Extreme Emergency

After the December we've just had, it's hard to blame Sewerage and Water Board for busting out a whole  new level of emergency declaration.  Otherwise, we might be so numb as to ignore their missives altogether.

NEW ORLEANS — The General Superintendent of the Sewage & Water Board of New Orleans has signed an extreme emergency declaration amid concerns over a potential water main blowout in Gentilly.

The document said sewage from Lakeview, Gentilly and the 7th Ward flow into Sewer Pump Station D, which is located at Florida and Peoples avenues. The station is one of the two major sewer pumping stations on the East Bank.

Actually, "extreme emergency" is a real thing. It's a specific designation for expediting the procurement process during situations of imminent danger to the public. And, yeah, I also thought that's what regular emergency declarations are for but apparently this just goes one more.

McBride talks about it at the bottom of this post albeit skeptically.

WDSU did get comment from the Board when they covered this story Tuesday night. The statement is pure spin, given the plain verbiage of the emergency declaration is generous in its use of words and phrases like "catastrophic," "imperative," and "significant risk to public health:"

"We want to emphasize that the health and safety of our residents was never at risk. At no point did we release sewage into the Mississippi River, had circumstances forced us to do so, we would have alerted the public and all necessary agencies as mandated by the EPA and LDH. It is important to note that we are not in a state of emergency. The phrase 'extreme emergency declaration' is a legal condition that allows us to more swiftly order equipment, hire any necessary contractors and expedite our response and repairs to prevent a true emergency. The decision to enact an emergency declaration is indicative of our commitment to being proactive as we work to keep New Orleans safe and healthy."

I would just like to say that the fact the situation got to a point where they needed to bypass public bid laws shows the opposite of a commitment to the public, as it will now cost more and the work will have to be hurried, which practically guarantees sloppiness and mistakes. And they clearly don't know what "proactive" means.

Either "the health and safety of our residents was never at risk"or it was. SWB seems to be saying both.  Maybe it still is. You never know what is going to flood, back up, or explode at any given moment. This description doesn't inspire confidence.

The emergency declaration, passed unanimously by the board, will allow the job to be bid out and repairs made more quickly, as the broken valve at Pump Station D is currently being held open by a hydraulic jack and wooden wedges.

Crews discovered the problem Dec. 2 and spent about six hours trying to get the valve open as sewage backed up into the system.

It was during this period that the agency considered the possibility of diverting sewage away from the valve and dumping it into the river in order to keep it from backing up into the streets, or worse, causing a blowout that would be a "significant risk to public health," the emergency declaration reads.

Ultimately, the agency did not need to take that step, Executive Director Ghassan Korban said.

Yikes! They almost dumped raw sewerage into the river.  Can you imagine what would happen if somebody dumped raw sewerage into the Mississippi River? Who could even contemplate such a thing?  It would be a national scandal, right? Surely, the federal government would have to intervene.  Well, it turns out that's exactly what's already happened. There's already a federal consent decree in place because dumping raw sewerage into the Mississippi is something SWB used to do it all the time

The prospect of releasing sewage into the river would be an apparent violation of a federal consent decree under which the city's sewer system has operated for two decades.

The S&WB was put under a consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Justice in 1998 after it was accused of violating the Clean Water Act by dumping untreated sewage into Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River and other water bodies.

Speaking of federal intervention, there's more where that came from.  A lot of people may have missed this bit because it was wedged in between the turbine explosion, the French Quarter sewer fire, and this latest nightmare scenario with the sewerage back up, but we also learned this month that the IRS has placed a lien on all Sewerage and Water Board assets for failing to pay $185,741 in payroll taxes withheld from employees between 2015 and 2018.

What were they spending the money on instead?  Certainly, the ballooning cost of turbine repairs must have had something to do with it.  According to the legislative auditors' office, emergency spending on one of those projects had blown up to eight times its initial cost in 2017. 

Following established approval policies that govern contract changes is important to evaluate whether work changes are necessary and fairly priced. For example, a 2017 emergency contract to repair a turbine was originally approved for $500,000, but the contract had $4 million in contract change orders. While change orders may be appropriate and necessary, the S&WB does not always conduct a review or obtain the documentation needed to monitor the reasonableness of costs and necessity of work performed. For example, in one contract, a change order was approved via email and did not go through proper approval procedures. 

One can understand, then, why the latest "extreme emergency" declaration might make us extremely nervous.  In order to deal with the sewer back-up, SWB is going to need to throw a lot of money at it very quickly and with little to no oversight. 

By approving the emergency measure, the S&WB is allowing all of this work to be done without formally advertising for bids, without a cost cap and without designating where the money will come from. There were no estimates provided on what the work could cost, though the declaration said the work would take "several weeks."

Already they can't pay their taxes. What happens if the feds decide to foreclose?  If we lived in a better world, under a different regime, this might be one vector by which the federal government could step in and help. Cities all over the country are in dire need of a massive infrastructure overhaul. Utilities in crisis, such as our beloved Sewerage and Water Board, would be prime subjects for such a renewal. Unfortunately the current administration in Washington tends to harbor somewhat less benevolent motives.

Trump’s plan turns infrastructure investment on its head in another way as well. Traditionally, the selection of projects to be funded by the federal government emphasized benefits to the public. The administration’s plan weighs the ability to attract sources of funding outside the federal government at 70 percent when considering whether to support it; economic and social returns from the project count for just 5 percent. Federal funding will go to projects that are most attractive to private investors, rather than to those, like clean water, that meet the needs of communities.

The CPA interviewed by Channel 8 for their story on SWB's tax lien says, “technically the IRS could foreclose and force the sale of assets." So, rather than an opportunity to help, the powers that be, as currently configured, are far more likely to push for privatization.  Which is a troubling prospect now given that the local political climate has never been more ripe for it.

To begin with, the state legislature coming into office for the 2020 term will have the most right wing make up we've seen in that body in our lifetimes. Things are going to get super free market solution-y real quick.  More so than they are now, I mean. It's "unprecedented."

“It’s unprecedented. The Legislature is more conservative, more pro-business than ever before,” said Stephen Waguespack, head of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, the powerful lobbyist representing the business community. “The final tally shows that you’re going to have Legislature with a lot of fresh faces and a lot of new ideas.”

Don't expect the newly reelected John Bel Edwards to be much of a backstop to any of that. Already one of the more infamously "pro-business" governors in the country, in his now weakened position, John Bel is likely to be more eager to please than ever.

One item that caught our eye during the lead up to this year's election season was Edwards's gift of a multi-million dollar state energy systems privatization contract to Bernhard Energy Partners.  The deal was announced one year after Jim Bernhard decided, entirely by coincidence we are sure, that he didn't want to run against John Bel for Governor after all.  Anyway, in light of Jim and John Bel's well consummated friendship, we thought it newsworthy this week that Jim's company was investing in privatized water systems. 

The equity firm, which is led by former Shaw Group CEO Jim Bernhard and has raised more than $3 billion in capital, is interested in regulated utilities and has viewed Ascension Wastewater as a good foundation to get into the regional utility business, already drawing interest from other communities.

The article doesn't say much about which other communities are showing interest. But, with every passing plant failure, tax lien, or extreme emergency declaration, it becomes more likely that New Orleans would be among them.

If it is going to happen, the key decision maker will be the mayor.  She is the nominal President of the board and the prerogative to set its policy direction rests with her. And if LaToya decides she wants a major overhaul for Sewerage and Water Board, this legislature is likely to give her one. Typically the city's legislative delegation takes marching orders from the mayor.  After the success of several of her endorsed candidates in this year's elections, Cantrell's hand has only been strengthened there.

SWB has been the number one issue on her plate since before she even came into office. The 2017 citywide flooding dominated the campaign that year. And ever since she took over, the agency has done nothing but produce headaches for her administration. In addition to the continuing recurrence of street flooding and boil order crises, the mayor has also had to contend with a billing SNAFU to which she inartfully responded to by threatening to shut off water to residents, frequent turnovers in leadership and the ongoing financial problems of an agency incapable of collecting bills owed to it or paying out bills owed to vendors.  Her most public battle of the past year has been over the so-called "fair share" deal with the hospitality industry. Regardless of whether one believes that deal actually accomplishes what it claims (and we definitely do not believe it does), the bargain was, at least ostensibly, driven by the need to better fund Sewerage and Water Board.  It seems safe to assume that the time is fast approaching when Cantrell is ready to be done with this problem one way or another. 

We won't be surprised, then, if LaToya decides that privatization is a perfectly acceptable way to accomplish that.  There are a couple of reasons to expect this.  The first is political expedience. A privatized Sewerage and Water Board might still be fraught with unaccountable runaway corruption and incompetence. But at least this will make that somebody else's responsibility. Moreover, with the problem passed off, Cantrell can claim to have "done something" about the agency regardless of that something's objective merits. Once embarked on, the results of such a change won't be obvious to the political press for some time.  In all likelihood, a true verdict on New Orleans's experiment with a private water utility wouldn't arrive for several years.  They still haven't come around to acknowledging the total disaster wrought by school charterization, for example. And we're already well past a decade into that adventure.

In addition to just being politically easy for her, placing public services into the hands of for-profit private interests is very much in line with Cantrell's ideological approach to governing. Here are a few recent examples of this approach in action.

In November, Cantrell also spoke up on behalf of higher profits for Entergy in direct contradiction to a lower rate schedule negotiated by the city council and its consultants. The mayor intervened on Entergy's behalf because it was offering her a one time $75 million kickback meant for Sewerage and Water Board upgrades. Councilmembers didn't go for it.  But, amazingly, Cantrell and Entergy came back again with a second push for rate hikes in December this time citing the emergency situation brought on by the turbine explosion.  Even in the face contrary public opinion and council opposition, Cantrell' preferred approach to city infrastructure always begins with making sure one or another "private partner" is profiting from it.

Another private partner in receipt of the mayor's enthusiasm has been the "Blue Bikes" rental scheme the city has entered into with Uber. The company announced in December it will be replacing all of the bicycles with hybrid electric scooter-bikes and jacking up prices for all riders in the process.  The city is disingenuously promoting this private for-profit business as a "public transit" solution. It's probably something they consider a revenue generator, although I'd like to see the costs in dedicated infrastructure, promotion, etc. compared to the 2 percent kickback Uber promises. In any case, it's definitely not a money maker for riders. Public transit, ideally, should be free to use. Or, failing that, it should be as close to free as feasible.  When the city and its private contractor are expecting to turn a profit from those users, though, they are no longer really providing a public service. It's not clear the mayor understands, or cares much about, this distinction.


There was a line from the mayor in this WWLTV recap of 2019's disasters that best sums up her philosophy of governing.  Essentially, it's all about her. Or, at least, it's about her vs. whoever was doing her job before she was.

Cantrell said the city will continue to invest in drainage improvements and maintenance next year.

"Unfortunately...previous administrations did not own up to existing conditions within our built environment, throughout the city of New Orleans, did not deal with the Sewerage and Water Board accurately or appropriately, did not deal with even maintenance," Cantrell said.

Now, technically, what she is saying there is true. There is a long history of negligence, graft, and decay that's brought us to where we are. And that pattern has persisted throughout the course of several "previous administrations." But in Cantrell's mind, this isn't a systemic question of power and class politics so much as it is about the specific individual who happens to be mayor at any given moment. The way she puts it, it sounds like she is saying "Nobody before me knew what they were doing" and that's the reason we are where we are. But that isn't the reason. In reality, there are lots of reasons, personal, political, and, I guess, natural/cosmic that have contributed.

In a broad political sense, we've been under the sway of a national conservative movement for decades that has abandoned urban infrastructure. Federal money has dried up. State houses have become more hostile and conservative. The general philosophy of government that obtains generally leaves cities to fend for themselves. It's no surprise that most cites haven't handled that challenge gracefully. Petty local politics and small time corruption only becomes more of a problem in the context of diminishing resources. New Orleans is certainly no exception to that.

That doesn't mean we let any of the players in that off the hook. Ideally we'd like to see our local politicians join in a democratizing movement to take public resources back from the oligarchs. But failing that, at least, we should expect them not to make choices that actively exacerbate matters. In any case, we're describing a much larger circumstance than just, "Those were bad mayors and now I am a good mayor so don't be mad at me" which seems to be LaToya's take on things. Maybe that's all that matters to her.

Or, worse, maybe she really is a true believer in Free Market Uber Alles neoliberalism.  According to this story, she's starting off the new year at an international conference that appears to center on that ideology in particular.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell and two staffers are headed to the African country of Ghana where they will attend the Essence Full Circle Festival and create an agreement to strengthen relations with a city there.

The trip will feature Cantrell as a speaker on the Essence Global Black Economic Forum, a news release said. The forum brings together government officials, entrepreneurs, executives and entertainers from around the world to discuss economic development opportunities and cultural exchange and ways for the private sector to lead this development. The festival marks 400 years since the first slave ships left Ghana.

Anyway, when the mayor does return to us from Woke Davos, it will be time to dive back in to a whole new year of extreme emergencies.  Whether or not this is the year those emergencies lead to serious talk about privatizing the city's sewer and water systems remains to be seen.  But the elements that could take us there do seem to be in place.