Water, water everywhere
The NRDC, a public interest group with a long history of admirable causes, has routinely applied data to creating public concern rather than simple education. It has done much good with these campaigns. Drinking water has always been an issue with the organization, which lobbied for a stronger 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act and has pressed for the development of ultraviolet light water purification systems to reduce the use of chemicals. But, according to White House Y2K czar John Koskinen, the Y2K drinking water report was "misleading" because it was based on old information.
We tend to agree. Substantial progress has been made in all sectors during the last half year and surveys, even those by industry groups, have shown decreasing response rates due to "survey fatigue" that have reduced the reliability of results. Less than one percent of the nation's 55,000 drinking water utilities responded to the American Water Works Association/Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies/National Association of Water Companies survey conducted in June - yet this sub-optimal surve is the basis for a warning issued by the NRDC on December 10th.
The White House reports that 92 percent of utilities are Y2K ready. According to the American Water Works Association, this figure refers to the internal systems at the utilities, not to "the state of readiness of the utilities themselves," the NRDC replies.
What, we ask, is the difference between the readiness of internal systems and the readiness of the utilities as a whole? Apparently, the NRDC is primarily concerned about the lack of Y2K-specific testing and contingency plans. However, these utilities are required to have contingency plans for a wide range of problems, regardless of Y2K. Spills of untreated waste. Chemical spills and over-treatment. These problems are already covered by contingency plans, but there appears to be some hair-splitting going on in the interest of raising broader questions about the safety of drinking water and waste water treatment facilities.
One source pointed to by the NRDC and Center for Y2K & Society as a cause of concern is a recent white paper by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a U.S. government research agency, and CenturyCorp.com, a Y2K consultancy in Century City, Calif. The report raises the specter of the "phantom clock," supposedly hidden clock functions in embedded systems that can be missed during Y2K testing. This is an old and well-worn Y2K myth and I am surprised to see it raised by NIST at this late date.
The theory of the phantom clock is that some embedded systems contain calendar functions that are invisible. However, testing has revealed very low levels of date sensitivity in embedded systems - less than one-half of one percent, on average across all industries.
In order for the Y2K problem to strike one of these phantom clocks, at some point the device would have had to been programmed with the current date. Moreover, power to the device would have had to be maintained to ensure the date remained in memory. This begs the question, if there is no evident clock function in a device, how can it know the date? Presumably, when conducting tests to identify Y2K susceptible devices organizations would look for date-dependencies in their code and identify the sources of those dates. NIST argues that this may not be the case, advising that it should be.
Now, the evidence indicates that people testing for Y2K problems in water treatment plants actually know what they are doing and why they should or should not test certain systems.
Taking the NRDC's advice, I looked into several local water utilities in my area, as well as the Y2K readiness of the water treatment facilities in New York City.
The NRDC suggests journalists ask about third-party auditing of Y2K results, Y2K-specific contingency plans and the number of days and hours that the utility can deliver safe water without electricity.
First, let's look at the risk of electrical power loss. According to the power industry and the U.S. Department of Energy, there is no increased risk of power outages due to Y2K. ZDY2K has looked long and hard at this question and agrees. So, a large part of the NRDC's basis for concern is eliminated.
More importantly, are utilities ready to deal with Y2K-specific problems? One prominent example of a bizarre and unexpected error was the spill of 1.2 million gallons of untreated waste during a Y2K test on June 16, 1999 at the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Los Angeles. A gate that controlled the flow of sewage locked in the closed position after power was cut during the Y2K test. It turns out that the original programming of the gate would have caused this problem any time the power was cut, not just at Y2K. According to the report to the Los Angeles City Council, "It has been speculated that this instruction for the gate was intended to simplify operations by minimizing the need to manually close the gate if that became necessary. This thinking is totally counter-intuitive and staff working on the Y2K exercise that not was not aware of this unorthodox operating command. If the reboot command had been more logically written to open the [gate], there would not have been a spill."
Now, if the problem would have happened at any time the power was cut off to the gate at the Tillman Plant, don't the normal contingency plans at the facility cover the result? The problem was isolated and halted in eleven minutes; the clean-up had been finished ten hours later.
Considering the NRDC's assumption that there is a need for Y2k-specific contingency plans, the Tillman example provides ample contradictory evidence.
I followed the NRDC's guidelines and looked into the water systems here in Washington State, where I live. I researched the readiness of the Tacoma Water system, which serves my home. The utility has tested its entire system and found two systems that needed to be upgraded or replaced: the central Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system (SCADA, for those of you following the acronyms) and the central radio dispatch equipment. Both were repaired. All other systems were found to be Y2K complaint without any repairs and no problems remain outstanding. Presuming the power stays on, and it will based on the Tacoma Power report that it has completed its Y2K repairs, the water here is safe. There is no apparent need for Y2K contingency plans, since the problem has been eliminated.
In Seattle, Y2K problems in the water treatment facilities have been repaired. Nevertheless, Seattle Public Utilities states that "Our water treatment systems are very simple. Although we can use computers to monitor and control a few sites, we do not depend on them. All our facilities can be run manually."
The Seattle water supply is "primarily gravity fed and fundamentally low tech…. Not computer controlled." A power failure would not interfere with water delivery.
One hundred percent of Seattle Public Utilities' PCs are Y2K compliant. All 19 mission-critical applications have been repaired and only one is awaiting certification. Of 124 minor applications, 120 are repaired. The agency has prepared ten drafts of a Y2K contingency plan.
In New York City, the system is also gravity-fed and "operate with minimal mechanical assistance." Systems that manage the flow of water and waste treatment are being repaired by outside consultants - nevertheless, the City can override all computer systems and operate manually. The Y2K-noncompliant waste treatment facilities in the City were replaced in April, 1999. Other repairs were completed in June.
The NRDC's report several times reiterates the fact that Utah Senator Robert Bennett said more than a year ago he would set aside a 55-gallon drum of water for Y2K. It does not make clear that Bennett, a Mormon, has a religious reason for making these preparations - storing food and water is a standard part of Utah life. "Just in case," the NRDC says, but the purpose of the report is not clear, except to serve as a cautionary note about the general state of water treatment in the U.S.
The report should have used more recent data or been left for after the New Year, when it could have been released in the wake of real problems, if any had come to pass. Then, the report might have served a constructive purpose as the foundation for research that would improve the system in the future.