURB members Wickham and Johnson reported that, “they interviewed several citizens, stakeholders, and Portland’s federal delegation to gather information on the LT2 issue.” Wickham and Johnson have not publicly disclosed interviewee names, or the dates interviews were conducted. At the June 2009 PURB meeting they were pressed to do so. The June 2009 meeting minutes report that Wickham “said they cannot list individuals because several asked that they not be identified.” I have also directly asked for this disclosure, and not received it. June 2009 PURB meeting minutes available online: http://www.portlandonline.com/omf/index.CFM?c=30349&a=270626

*3 -
PURB Public Hearing on Open Reservoirs
Proposal for meeting format
January 20, 2010

Public Hearing Proposal
The public hearing must comply with Oregon public meeting law requirements and will be recorded.

Propose a two and one-half hour Public Hearing to be scheduled in the evening between March 2nd and March 15th regarding the LT2 open reservoir rule and Portland’s in-town open reservoirs. The opportunity for public testimony was requested of the PURB through the Portland Water Bureau subcommittee on January 12th by Mayor Adams and Commissioner Fitch.

The Hearing Officer should be a professional contracted by the City of Portland to conduct the hearing and provide a summation of the testimony and findings of fact.

A 30 minute overview will be provided prior to receipt of public testimony. The overview should be presented by:

David Shaff, Water Bureau (invited)
Gary Oxman, Health Officer Multnomah County Health Department (invited)
David Leland, Oregon State Drinking Water Program (invited)
Senator Merkley Office, (invited)

Testimony will be taken by those who sign in for this purpose in the order of sign in. Testimony will be limited to three minutes per person. The duration of the public testimony will be limited to two hours. Written testimony may be submitted in lieu of verbal testimony. Anyone testifying must also provide a written copy of their testimony. A summary, prepared by the Hearing Officer will be published on the PURB website consistently with the public hearing requirements of the State of Oregon.

Clearwire problems in Florida; residents here and there work together

We’re not the only City discovering problems with Clearwire’s wireless-internet equipment. Residents of Tampa, Florida, are organizing to protect their own neighborhoods. I recently received an update from Tampa residents, Marlin Anderson and Carrie Grimail.

In Tampa, F&L Towers LLC wants permission to exceed local height codes by 88% -- they’re seeking an adjustment on the height code, taking it from 80 ft max to 150 ft max. From Anderson and Grimail:

The proposed tower is 150 feet tall ... and just a little over 80 feet from the Sunset Park condominiums. A typical lot is 50 feet in our area, so imagine this tower being less than two houses away from your property line. … At 150 feet it will be almost as tall as a 15 story building….

F & L Towers also plans to ask Tampa’s City Council to adjust the distance required from a tower to a residence. Anderson and Grimail write:

The minimum distance from the tower to the boundaries of a residence is the height of the tower. With a height of 150 feet, the tower would need to be located at least 150 feet from the boundaries of Sunset Park condominiums. The distance is only 83 feet, and a waiver is being requested to reduce the required distance from 150 feet to 83 feet. ... It’s to be battleship gray to "blend in" with the surroundings. But it won't blend in. Remember, the tallest nearby building on Henderson Blvd is just 3 stories ...

This is where Clearwire enters the story; F&L Towers revealed at a community meeting last week that the first lessee on this new tower will be Clearwire. Anderson and Grimail raise a number of interesting points we should all keep in mind:

Clearwire is a new 4th generation wireless service, and their competitors will be Verizon and AT&T. From recent newspaper articles, it appears that all of the towers that Verizon and AT&T will need to roll out their 4th generation wireless service were installed in Tampa during 2009. However, Clearwire has a much weaker signal than Verizon and AT&T, and consequently would like to install towers every 1500 hundred feet all over our city.
...
Clearwire has succeeded in some other cities in getting permits to install pole extensions onto pre-existing light poles and other utility poles. With these permits, they can install new poles without a land use review, because they are using the poles as if they were a utility. The pole extensions in Portland are 60 feet high, and
Clearwire has already installed 50 or 60 poles or towers in Portland , and they
want to install even more. These poles are being installed in residential neighborhoods, on residential streets, right in front of people’s homes. (Note from S. Stewart, one such extra tall pole is proposed in the Beaumont-Wilshire Neighborhood in Portland, visit http://www.respectpdx.org/ to learn more about it.)
...
Once granted, these permits give Clearwire the rights and access of a utility. However, unlike our power and telephone lines, they are not providing universal service, but instead only to some members of the community who sign up for Clearwire’s service. And unlike cable companies who only have to run wires, the proliferation of pole extensions will have a major negative impact on the aesthetics of our neighborhoods and our city.If they were to receive this permission in Tampa, this would result in a grid of poles throughout our residential neighborhoods. If we allow this to go forward, you will soon find noisy "boxes" on tall poles outside your homes and all over your neighborhood. … Furthermore, it is not known if Clearwire will be able compete with Verizon and AT&T, and could go out of business, leaving us stuck with tall poles in our neighborhoods all over town.
…
To sum up, we shouldn’t be allowing a company to profit at the expense of our neighborhoods by harming our aesthetics and reducing our property values. We shouldn’t allow this proposed cell tower at Henderson and Manhattan , and, if necessary, we need to oppose efforts to install poles or pole extensions in residential neighborhoods in the City of Tampa.

Clearwire wants TALL towers

Residents of the Beaumont/Wilshire Neighborhood found out recently that Clearwire wants to install new, very tall poles near homes. Because of our own long ordeal with a noisy Clearwire device, we've warned the folks in Beaumont/Wilshire to look through Clearwire’s application for any equipment that might have moving parts (especially a cooling fan). Neighbors are concerned about health issues associated with the electromagnetic waves emitted by wireless technologies. To learn more about the case in the Beaumont/Wilshire neighborhood, visit http://www.respectpdx.org/

On January 13, Beaumont/Wilshire neighbors held a public meeting with Clearwire and city reps. It sounds like it got heated. Their next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, January 28th from 7-8 pm in the Beaumont Middle School library - the neighborhood will decide what position to take at this meeting. George Polas, one of the Mt. Tabor residents that has had to live with a noisy Clearwire device since it was installed in October 2008, attended the first Beaumont/Wilshire meeting on the 13th. Here is an excerpt from his report afterwards:

There were about 80 people there [at the Beaumont-Wilshire meeting], and they were very vocal. Reporters from some local newspapers attended, and I was interviewed by one of them. I also testified about the 14 month ordeal I experienced with Clearwire and their noisy equipment. I think I opened up some eyes to this problem that others are going to experience in various neighborhoods. The Clearwire rep. was mentioning a small noise problem on 50th and Burnside and some other false sayings regarding what they are doing in Portland. When I spoke, things were considerably cleared up regarding what is true or false with this unwanted company. He didn't realize I was in attendance. He had no counter arguments to what I presented.