Water/Wasterwater 101

Over the last two months, as Rich Oppel has put the "bully" back in "bully pulpit," inquiring minds have wanted to know: What is he talking about? We don't mean the philosophical argument about enviros, growth, and affordability, which is simply Oppel preaching to the Williamson County choir, in un-genteel tones that sound like "passion" to the talk-radio crowd. We mean the minutiae of the Water and Wastewater Commission (WWC) that he finds so objectionable. Even if Oppel's facts weren't completely, and we assume deliberately, garbled, how would the readers know?

Here's some context for you:

• Like most all of the city's 60-plus boards and commissions, the WWC has a purely advisory role; the City Council can, and does, ignore the commission's recommendations. It has nine members, one appointed by each council member and two by consensus. The two members whom Oppel (it must be said) libeled in his initial columns, Harriet Harris and commission vice-chair Lanetta Cooper, were respectively appointed by (natch) Beverly Griffith and Daryl Slusher.
• The sad sacks whose stories have so twisted Oppel's knickers were asking for new water and sewer hookups. The commission only sees these folks (typically from out in the burbs, beyond the city limits but within the W/WW service area) when they ask the city to pay for the lines out to their property. This subsidized construction is howmost infrastructure gets built out on the fringe, and sometimes deservedly so, since the city is then able to apply its higher standards to the projects, which protects not only the environment but also public health and safety. Nevertheless, when the WWC gives these folks a good grilling, it is not, despite Oppel's hissy fits, trampling on their basic rights as citizens. It is considering a business transaction with your money at stake.
• Having said that, all this noise about alternative wastewater systems and on-site sewage facilities, which Cooper and Harris like and Oppel views as sinful, is not just enviro-voodoo. Extending sewerage out to isolated homes or groups of homes is not terribly cost-effective, and cities throughout the land try to avoid it, especially when the recipients are outside the city limits and will likely never be annexed. It's true that infrastructure management equals growth management -- if you want people to build Over Here, you don't freely pony up for their sewer line extensions Out There. But growth management is, as we assume Oppel has heard, the reason this council got elected and the focus of most everything it's done so far -- with a lot of help and genuine support from city staff, including at Water and Wastewater -- not a fever dream of a few wacked-out volunteers on a city commission.
• Review by the commission is but a tiny part of the review, permitting, and approval process for infrastructure extensions, which can involve up to three separate city departments, multiple copies of multiple documents, and almost always the hand-holding services of a professional engineer. Admittedly, it can be annoying to go through this tedious process, only to arrive before the commission and get grief, but that happens every week before the Planning Commission and council. Oppel's splenetics are so confusing because he can't make up his mind about what he dislikes -- the people, the policy, or the process -- and so he conflates them all into one big nasty enviro straw man. Is it too much to ask that the editor of the Statesman know the difference? --Mike Clark-Madison