FREE WHITEWATER

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

The December 2014 Presentation
(Part 1)

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 36 in a series. When Green Turns Brown is an examination of a small town’s digester-energy project, in which Whitewater, Wisconsin would import other cities’ waste, claiming that the result would be both profitable and green.

In this post, I’ll consider the Donohue firm’s December 2014 public presentation to Whitewater on a wastewater upgrade. The full presentation is embedded immediately below. As the discussion is long, in this post I’ll consider the first 36 minutes from the discussion. (This is the initial portion during which Donohue and then City Manager Clapper describe the project. Thereafter, the discussion opens to public comments.)

Donohue Firm’s December 2014 Presentation to Whitewater from John Adams on Vimeo.
 

(Every question in this series has a unique number, assigned chronologically based on when it was asked. All the questions from When Green Turns Brown can be found in the Question Bin.  Today’s questions begin with No. 217.)

217. Donohue’s first technical memo mentions that a goal of Whitewater’s city officials is to sell water (“[t]he value of water was discussed in detail….The option of producing a sellable water product is of major interest to the city.”). Why no mention of that goal here?

218. Donohue’s presentation, by their account, addresses the ‘liquids train’ portion of the project (that is, not the biosolids processing at the plant). Can one have a liquids train project without a biosolids train? (It’s a rhetorical question.) More directly: does a particular liquids train method require a definite biosolids train method? If so, when and which methods are bound in this way?

219. Whitewater, as Donohue outlines it, has two options for phosphorus management: (1) Option One (immediate compliance with phosphorus reduction upon construction) or (2) Option Two, using the so-called “Clean Waters, Healthy Economy Act” without any capital costs. Donohue recommends Option Two.

The obvious question: how much phosphorus does Option Two remove, in absolute terms and relative to Option One? Since Option Two requires a payment in lieu of physical reductions, for Whitewater’s environment doesn’t Option Two’s solution really mean no practical, significant phosphorus reduction at all?

220. Why did Whitewater’s officials choose paying to allow continued levels of phosphorus discharge in the local environment rather than commit to actual, physical reductions in levels of phosphorus discharge?

221. When did City Manager Clapper first choose Option Two? (He presumably chose Option Two – payment in lieu of significant phosphorus reductions – by the time of this 12.16.14 presentation. If it were otherwise, Donohue would be advocating a key approach without the assent of Whitewater’s full-time staff.)

222. What record, if any, does City Manager Clapper have of the basis of his decision on or before 12.16.14 in favor of Option Two (payment in lieu of significant phosphorus reductions)?

Next: The December 2014 Presentation (Part 2).

WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 10.1.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

A new month begins with partly cloudy skies and a high of sixty. Sunrise is 6:52 and sunset 6:35, for 11h 42m 59s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 84% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets this evening at 6:00 PM.

On this day in 1908, Henry Ford reveals a production model car that will transform American and global transportation:

On October 1, 1908, the first production Model T Ford is completed at the company’s Piquette Avenue plant in Detroit. Between 1908 and 1927, Ford would build some 15 million Model T cars. It was the longest production run of any automobile model in history until the Volkswagen Beetle surpassed it in 1972.

Before the Model T, cars were a luxury item: At the beginning of 1908, there were fewer than 200,000 on the road. Though the Model T was fairly expensive at first (the cheapest one initially cost $825, or about $18,000 in today’s dollars), it was built for ordinary people to drive every day. It had a 22-horsepower, four-cylinder engine and was made of a new kind of heat-treated steel, pioneered by French race car makers, that made it lighter (it weighed just 1,200 pounds) and stronger than its predecessors had been. It could go as fast as 40 miles per hour and could run on gasoline or hemp-based fuel. (When oil prices dropped in the early 20th century, making gasoline more affordable, Ford phased out the hemp option.) “No car under $2,000 offers more,” ads crowed, “and no car over $2,000 offers more except the trimmings.”

The design was revolutionary:

1908_Ford_Model_TThe Model T was designed by Childe Harold Wills, and Hungarian immigrants Joseph A. Galamb[17] and Eugene Farkas.[18] Henry Love, C. J. Smith, Gus Degner and Peter E. Martin were also part of the team.[19] Production of the Model T began in the third quarter of 1908.[20] Collectors today sometimes classify Model Ts by build years and refer to these as “model years“, thus labeling the first Model Ts as 1909 models. This is a retroactive classification scheme; the concept of model years as we conceive it today did not exist at the time. The nominal model designation was “Model T”, although design revisions did occur during the car’s two decades of production….

The Model T had a front-mounted 177-cubic-inch (2.9 L) inline four-cylinder engine, producing 20 hp (15 kW), for a top speed of 40–45 mph (64–72 km/h). According to Ford Motor Company, the Model T had fuel economy on the order of 13–21 mpg-US (16–25 mpg-imp; 18–11 L/100 km).[21] The engine was capable of running on gasoline, kerosene, or ethanol,[22][23] although the decreasing cost of gasoline and the later introduction of Prohibition made ethanol an impractical fuel for most users.

The ignition system used an unusual trembler coil system to drive the spark plugs, as used for stationary gas engines, rather than the expensive magnetos that were used on other cars. This ignition also made the Model T more flexible as to the quality or type of fuel it used. The need for a starting battery and also Ford’s use of an unusual AC alternator located inside the flywheel housing encouraged the adoption of electric lighting, rather than oil or acetylene lamps, but it also delayed the adoption of electric starting.

Here’s the Thursday game from Puzzability:

This Week’s Game — September 28-October 2
Blended Wines
We have some lovely pairings this week. For each day, we’ve taken the name of a wine, added a letter, and scrambled all the letters to get a new word. The answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the wine followed by the longer word. The clue includes the lengths of the answer words in parentheses.
Example:
Person attending a party in honor of a dry red wine (8,9)
Answer:
Cabernet celebrant
What to Submit:
Submit the phrase, with the wine first (as “Cabernet celebrant” in the example), for your answer.
Thursday, October 1
Measuring out helpings of a medium-bodied red wine (5 4,10)

Culture, University

The University Gateway Near Whiton & Main

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Five years ago, this community considered whether there should be changes at the intersection of Main and Whiton, where there was then a stone gateway to the university.

One now sees that the gateway is being moved back from near Main, farther up the hill from the street. Moving the gateway assures greater visibility nearer the road.

It’s good that it’s being done; it should have been done years ago.

Now people are naturally proud of commemorative walls, and sentimental over them.  That’s understandable.  I was once at university, and there are spots on my campus that I will always recall fondly.

And yet, and yet, I and my friends – it is to be hoped – would not place a sentimental attachment to a wall over a practical concern for the human condition.

That’s why, five years ago, I wrote that it would be better to tear down the wall, adding a proper traffic signal if needed, and leaving only a small, unobtrusive sign nearby:

THIS SIGNAL IS A MONUMENT OF OUR DEDICATION TO PUBLIC SAFETY

CONCERN FOR OUR FELLOW CITIZENS IS OUR FINEST ART

RESPECT FOR THEIR BASIC WELL-BEING IS OUR MOST ADMIRABLE DESIGN

It’s better still, of course, if the wall can be moved and safety still be equally improved.

University life should amount to more than decorative objects, more than sentiment, more than stone and mortar.

If that’s not been clear to a few, those who argued against changes to the gateway wall years ago, then they’ve been at university in vain: the experience has been wasted on them.

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

The Donohue Firm’s Second Public Presentation of 7.15.14

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 35 in a series. When Green Turns Brown is an examination of a small town’s digester-energy project, in which Whitewater, Wisconsin would import other cities’ waste, claiming that the result would be both profitable and green.

In this post, I’ll consider the Donohue firm’s second public presentation to Whitewater on a wastewater upgrade.

Donohue Firm’s Second Public Presentation to Whitewater from John Adams on Vimeo.
 

(Every question in this series has a unique number, assigned chronologically based on when it was asked.  All the questions from When Green Turns Brown can be found in the Question Bin.  Today’s questions begin with No. 205.)

205.  The twenty-five minute presentation begins with mention that it will be for approval of a contract with Donohue.  Why presume approval?

206. Donohue representative Mike Gerbitz mentions the forty-five-minute 6.17.14 presentation to Council (the only other one Donohue had yet made to the full Council) as “lengthy.”  Is forty-five minutes for a plan that would cost $18.6 million really lengthy?  Doesn’t it seem short, in fact?

207. At the 6.17.14 presentation, Gerbitz, Wastewater Superintendent Reel, or City Manager Clapper spoke for over 41 minutes of a 45 minute Donohue presentation.  How is less than four minutes of Council discussion due diligence for an initial public presentation?  (Even then, wasn’t part of that four minutes occupied with observations from a resident, rather than a questions from Council?)

208.  The whole presentation on 7.15.14 is 25 minutes, but aren’t 15 of those minutes just a rehash of the earlier, 6.17.14 presentation?

209. Gerbitz mentions that the digester complex is a separate project (presumably at this point under the aegis of Trane).  Later in this same discussion, Gerbitz says that there have been – by his account – three meetings with Donohue, Trane, Black & Veatch, and city officials about the digester.  So how separate has the digester project really been, up through 7.15.14?

210.  Ken Kidd, councilman-physician, is one of the few people to speak, and declares (regarding the digester) that “you guys play well.”  Is that Dr. Kidd’s level of oversight, to observe that others play well? (Hasn’t Kidd, after all, has been a digester-project supporter from at least the earliest moments of public discussion?)

211. Gerbitz tells Council at this 7.15.14 meeting that a plan based on their approval will be submitted to state officials “next week.”  What does this say about Gerbitz’s presumption about approval?  What does it say about the full Council’s role as an inquisitive, diligent, thorough point of review?

(Gerbitz mentions during the meeting, where his firm is looking to have a million-dollar contract approved, that Donohue has already started with design. Council awards Donohue a $1.168 million contract at this meeting.)

212.  Gerbitz tells Council that he’ll not bother them with details or line-items about the project.  Does he think those details are insignificant, or does he think that those details are either insignificant or uninteresting to Whitewater’s Common Council?

213.  How unimportant are those details, after all?  Would Gerbitz be willing to delete or ignore some of them in his planning?  That seems unlikely; so why would he presume that they’re unimportant to Council?

214. One knows from City Manager Clapper’s remarks on 6.23.15 that two councilpersons played a role in selecting Donohue.  Did a smaller group than the whole of Council play a role in selecting Trane?  If so, which ones?

215. How often did that smaller number meet with Trane, Donohue, or Black & Veatch by the time of this meeting?  Did anyone take notes?

216. If Whitewater had the choice between removing phosphorous or paying a set amount for its continued presence, which would be the superior option for health and the environment?  Gerbitz describes city officials as preferring the least-expensive choice.  Are either City Manager Clapper or Wastewater Superintendent Reel qualified to determine which choice is better as a matter of health and safety?

Next: Beginning tomorrow, and continuing for several posts, The Council Discussion of 12.16.14.

WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 9.30.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Midweek in town will be mostly sunny with a high of sixty-three. Sunrise is 6:51 and sunset 6:37, for 11h 45m 52s of daytime. The moon is waning gibbous with 91.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Tech Park Board meets this morning at 8 AM.

On this day in 1889, Wyoming approves a state constitution that grants women the right to vote:

…the Wyoming state convention approves a constitution that includes a provision granting women the right to vote. Formally admitted into the union the following year, Wyoming thus became the first state in the history of the nation to allow its female citizens to vote.

That the isolated western state of Wyoming should be the first to accept women’s suffrage was a surprise. Leading suffragists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were Easterners, and they assumed that their own more progressive home states would be among the first to respond to the campaign for women’s suffrage. Yet the people and politicians of the growing number of new Western states proved far more supportive than those in the East….

By 1914, the contrast between East and West had become striking. All of the states west of the Rockies had women’s suffrage, while no state did east of the Rockies, except Kansas. Why the regional distinction? Some historians suggest western men may have been rewarding pioneer women for their critical role in settling the West. Others argue the West had a more egalitarian spirit, or that the scarcity of women in some western regions made men more appreciative of the women who were there while hoping the vote might attract more.

On this day in 1859, Lincoln speaks in Wisconsin:

On this date Abraham Lincoln delivered an address at the Wisconsin State Fair. In his speech, he connected agriculture to education: “Every blade of grass is a study; and to produce two, where there was but one, is both a profit and a pleasure.” The rising political star (who was elected the following year), also stressed the importance of free labor. This was Lincoln’s last visit to Wisconsin. In 1861, after winning the presidential election, Lincoln signed the bill establishing the U.S. Department of Agriculture. [Source: AbrahamLincoln.org]

Here’s the Wednesday game in this week’s Puzzability series, Blended Wines:

This Week’s Game — September 28-October 2
Blended Wines
We have some lovely pairings this week. For each day, we’ve taken the name of a wine, added a letter, and scrambled all the letters to get a new word. The answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the wine followed by the longer word. The clue includes the lengths of the answer words in parentheses.
Example:
Person attending a party in honor of a dry red wine (8,9)
Answer:
Cabernet celebrant
What to Submit:
Submit the phrase, with the wine first (as “Cabernet celebrant” in the example), for your answer.
Wednesday, September 30
Faiths organized to worship a white wine originally from Germany (8,9)

 

Television

The X Files – Official Trailer (2015)

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Returning for a brief run in January 2016 –

Fans of the X-Files may also enjoy Gillian Anderson in The Fall, as a detective superintendent searching for a serial killer in Belfast. Anderson’s character in that series is different from the one she plays on the X-Files, but no less tenacious in pursuit of her objectives.

City, Culture, Local Government, Politics

Small Groups Don’t All Fare the Same

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I’m not sure if it should be true everywhere, but in Whitewater it seems as though small (apolitical) community groups fare better than small political groups.

I’ve not made a study of this; the observation rests on impressions, here or there, only. There’s not enough to say as much with confidence. Many would note – correctly – that far more would be required to have a firm opinion.

So, perhaps for another time, this question: Do some kinds of small groups (as kinds), of equally talented people, have a greater likelihood of success than others? If that should be true, then might it also be true that, as compared to apolitical community groups, small political groups fare notably worse?

I don’t know, but if all this might be true, then we are left with the possibility that, despite considerable notoriety, political cliques may be inferior in output to equally-sized apolitical, community groups.

One wonders.

WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

The Donohue Firm’s First Public Presentation of 6.17.14

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 34 in a series. When Green Turns Brown is an examination of a small town’s digester-energy project, in which Whitewater, Wisconsin would import other cities’ waste, claiming that the result would be both profitable and green.

In this post, I’ll consider the Donohue firm’s first public presentation to Whitewater on a wastewater upgrade.

Donohue Firm’s First Public Presentation to Whitewater from John Adams on Vimeo.
 

(Every question in this series has a unique number, assigned chronologically based on when it was asked.  All the questions from When Green Turns Brown can be found in the Question Bin.  Today’s questions begin with No. 186.)

186. Although this is the Donohue firm’s first public presentation to Whitewater, one knows that they have been involved by this time in the wastewater upgrade for months, by officials’ own accounts (at least as early as 11.5.13, it seems). Who picked Donohue to attend that 2013 meeting?

187. Yet, perhaps they’ve been involved even sooner. City Manager Clapper mentions at a 6.23.15 public meeting a process to find the engineering firm for this wastewater upgrade project. He says that

We started the design process with our current engineering firm in July of 2014, but we really started in 2013 with facility planning. We went through a very large process calling in several different engineering firms that are well-know throughout the state for providing municipalities with engineering services. We took a look at several different firms involved, two of our Council members and some other professionals in the realm of city government and managing city government and public works to be evaluating these firms before we even got to the one we have now. Then we got Donohue and Associates. We selected Donohue to be our, to be the firm that we use, and then that was still, gosh I want to say middle of fall of 2013 maybe when we got started with that. [Off camera, ‘yes.’]

When did a Whitewater official first meet with Donohue?

188. By City Manager Clapper’s own account, several engineering firms were involved in “facility planning.” Wasn’t Donohue one of those firms?

189. If Donohue was involved in facility planning for months (perhaps nine or more) before being selected as the city’s firm in July 2014, didn’t the firm have a role in shaping the very planning that led to its selection?

190. Who are the “other professionals in the realm of city government and managing city government and public works” who attended or played a role in facility planning in 2013, 2014?

191. Which two Common Council members were involved in this “facility planning” process?

192. How many meetings were held for facility planning, with which attendees? How many times was Donohue part of those meetings?  (Later in this 6.17.14 presentation, there’s a statement that Donohue was involved in at least 40 hours of meetings.)

193. If waste-importation were not important to the overall project, then why would a (as yet unnamed) waste-hauler have been one of the participants at an 11.5.13 meeting with Wastewater Superintendent Reel and others?

194. Where’s Trane? Wastewater Superintendent Reel mentions on 5.20.14, less than a month before this presentation from Donohue, that he and others had meetings with Trane in May (on 5.20.14, in fact, for market surveys, etc.).

195. Donohue is the only firm at the 6.17.14 presentation. Why was there no second proposal – that is, why only Donohue?

196. How is this a genuinely competitive process between firms, with only one firm presenting (and whose plan is adopted a month later with no intervening, competitive public presentations)?

197. Donohue project manager Mike Gerbitz, PE, says that he has been working with city staff for five or six months, but that this is his first public presentation, on an $18.6 million-dollar project.  He tells Council that he will probably present again in July.  This presentation is less than a hour, with Gerbitz doing almost all the speaking.  What level of elected, political oversight does that represent?

198. Gerbitz says that he met with some staff and some councilmembers at his firm’s interview.  When was that, who else was there, and what notes did public officials take, if any?

199. On waste processing, generally:  Do Gerbitz, the Donohue firm, or municipal officials think that state requirements for processing waste represent a floor or a ceiling for the proper standard of care?

200. Gerbitz’s slide presentation shows a Chevy Cavalier from 1982 to illustrate how technologies change, and so (by his implication) technology upgrades are necessary.  Fair enough, but how is this plant like a Cavalier (as against, say, an asphalt road or a suspension bridge from generations ago?).

201.  Gerbitz contends that the value of the existing plant is $60 million dollars, measured as a replacement cost.  By his own account, much of the plant does not need to be replaced, so why mention the claimed $60 million-dollar value?  Isn’t the mentioning a large figure that will never be needed simply a technique to make the existing expenditure of $18.6 million look more reasonable?

202. Gerbitz observes that even M&M candies or chocolate milk in large quantities without processing would harm a water supply.  Will what’s actually processed in the plant be more, or less, harmful than M&M candies or chocolate milk?

203. If the goal is processing waste, why is Donohue (at this stage) by its own admission not addressing the digester?

204. Gerbitz says that a working digester is analogous to a human stomach’s digestion.  How clean does he think that is?

Tomorrow: The Donohue Firm’s Second Presentation of 7.15.14.

WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 9.29.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday will bring morning rain and a high of sixty-two to Whitewater. Sunrise is 6:50 and sunset 6:39, for 11h 48m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

There will be a Zoning Code Update meeting tonight at 7 PM.

Google has a doodle to mark the discovery of flowing water on Mars –

evidence-of-water-found-on-mars-5652760466817024.2-hp (1) Perhaps not much water, and not all year, but still, water.

On this day in 1954, during the World Series (Giants v. Indians), Willie Mays makes an astonishing catch:

On this day in 1957, the Packers dedicate a new stadium:

On this date the Green Bay Packers dedicated City Stadium, now known as Lambeau Field, and defeated the Chicago Bears, 21-17. In the capacity crowd of 32,132 was Vice president Richard Nixon. [Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

Here’s Puzzability‘s Tuesday game in its Blended Wines series:

This Week’s Game — September 28-October 2
Blended Wines
We have some lovely pairings this week. For each day, we’ve taken the name of a wine, added a letter, and scrambled all the letters to get a new word. The answer phrase, described by each day’s clue, is the wine followed by the longer word. The clue includes the lengths of the answer words in parentheses.
Example:
Person attending a party in honor of a dry red wine (8,9)
Answer:
Cabernet celebrant
What to Submit:
Submit the phrase, with the wine first (as “Cabernet celebrant” in the example), for your answer.
Tuesday, September 29
Artists who depict a bottle of Greek wine in their still lifes (7,8)