System in Crisis - Part 2

 Even a system that has been running well for years seemingly can't avoid a rough patch from time to time.  This time, January/February 2021, has been one of those.

It's been brewing for awhile.  Too few people doing too many of the tasks that are needed to keep things running.  Events started coming to a head a year or two ago when the "maintenance person" notified the Board that he would be moving sometime in the next 2 or 3 years.  This generated a wee bit of consternation, mostly because of the way tasks have been allocated  by default over the past few years.  If you look over this recent blog, System in Crisis - Part 1, you will see why.

The immediate reaction from the Board was to request the creation of an "operations manual" as well as some searching for someone who would be able to take over.  The result of this, in practical terms, was to create a whole new category of work - defining and documenting all of the steps that are regularly needed to keep a water system for around 50 people running every day, year after year.

On several occasions, the maintenance person was "out of town", so to speak, and when the inevitable issues popped up, it fell to a very small number of other community members to sort it out.  Some of those community members had been volunteering for the system for many years and were at the point in their lives that they didn't want to spend hours troubleshooting and fixing whatever had broken.  But unfortunately, by the time these issues popped up, there really were only 2 or perhaps 3 people in the whole subdivision who understood enough about the water system to figure out what was wrong and how to fix it.

Some of these "events" have been documented elsewhere.

The most recent event, though, was a leak (the second) at a property that has been more or less a problem child property for a couple of decades.  The leak was suspected around Christmas and confirmed at the beginning of January when the water meters were read.  The residents were notified.

Unfortunately, the residents were tenants, not the owners of the property.  Also unfortunately, the actual property owner was in the process of having the property taken away by foreclosure action meaning that there really wasn't an "owner" to deal with.  

The leak itself wasn't exceptional, although it was significant.  Around 7 m3 of water each day when the normal household demand would be closer to 0.5 m3 in 24 hours.  It worked out to close to half of all the water consumed in the subdivision each day.  That said, total water use in the system remained around one-third of the normal daily use during a hot, dry summer.  Serious, but not unmanageable.

The Board communicated with the tenants, with the owner, with the law firm involved, with a local contractor.  A plan was formulated, notice was given to the residents of the property and a deadline for action was established.

Unfortunately, that wasn't good enough for at least one resident who then proceeded to attempt to micromanage and undermine the decisions of the Board and criticize the actions of both the Board and the maintenance person, seemingly for not "being around" when a couple of events happened to take place, not taking the leak seriously enough, whatever.  It's important to keep in mind that this maintenance position is a volunteer position, not a paid position, but also to note, once again, that there really aren't any other people in the subdivision who can troubleshoot and fix things that go wrong.  Other than the one person who was doing most of the complaining.

Board members were, understandably, upset.  As of this writing, two have resigned, one has agreed to stay on for a short time until things can be sorted out, two new Board members have been recruited and the maintenance person has given notice that he intends to step away from all his volunteer duties sooner rather than later.  The word "immediately" was only avoided by some luck, the quick actions of two remaining Board members and the resignation of another.  And, fortunately, no further criticism from the bleachers.

As the Board-imposed deadline arrived, so did an excavating contractor, and within 2 days, the leak was fixed.  Pretty much as the Board had dared to hope it would.

But now, we have a number of angry, upset community members, a Board in disarray, and the possible prospect of losing the one person who has been doing much of the nuts and bolts work to keep the system running over the past several years.  It hasn't been a happy time here in Shangri-La.

One of the lessons from this is that an organization should never take happy times for granted.  They are unlikely to last.

System in Crisis - Part 1

It seems that, over the years, organizations get into the habit of "letting someone else" do stuff.  Eventually, that can result in a few individuals handling almost everything.  In our organization, this situation has reached a point where something has to be done.

This is currently how our system runs and who runs it.

The Board of Management:

    Ideally, there should be 5 members on the Board whose job it is to oversee the management of the entire system.  Recently there have been only 4 Board members.  With recent resignations and new additions, there appear to be 4 again.

The Water Teams:

    A dozen or so members are assigned to (normally) 2-person teams that are responsible for four things during a 2-week period on a rotational schedule with other teams: 1) monitor the reservoir level, 2) adjust the lake pump timer accordingly, 3) keep bleach tank topped up and 4) clean the filters at an appropriate interval.  Once the automated level and pump control system is operational, the reservoir level should not require much monitoring but there will be the facility to do that monitoring online.  Note that not all teams actively carry out all 4 of the tasks mentioned above.

Water Sampling:

    Takes water samples from the reservoir and one other location and delivers them to IHA's facility in town so they can be tested for the presence of bacteria.    

    Traditionally, this has been handled by one person but could be shared by a small team carrying out the job in some kind of rotation.

    This is a critical task that must be carried out properly and with care.

Maintenance:

    At this point, January 2021, one person is now responsible for looking after all of the following, with exceptions noted where appropriate.

    Financial:

• receiving meter readings and updating the billing spreadsheet.  Note: quarterly meter readings have been handled by another community member for a good number of years and there are now two people can share this job.

• integrating that spreadsheet into the quarterly statements

• emailing statements to water users (snail mail for two residents)

• logging on and recording all online payments for about a month after each quarterly billing period.

• recording all e-transfers.  Note: payments by cheque are received and deposited by a board member, unfortunately one who has recently decided to resign from the board.

• paying all bills

• keeping all financial records, reconciling statements, annual volunteer credits, etc

• investing society funds in appropriate deposits

• Preparing and presenting financial statements to the Board and to each AGM

• Purchasing - see details in next section.

    Maintenance:

• looking after ALL maintenance items which can include electrical wiring changes, magnetic pump switches, pump hookups, pipe fitting, replacing leaky valves, leaky pipe fittings, etc.

• installing ALL new equipment, planning for that installation, welding, pipe cutting, pipe layouts, wiring, etc.

• Planning and carrying out the water meter project starting in 2008, installing many of the meters, some with the help of a plumber, others with another volunteer or two, building the boxes for the meters that are installed by the street, inspecting those meters and boxes on a regular basis each year and repairing meters when defective.

• Chlorine tests, chlorine injector adjustments, injector repairs, new diaphragms, cleaning, etc.  Note: water samples for weekly bacteriological tests have been carried out by another volunteer which has contributed greatly to keeping our system in compliance with the province's water quality requirements.

• Turbidity measurements at certain times of the year.

• Scheduling reservoir cleaning and the occasional high-chlorine sterilization of the entire distribution system.

• Inspection of filters, replacing those that seem worn out.

• Monitoring and adding bleach to the tank when it gets too low.  Note:  some, but not all, water teams include this in their duties.

• Monitoring reservoir levels and adjusting the lake pump timer when necessary.  Note: some water teams do this as part of their duties.

• Regular inspection of our three buildings, making sure heat is on in the winter, off in the summer, that there are no leaks.  Checking for potential building repairs.

• Checking and adjusting the air charge of the pressure tanks at the reservoir.

• Planning for ALL future repairs, modifications: researching, ordering parts, arranging for contractors, etc.  Currently, for the 2021 season, the maintenance lineup includes a major main line valve replacement, a remote reservoir level monitoring program with remote pump control capabilities, the addition of one new property to our system, a planned overhaul of our fire hydrants (the first in 40 years) and researching the possibility of adding UV treatment to our processes.

• Flushing the hydrants, standpipes and distribution lines usually twice each summer.  This is now planned to include scheduled hydrant maintenance: disassembly, lubrication, gasket replacement when necessary.

• Disposing of all garbage and recyclable containers from the treatment building.

• Purchasing - Once every month or two:  Bleach -  buying from Walmart or the RCWC in Nelson and delivering to treatment building; Occasionally:  O-rings for filter canisters, diaphragms for injectors, any other parts (valves, water meters, repair parts for water meters, pumps, magnetic switches, etc).

    Secretarial:

• completing annual reports to two different government departments in support of our water license.

• writing an annual report for our EHO at IHA.

• Recording data from the treatment building and reservoir, collecting financial information, etc., to use in those annual reports.

• Responding to requests to update the “property table” with contact information for residents.

• Filing annual online reports to BC Societies following each AGM. This also included a one time rewriting our Constitution and Bylaws so they could be transitioned to the new online system now used by BC Societies.

• Maintaining the Society's filing system.

• Managing the volunteer list, arranging for volunteer credits and keeping track of volunteer hours and maintenance activities.

    Training:

• training and/or orientation for every new recruit in recent years – water team members, for example. This also included training for a member who very helpfully took over the bookkeeping system for a number of years, a job that has now reverted to the maintenance person again. Training for another member when they started taking meter readings a number of years ago.  Note: In more recent months, our meter reader person has helped by training a new volunteer to collect meter readings on a quarterly basis. Additionally, another member has recently taken on the training of a new person to take water samples for bacteriological testing.

    Miscellaneous:

• meeting with operators of other water systems (RDCK at Ymir, Lardeau, Schroeder Creek, Woodbury, Fletcher, Mirror Lake), viewing their systems and hosting a number of visits for those interested in seeing our own system.

• meeting with IHA's EHO and handling questions and requests from her many times over the years.  It's worth noting that this area of communication has become more difficult in recent years to the point that we only communicate in writing, keeping a permanent record of all communication.

• Setting up and managing the Society's email address and writing ALL of the content for our website which includes operations instructions and a mandatory emergency plan required by IHA and our regulatory departments in Victoria.

• Preparing rate increase submissions to Victoria

• FireSmart, while not specifically a Society function, takes more time. Two members have been involved in planning and reviewing suggestions about those plans, another has worked with the maintenance person on several occasions and some other community members helped in the initial year, 2019, and some have done good work around their own properties. This past COVID year it's been mostly the maintenance person with help from two other dedicated members. Some of our plans also involve making the Society's buildings more fire resistant, so the Society (ie: the Board) needs to be involved.