Pilot Programs May Hinder Water Innovation

Do extensive pilot programs hurt the water industry?

That’s the argument Mary Barry, executive director of New England Water Environment Association, made at a recent water industry conference hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

“We pilot for so long that by the time you actually determine that something is effective, there’s a new technology that we want to pilot. What we want to do is release some of the regulations a little bit so that we can promote some of these innovative technologies that are out there,” Barry said, per MIT News.

“We should be promoting innovation. That’s the only way we are going to grow and the only way we’re going to make things more efficient, both on the energy side and on the financial side,” she added.

At the conference held by MIT, water system ownership was another major discussion point. George Hawkins, CEO and general manager of DC Water, advocated for “more coordinated system on a broader scale, rather than centralized ownership,” MIT News reported.

Hawkins has discussed the financial challenges faced by water utilities at length in previous interviews. “The financial system was set up when all we were charging customers for a system that’s already in the ground but not the capital cost of replacing it,” he said in a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg BNA.

At the MIT event, regional partnerships were touted as a way to increase collaboration in the water industry. Ed McCormick, president of McCormick Strategic Water Management, weighed in on the benefits of collaboration, per MIT News: “In the San Francisco Bay Area, there are nearly 60 utilities that all discharge in the San Francisco Bay, some of them are very small and others are very large. What we have seen are agreements where small utilities can connect with other utilities to purchase bulk chemicals and get the benefit of scale, that larger utilities can get.”

Data transparency and how to make more data available to consumers was also a key conversation point at the MIT convention.

“Hawkins pointed out that when DC Water installed automatic meter readings in 2002, they noticed drops in water use. DC Water noted similar decreases when they began sending high-use notification alerts to customers, courtesy messages notifying customers of significant changes in water use, which could indicate leaking pipes,” MIT News reported.

Videos of the speakers and panel discussions at the summit is available here.