Hard and Soft: Paths to 21st Century Water Management

• Author: G. Tracy Mehan III
• Pages: 111-115

111

Hard and Soft:

Paths to 21st Centur y

Water Management

By G. Tracy Mehan III

Managing Water Demand : Price vs. N on-Pric e Conservation

Programs. A Pioneer Institute White Paper. Sheila M. Olms tead and

Robert N. Stavins. Pione er Institute Public Policy Inst itute. 47 pages.

Making the Most of the Water We Have: The Sof t Path Approach

to Water Management, edi ted by David B. Brooks, Oliver M.

Brandes, and Stephe n Gurman. Earth scan. 272 pages.

Sustainable Water Sys tems: Ste p One— Redef‌ining the Nat ion’s

Infrastruc ture Challenge. A Repor t of the Aspen Institu te’s Dialogue

on Sustainable Water Infrastructure in the U.S., by David Mon sma,

Regan Nelson, and Ray Bolger. The Aspen Institut e. 36 pages.

From the January/ February 2010 issue of The Environmenta l Forum.

One could be forgiven for imagining a contemporary revision of

Shakespeare’s famous line “let’s kill al l the lawyers,” and substitut-

ing in their place water and wastewater engineers.

Today, there is increasing concern for protecting aquatic ecosystems as

well as human health and the economy, greater attention to nonstructural a s

well as structural solutions, more emphasis on demand-side as well as supply-

side management techniques, and a growing sense that we are simply feeding

the elephant in the room. at is, we have an expensive legacy infrastructure

very much ak in to the mainframes which were up-ended by the rise of per-

sonal computers.

ese legacy systems are not adequately supported by municipal politi-

cians who would rather have a root canal tha n raise water rates to a level

necessary to mainta in their utilities’ infrastructure for its entire life cycle,

including replacement costs. By almost e very measure available, the United

States has the lowest water and wastewater rates of any developed nation. No