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Op-Ed by David Lynch, Co-Founder and CEO of Klir

I am, at my very core, a centrist. No matter what subject, taking an extreme position at one end or an other rarely works. I like to describe this fondly as living in a world of grey, however bleak it might sound to an outside reader.

I apply this ethos to almost every aspect of my life (much to my families dismay). So it is no surprise that I applied this lens when noticing the ever growing number of predictions of how the US water market will consolidate and privatize. I think this is an over simplistic view of the market and even bordering on dangerous.

Many proponents of consolidation and privatization cite the baseline qualitative improvements on water quality when water schemes are taken out of public hands. There is no debating the facts on this and Britain is a good example of how this plays out over an extended period. But this approach is not without its challenges. Fines are being levied at an unprecedented level and there are a litany of accusations regarding shareholder dividend preference over consumer health. I think it is useful to ask, why does privatization work?

I like to think of best in class water management a bit like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. At the very foundation, you need the infrastructure delivering water services to be fit for purpose. Privatization enables relatively quick access to capital and competitive rates which is hard to argue against. Next is labour expertise. High quality engineers and scientists are accessible to the consolidated entity that would ordinarily not be the case. The next layer is professionalism. Studies repeatedly show that privatization empirically increases the level of professionalization in a water utility. This is measured against compliance, efficiency, economics and risk. The piece de resistance of best in class water management is holistic community engagement.

What is most interesting to note is the holy grail of community management is extremely hard for private entities to achieve as the objectives of a private utility and the community are in too stark a contrast.

Which leads me back to my love of the grey zone. How can we get the best of both worlds in all of the above. The jury is still out on infrastructure. The question of approaches like federal or state rotating schemes, Public Private partnerships (PPP), Design/Build/Operate (DBO) etc. are too complex to delve into here. However the middle two tiers can be solved with software. The issue is absolutely not that the staff are unqualified or not adequately motivated but more that given the nature of the community system, simply put, the users don’t have the volume of experience that a big utility would have. Software like CRP solves this as the collective experience of the sector is continually refined in a single platform to give insight where issues occur that have never occurred before. Technology is becoming cheaper, both software and hardware so things that were ordinarily unavailable to community systems are now cost effective. It also addresses the area of professionalization as the best in class processes and tools are being used by the smallest to the largest utilities, again driven primarily by the lowering cost and accessibility to a wider market.

I believe the only way to effective community involvement in water is engagement with a community driven organization. The objectives and mission of the utility must be deeply rooted in the community if they are to be trusted by stakeholders in the watershed that are typically at odds.

It is for this reason, I come down in the grey area when the debate of privatization comes up. I don’t think exclusively one option or the other works. However, I do believe the best in class systems will be those that are community managed with deep ties to, and reliance on, aspects of privatization such as PPP & DBO. It feels terribly like a politicians answer but the major difference is I actually came down on a side!

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Decades ago, the saying was that “the solution to pollution is dilution.” Billions of people and tons of pollution fouling our water, air, and lands later, it is not so simple. The planet used to seem so vast and empty that we believed the raw waste we dumped, flushed or sent out a pipe could not hurt anyone or anything. We just wanted it somewhere else so it did not affect us and we did not have to think about it.

Revision of the Water Framework Directive

In the 1960s, we began to realize that the world did not have endless capacity to receive our wastes without reflecting back negative consequences. Our thinking and practices began to change. The Cuyahoga River in Ohio actually catching fire showed all too graphically what could result from dumping industrial wastes into waterways. A public service television ad depicting a Native American shedding a tear at seeing litter strewn over the landscape seemingly overnight stopped people from tossing their rubbish wherever it suited them.

Over fifty years later, many countries have a much better handle on dealing with pollution of lands and solid waste disposal. And while non-point source air pollution remains a major problem, a positive development has been that point-source air pollution has, at least in the West, significantly abated.

Water Does Not Respect Jurisdictional Boundaries

Pollution and degradation of waters has on the whole steadily worsened, with new and staggering realities in the headlines frequently: the impending death of the Great Barrier Reef, decimation of global fish stocks, the choking of seas and marine life with plastic waste. As technology has massively increased the ability of nations and private actors to use and misuse waterways, especially oceans, we see the adage that water does not obey jurisdictional boundaries made frighteningly manifest.

Those working in the water supply, wastewater and stormwater sectors have this adage front of mind every day. They deal with federal, state and local regulations that seek to keep water quality and quantity to standards that prevent harm to humans, wildlife and resources. They cooperate with other jurisdictions to understand and try to address common problems and challenges in shared watersheds. While local and state regulations may differ, they must all at the end nest under the same national regulations, creating a structure that embodies clear authority.

The Challenge of Combating Cross-Border Water Pollution

Where national boundaries meet, water pollution problems have no unilateral authority to fit under. The U.S. has two international boundaries – one with Mexico, the other with Canada. In the last 50 or so years, with populations and resulting sewage disposal problems increasing, and industries along shared waterways creating new and insidious means of polluting, the problem of international water pollution has gotten worse while the bandwith for dealing with it has gotten smaller and smaller in the face of more pressing local, national and global problems.

The means for the U.S. and Canada to resolve shared water issues is the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909. Since most regulations governing current situations and problems with water use and quality in the U.S. were enacted and revised since the late 1960s, it feels unnervingly quaint to envision our relationship with Canada on water issues folding up into a construct created when words like “today” and “toothpaste” had hyphens. The first of the series of treaties that address water issues between the U.S. and Mexico goes back significantly further – to 1848.

A joint U.S.-Mexico body, the International Boundary and Water Commission, is charged with finding and recommending solutions to cross-border water issues. An analogous body, the International Joint Committee, addresses American-Canadian water issues. These entities add another complex layer to the already complicated local-state-federal structure that has developed to address water problems, and neither has binding authority – they are intended only to identify, gather, analyze and make recommendations on international water issues.

Positive steps and binding decisions are still up to the federal government of one or both countries, depending on the problem. And with the vast spectrum of social, economic and political challenges on governments’ plates, that can mean a problem originating in one country but negatively affecting only the other takes us back to the days of address the problem by just sending it somewhere else – a kind of environmental tribalism that encourages endless finger-pointing at the other side rather than action to address the problem.

Can We Overcome Environmental Tribalism?

Both Mexico and Canada discharge untreated sewage into ocean waters just adjacent to their respective U.S. borders. In 1990 Mexico signed an agreement with the U.S. known as Minute 283 in which it promised that no untreated wastewater from domestic or industrial sources would be discharged to the Tijuana River and enter U.S. waters. Almost three decades later, the problem is worse than ever, leading to amongst other consequences beach closures in tourism-dependent Southern California.

In Canada, the City of Victoria on Vancouver Island treats none of its sewage, discharging it directly into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. This will change though in 2020 when Victoria is due to open its first wastewater treatment plant. Although owing to a unique set of factors, there is some valid question as to whether the current discharge method is actually harming humans or the environment. The lack of a treatment plant has been a source of embarrassment for locals and used as a shaming tool by outsiders wanting leverage on some issue. Eventually, shame led to enough political pressure to force Victoria’s hand.

In the international context, without clear regulatory structures that carry specific and meaningful penalties, adequate political pressure both within and outside the polluting country – along with the availability of funding – are critical to spurring action on water pollution that crosses national boundaries – and overcoming environmental tribalism.

As experts in the water RegTech sector and water-conscious citizens, we, at Klir, are passionate about water and environmental issues. We strongly believe that implementing sustainable water operations and practices is critical to ensuring water availability and sanitation for all human beings in the future.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.