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How could water utilities better plan for permit compliance? For any entity conducting business – whether it is providing a public service or selling a good – predictability is a key to long-term survival. You might not be able to control input cost changes, shifts in demand, or adverse events, but the better you can foresee and prepare for them, the more you will be empowered to ensure your sustainability.

As Goes Permit Compliance, So Goes Predictability and Sustainability

The sustainability of water utilities hinges on regulatory and permit compliance at the local, state and federal levels. If they cannot get permits, they cannot get off the ground to begin with. But maintaining compliance is the 800-pound gorilla. If permits are violated, utilities can often keep handling wastewater and providing drinking water, as these services are public health-critical, but violations are unsustainably costly on many fronts:

• Fines can be huge and compound on a daily basis as long as violations are outstanding. Violations can also mean lengthy and expensive legal proceedings involving other government entities, interest groups, and citizens
• More and more, they are the canaries in the coal mine giving the first notice of failed – sometimes catastrophically so – infrastructure
• Since water utilities are monopolies and users cannot turn to other providers, the loss of public trust that violations engender can be profound, lasting decades and creating ripple effects up to the highest levels of an organization or government.

Treating Permit Compliance as a Product

All too often, water utilities see permit compliance as a hurdle they must jump to fulfill their mission: providing clean water efficiently and at a reasonable cost. In the worst-case scenario of breach of public trust, where permit compliance is seen as a hurdle, going around it is a possibility – unless and until caught. The Flint, Michigan water supply crisis happened in large part because the Flint Water Treatment Plant maintained permit despite officials knowing it could not provide safe, clean drinking water.

While clearly Flint Water did not plan for permit compliance as a primary product, too few water utilities do either. What if they did? Would planning a product that everyone depends on start to seem much more positive and predictable than jumping a hurdle or avoiding a punishment? Would it help managers and decision-makers feel more like empowered, responsible adults than guilty children?

For drinking water, wastewater and stormwater, permit compliance is a matter of keeping within standards for a wide range of contaminants (such as metals and harmful bacteria) and indicators of health (such as temperature and pH) – that is, maintaining acceptable quality. So many factors go into that – exogenous ones such as weather events and endogenous ones like infrastructure status. And with climate change, ageing assets and emerging technologies, more new and unexpected factors come into play every day, making planning more challenging than ever. So how can utilities plan for compliance as an end product? All signs point to data as a keystone.

Collecting the Right Data at the Right Time

It is no secret: water supply, wastewater, and stormwater utilities all know what their output is supposed to look like: clean water, which equals compliance. To get there, they need to know what is entering the system and when, what tools they need to use to create compliance, and what their measures of success are indicating – all questions that must be answered by gathering data that passes QA muster. Technology such as new types of sensors and even drones are making possible the collection of critical data in the field that just a few years ago would have been unimaginable, greatly leveraging the ability to gather data about what is coming into the system – typically the greatest challenge to compliance. The right data quality and quantity optimizes data-driven decision-making – which only makes sense to achieve a result (regulatory compliance) that is characterized by data measures.

Making Data More Powerful By Expanding Its Accessibility

A single utility may have dozens of different systems where compliance-critical data is kept, each with protocols and nomenclature known only to staff in specific organization units with highly specialized expertise. It is as if staff working towards the same goals just down the hall from each other were operating on different planets, and the message that only a certain few people – rather than everyone working together – are responsible for compliance.

Achieving consistent compliance rather than reacting to violations requires connecting dots and detecting patterns with a clear “line of sight” across all the organization’s data. But using multiple data storage applications stymies this line of sight, making it much more difficult to spot, investigate and respond to potential problems before they lead to violations.

Decisions are Easier and Better When They are Data-Backed

There is probably no water utility manager out there who never struggled over making a big decision when helpful or critical data was simply not available. Some of the most difficult ones are decisions around money – how much should be planned for future infrastructure, what level and what type of efficiencies should be targeted, how should rates be set? Though the connection may seem indirect, these funding decisions are the foundation to maintaining predictability and steady future compliance – and they are frequently finalized by government legislative bodies with no water utility expertise and a long list of other priorities. Rich data, with its significance put into sharp focus through sound and appropriate analytical tools, gives water utilities the best chance at decisions and their aftermath that will help realize predictability, and permit compliance, for the long-term.

Do you want to improve Environmental Permit Management in your organization? Talk to us and ask for a demo: our team of experts spend time with your team to better understand how you currently manage permit compliance and identify optimization priorities.

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What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Smart water systems empower utilities to provide better service at lower costs, increased effectiveness and efficiency, and with reduced environmental impacts. While ground-breaking data collection and analysis technologies make smart water systems possible, increased pressure on resources from threats like climate change make it necessary. As just one sobering example, the United Nations predicts that about two-thirds of the world’s population — 4.6 billion people — will face water-stressed conditions in the next decade due to increased and completing demands, more extreme climate conditions, and record-shattering weather events.

Using Data To Drive Management

Smart water systems’ critical capability is that they fulfill the promise of data-driven decisions and actions. While water utilities have long gathered extensive data of all sorts, they have all too seldom been able to use it to good effect. It sits siloed in legacy repositories that can’t talk to each other, and it’s all too common for a utility’s disparate units to have no idea what data the others have. And technologies that enable the data to be consolidated and analyzed have been expensive and cumbersome to implement. So the truth and clarity that data should provide have remained out of reach.

In 2017, the Smart Utility Task Force of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) outlined its vision for the “Digital Utility of the Future” that would exploit data, analytics and integrated systems to meet these aims:

1. Reduce Operational Costs
2. Manage and Mitigate Risks
3. Enhance the Customer Experience
4. Improve Financial Execution
5. Optimize Asset Performance and Uncover Hidden Value
6. Leverage Existing Communications and Computing Platforms
7. Maximize the Engagement and Efficiency of Employees; and
8. Integrate Water Quality, Policy, and Performance

What Smart Moves Have Water Utilities Made?

Many public drinking water providers are already using information and communications technology to build smart systems to achieve a sustainable, efficient and clean water supply. As a huge bonus, these innovations let them transform what were formerly “just” ratepayers into allies and partners in conservation, reducing costs, and spotting problems.

To cite just one smart system breakthrough, in 2013 the Kansas City Kansas Board of Public Utilities (KC BPU) implemented Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AIM) for the city’s water supply system that delivers hourly readings in real time of each customer’s water consumption. That’s a lot of raw data that on its own doesn’t make a system smart. But when the data is analyzed to identify consumption patterns and levels that indicate waste due to plumbing leaks, and water department staff quickly contact the customers to let them know, the system becomes smart – new data is collected and used in a new way to prevent waste, lower costs for the provider and customer, decrease stress on the water supply and infrastructure, and forge a bond of cooperation between provider and consumers. Within a few years of the program’s outset, KC BPU had contacted over 1,500 customers – or 2.6% of the utility’s 56,000 households served – with a Residential Leak Alert.

A Smart Step for Wastewater – Reduce Operating Costs

Smart systems are still largely in the future for wastewater treatment utilities, but on-boarding them will be vital to providing service efficiently and protecting the environment.

As a starting point, smart systems can help wastewater utilities resolve some of their “low-hanging fruit” issues like identifying and reducing waste in resource use, thereby reducing operational costs – the first of NACWA’s aims for digital utilities of the future. Some opportunities:

• Pumps and blowers generally account for most of the energy usage at treatment plants. By using smart systems to track energy use and performance, inefficiencies can be uncovered and eliminated.
• Energy and chemical use in process and disinfection systems can be tracked and compared with industry benchmarks, highlighting additional areas ripe for to tackling inefficiencies and reducing operating costs.
• Collection networks conveys wastewater to treatment plants and support community growth and development. But by their nature, these diffuse underground networks are prone to flow problems including waste fat blockages and inflow/infiltration from groundwater and stormwater. While utilities address these problems with programs including ratepayer education and infrastructure replacement, a smart system can identify potential blockage buildups by using flow meters and level sensors. Tracking the resulting data can point field staff to address potential problem areas immediately these areas instead of making field visits based on historical patterns.

The Water and Wastewater sector is confronting growing challenges such as ageing infrastructure, increasing pressure from the regulators and the public and fragmented expenditure allocation. Water utilities now have to step up and go beyond simply complying with the Clean Water Act (CWA.) They need to adopt innovative technologies to improve environmental and regulatory compliance performance, while reducing costs and increasing revenue.

The future digital water utilities will have to be able to capture, synthesize and analyze multiple layers of data to extract key insights. This will require a centralized system focused on cross-functional interoperability to provide for effective decision-making. The utilities’ challenge of how to increase efficiency is ready to be answered by the right advanced technology that will allow them to tackle process automation as well as access to the right data at the right time.

The Klir Water and Wastewater solution provides a single decision-making platform and a 360° view of all Urban Waste Water and Drinking Water missions to help utilities make informed decisions and meet the organization’s strategic objectives.

Are you ready to know more? Request a demo here.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Permit management and more generally environmental compliance are a fundamental corporate goal of a water utility. But also one that is increasingly challenging to achieve, as the data to support this objective is generated across multiple functions and stored in disparate IT systems.A rise in regulations and subsequently in environmental permits in the past few years provide some welcome news for the U.S. water industry, indicating that water safety will likely improve or in some cases remain exemplary. But with more permit applications being submitted, water utilities and municipalities need to stay on top of the inflow to prevent application reviews and related tasks from bottlenecking. Why? Regulations governing a water utility account for the majority of operational effort, which incur a substantial cost. A single day’s delay caused by the regulatory process could potentially result in a costly violation-related fine.

Speeding Up The Permit Management Process

To speed up the permit application and management process, water utilities execs should look to streamlining — removing any regulatory duplication and creating more efficient administrative procedures. As the no.1 stakeholders in most quality and/or compliance departments, analysts should feel empowered to share this concept with the department they work in and encourage them to make their processes more efficient. Streamlining can help ease the pressure on compliance and quality staff and help safeguard the quality and safety of water. If implemented suitably, it makes quality and compliance departments more efficient and effective at enforcing regulations and permitting requirements. And it offers opportunities for the utility to save significantly on operational costs.According to NACWA’s 2017 paper Envisioning the Digital Utility of the Future, streamlining procedures will contribute to phasing out wasteful processes to “enhance efficiency, reduce costs and, ultimately, maximize their return on investment”. It can reduce the amount of time it takes to move permit applications through the regulatory system and help reduce violations, which “benefit the utility by doing more with less and drive down the costs of services to stakeholders. A win-win for all involved”.

Efficiency Gains and Reduction in Violations

A beta version of the Klir platform implemented for Irish Water has enabled them to manage their Urban Waste Water processes systematically and has yielded 20% efficiency gains for the compliance team and a 90% reduction in violations. With benefits like those as a goal, our work with Southern Nevada Water Authority/Las Vegas Valley Water District has allowed us to outline the key areas to prioritize streamlining efforts on:

1. Cross-functional communication: a highly organized and close-knit system across all teams involved in the permitting process allows for ease in tracking permit applications and reviews. In LVVWD, team members extend outstanding efforts around team communication, and this is enhanced by the teams being in close proximity to each other and running multiple weekly meetings to keep on top of the work-on-hand, eliminating countless emails with questions.
2. Clearly defined permit application and management process: structured and documented processes – which the teams execute with rigour – is the only way to reduce frustrations and duplicated questions when processing permit applications. Our interaction with various stakeholders revealed a positive culture of ownership and accountability in LVVWD: a number of divisions created processes and ways of working which allow them to do their job successfully. However, these teams remain open to risk as these processes often sit outside an IT system and are heavily dependent on individuals and their commitment to and knowledge of the utility.
3. Staff qualification and training: regulations change continuously , so it is imperative that compliance and quality staff stay current as regulations are up­dated.
4. Status review: it is important for all responsible stakeholders involved to have full visibility on the full permit management process and access to a near real-time tracking of tasks as they move through the review process. Online tracking of permit applications is the most effective of streamlining measures.
5. Automated task scheduling: a central system that allows for automated tasks scheduling undoubtedly reduces the administrative burden on staff and add efficiency to the application and review process.
6. Technology: cloud-based software applications, mobile devices, automated workflows and notifications and electronic storage — all can enable noticeable ef­ficiencies of the regulatory compliance process. With the advent of SaaS technologies, affordable solutions now exist for water utilities who need to do more with less.

If investing in technology can be used to streamline the permit management process – permit application processing, tasks scheduling and tracking – it should only come after a careful review of the regulatory compliance process. Indeed, automating a dysfunctional process will only make a dysfunctional process run faster.Streamlining permit management and regulatory processes represents a robust and positive ap­proach for water utilities and municipalities. Implementing regulatory efficiencies can save both time and money while improving water safety. For water utilities, the bottom line is a more robust management of permit application and review, which will set them on the path to better sustainability.Do you want to improve Permit Management in your organization? Talk to us and ask for a demo: our team of experts spends time with your team to better understand how you currently manage permit compliance and identify optimization priorities.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Op-Ed by David Lynch, Co-Founder and CEO of Klir

Compliance can often be seen as a production requirement. Instead, it should be seen as the product, and as such, as the core purpose of a water utility. Yet, there is often a disconnect between the spirit of regulations and their practical implementation on the ground. And this often results in an onerous burden on water service providers.

The first iteration of regulations broadly sought to address challenges with obvious links to environmental and human health, i.e. the treatment of drinking water or raw sewerage. In western democracies, these regulations attract bipartisan support, but are implemented in most cases. In Europe, this has culminated in 2000, with one of the most progressive and ambitious pieces of legislation: the Water Framework Directive. At a basic level, the directive takes an epidemiological approach to water management. It looks at what makes the water body ‘sick’ and requires to treat the cause of the illness, rather than the symptoms.

Revision of the Water Framework Directive

The directive is, in itself, relatively simple and short (only 20 pages long). But, the implementation, technical instructions, myriad of daughter legislation, process and reporting requirements often break the links between a water utility’s mission and regulatory requirements. The success of the WFD 18 years after initial implementation is widely debated and a revision of the directive is due in 2019. Nevertheless, the WFD does represent a fundamental shift in what regulation is going to look like over the next 50 years.

Instead of broad legislative measures being sweepingly enforced at a state, multi-state or federal level, regulations will be more pointed. They will be used as a tool to tweak the anthropogenic activities in a catchment to improve a system’s environmental health. This presents significant opportunities for water operators.

For example, if the background level of nutrients in a waterbody in which wastewater is being discharged is already high, logic will follow that the onus of costly treatment will fall on the polluters upstream, rather than solely on the wastewater operators. Of course, today this rarely happens – it is easier to regulate point source than diffuse pollution. So a disproportionate level of the burden falls on operators as the nexus point between multiple water stakeholders.

Data, at the Core of the Challenge

Often, existing legislative framework around the globe already supports a ‘polluter-pays’ principle and with the continuing legislative adoption of approaches like Integrated Catchment Management as well as the WHO Drinking Water Safety Plan this will only continue to be solidified in legislation. But how can water service operators capitalize on this approach? There are many views and silver bullet solutions. But fundamentally, data is at the core of the challenge. AI, Machine Learning as well as evolution of hardware is often touted as the next big thing but without a single source of the truth, the experts cannot use those tools effectively.

Research we carried out recently highlighted that, in a water utility today, the largest proportion of operational cost is labor. 1 in every 2 staff in a utility is impacted by quality, environmental and regulatory workflows. 20 – 50% of the time of those responsible for compliance-related tasks is spent on repetitive work like chasing or maintaining data, executing offline workflows or reacting to requests from regulatory stakeholders.

In order to meet the changing face of water regulations and deploy resources more effectively to meet emerging challenges like Combined Sewage Overflow, Climate Change, Pesticides and supply rationalization, efficiencies need to be gained in how this is managed in water utilities.

Maximum Impact on Human Health and the Environment for a Minimal Investment

By looking at a similar challenge in another vertical, we can see the benefits and pathway to a solution. About 30-35 years ago, sales and marketing were primarily done off Rolodexes. Then, in the early 80s the concept of database marketing was invented. Customer data was managed in lists and spreadsheets to try and qualify the leads. Throughout the 90s and early 2000s, this morphed into systems with rich functionality that tie together multiple functions of a business into a single focused mission, with automation and integration playing a key part. Now when you look at a typical CRM implementation, the return can be as much as 9 times in revenue.

There are a lot of similarities between this and water management. Where CRM focuses on sales, water management solutions focus on what will have the maximum environmental return i.e. what activity will have the maximum impact on human health and the environment for a minimal investment.

Ultimately, a utility needs to manage a pipeline of activities and requests to choose those tasks that have the maximum impact. It is interesting to note that some of these activities can be seen both from a regulated entity and a regulator’s perspective (e.g. permitting industrial discharges to assets). If we look at the water utility today, we are at the database marketing stage: we have structured data but no system to support the full life cycle to complete the sale. SCADA, LIMS, Asset management systems etc. give us plenty of ‘signals’ or ‘leads’, but a systematized process and single source of the truth is required to take those signals through to completion.

Bringing Regulatory Compliance Data Together…

Some utilities have implemented an environmental information management system. These custom-built applications generally run into the multi-million Euro or Dollar Capex cost. They also represent a significant recurrent overhead to keep the systems up and running (although this cost is coming down with cloud technologies).

We worked with Irish Water on an application to manage urban wastewater compliance investigations. To give context, Irish Water was established less than 5 years ago to amalgamate 31 water services authorities into a single state-owned water utility (1,000 Waste Treatment Plants and 900 Drinking Water Plants for a population of c. 3.3million). There was significant non-compliance with both Urban Waste Water and Drinking Water standards. For example, at the start of 2015, 23,297 consumers were on boil water notices. Ireland was also the subject of an Infringement Case by the EC for failure to meet the requirements of the EU Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive.

The application gives a single view of the data so that the compliance management team can understand work on-hand and prioritize tasks based on structured data such as Due Date, Severity, Impact etc. This system also contains extracts of compliance metadata provided in real time by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency. This combined view of compliance data, (i.e. from EPA and Irish Water) gives Irish Water the 360-degree visibility they need to respond to compliance tasks in a timely and efficient manner. The system also provides Irish Water management with the ability to assign work to their colleagues and set due dates against tasks, so that they are in control of the work to carry out.

… and Reaping the Benefits

The results have been impressive. Primary benefits include:

• 80% reduction in requests for further information from EPA
• 60% reduction in lead time reporting to regulators
• 90% reduction in non-compliance due to reporting
• Redeployment of 3 full-time employees from compliance and workflow team to address Combined Sewage Overflow projects
• But utilities like Irish Water – i.e that can afford these heavy implementations – generally represent less than 0.5% of the market as few have the critical mass to enable a meaningful ROI at this cost.

Meeting Changing Regulatory Patterns

By taking this initial step towards a centralized, systematized single source of environmental truth for their organization, water utilities are improving their data and allowing for rich analysis to meet changing regulatory patterns. Moreover, as this data becomes more centralized and cleansed, challenges can be mounted on permit limits imposed by regulators based on empirical data that there is consensus on.

The future of water regulations is a holistic integrated approach to water management in a catchment or watershed. This requires multiple stakeholders to interact regularly and in real time which is a significant challenge for our industry and those who have a dependency on water services.

In order to address these challenges, a single agreed version of enterprise compliance data as well as the processes that support them will be absolutely necessary to reduce risk, improve efficiency, increase compliance and improve asset investment.

Would like to know more about managing regulatory compliance more effectively? Contact us to see a live demo.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Op-Ed by David Lynch, Co-Founder and CEO of Klir

I am, at my very core, a centrist. No matter what subject, taking an extreme position at one end or an other rarely works. I like to describe this fondly as living in a world of grey, however bleak it might sound to an outside reader.

I apply this ethos to almost every aspect of my life (much to my families dismay). So it is no surprise that I applied this lens when noticing the ever growing number of predictions of how the US water market will consolidate and privatize. I think this is an over simplistic view of the market and even bordering on dangerous.

Many proponents of consolidation and privatization cite the baseline qualitative improvements on water quality when water schemes are taken out of public hands. There is no debating the facts on this and Britain is a good example of how this plays out over an extended period. But this approach is not without its challenges. Fines are being levied at an unprecedented level and there are a litany of accusations regarding shareholder dividend preference over consumer health. I think it is useful to ask, why does privatization work?

I like to think of best in class water management a bit like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. At the very foundation, you need the infrastructure delivering water services to be fit for purpose. Privatization enables relatively quick access to capital and competitive rates which is hard to argue against. Next is labour expertise. High quality engineers and scientists are accessible to the consolidated entity that would ordinarily not be the case. The next layer is professionalism. Studies repeatedly show that privatization empirically increases the level of professionalization in a water utility. This is measured against compliance, efficiency, economics and risk. The piece de resistance of best in class water management is holistic community engagement.

What is most interesting to note is the holy grail of community management is extremely hard for private entities to achieve as the objectives of a private utility and the community are in too stark a contrast.

Which leads me back to my love of the grey zone. How can we get the best of both worlds in all of the above. The jury is still out on infrastructure. The question of approaches like federal or state rotating schemes, Public Private partnerships (PPP), Design/Build/Operate (DBO) etc. are too complex to delve into here. However the middle two tiers can be solved with software. The issue is absolutely not that the staff are unqualified or not adequately motivated but more that given the nature of the community system, simply put, the users don’t have the volume of experience that a big utility would have. Software like CRP solves this as the collective experience of the sector is continually refined in a single platform to give insight where issues occur that have never occurred before. Technology is becoming cheaper, both software and hardware so things that were ordinarily unavailable to community systems are now cost effective. It also addresses the area of professionalization as the best in class processes and tools are being used by the smallest to the largest utilities, again driven primarily by the lowering cost and accessibility to a wider market.

I believe the only way to effective community involvement in water is engagement with a community driven organization. The objectives and mission of the utility must be deeply rooted in the community if they are to be trusted by stakeholders in the watershed that are typically at odds.

It is for this reason, I come down in the grey area when the debate of privatization comes up. I don’t think exclusively one option or the other works. However, I do believe the best in class systems will be those that are community managed with deep ties to, and reliance on, aspects of privatization such as PPP & DBO. It feels terribly like a politicians answer but the major difference is I actually came down on a side!

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Decades ago, the saying was that “the solution to pollution is dilution.” Billions of people and tons of pollution fouling our water, air, and lands later, it is not so simple. The planet used to seem so vast and empty that we believed the raw waste we dumped, flushed or sent out a pipe could not hurt anyone or anything. We just wanted it somewhere else so it did not affect us and we did not have to think about it.

Revision of the Water Framework Directive

In the 1960s, we began to realize that the world did not have endless capacity to receive our wastes without reflecting back negative consequences. Our thinking and practices began to change. The Cuyahoga River in Ohio actually catching fire showed all too graphically what could result from dumping industrial wastes into waterways. A public service television ad depicting a Native American shedding a tear at seeing litter strewn over the landscape seemingly overnight stopped people from tossing their rubbish wherever it suited them.

Over fifty years later, many countries have a much better handle on dealing with pollution of lands and solid waste disposal. And while non-point source air pollution remains a major problem, a positive development has been that point-source air pollution has, at least in the West, significantly abated.

Water Does Not Respect Jurisdictional Boundaries

Pollution and degradation of waters has on the whole steadily worsened, with new and staggering realities in the headlines frequently: the impending death of the Great Barrier Reef, decimation of global fish stocks, the choking of seas and marine life with plastic waste. As technology has massively increased the ability of nations and private actors to use and misuse waterways, especially oceans, we see the adage that water does not obey jurisdictional boundaries made frighteningly manifest.

Those working in the water supply, wastewater and stormwater sectors have this adage front of mind every day. They deal with federal, state and local regulations that seek to keep water quality and quantity to standards that prevent harm to humans, wildlife and resources. They cooperate with other jurisdictions to understand and try to address common problems and challenges in shared watersheds. While local and state regulations may differ, they must all at the end nest under the same national regulations, creating a structure that embodies clear authority.

The Challenge of Combating Cross-Border Water Pollution

Where national boundaries meet, water pollution problems have no unilateral authority to fit under. The U.S. has two international boundaries – one with Mexico, the other with Canada. In the last 50 or so years, with populations and resulting sewage disposal problems increasing, and industries along shared waterways creating new and insidious means of polluting, the problem of international water pollution has gotten worse while the bandwith for dealing with it has gotten smaller and smaller in the face of more pressing local, national and global problems.

The means for the U.S. and Canada to resolve shared water issues is the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909. Since most regulations governing current situations and problems with water use and quality in the U.S. were enacted and revised since the late 1960s, it feels unnervingly quaint to envision our relationship with Canada on water issues folding up into a construct created when words like “today” and “toothpaste” had hyphens. The first of the series of treaties that address water issues between the U.S. and Mexico goes back significantly further – to 1848.

A joint U.S.-Mexico body, the International Boundary and Water Commission, is charged with finding and recommending solutions to cross-border water issues. An analogous body, the International Joint Committee, addresses American-Canadian water issues. These entities add another complex layer to the already complicated local-state-federal structure that has developed to address water problems, and neither has binding authority – they are intended only to identify, gather, analyze and make recommendations on international water issues.

Positive steps and binding decisions are still up to the federal government of one or both countries, depending on the problem. And with the vast spectrum of social, economic and political challenges on governments’ plates, that can mean a problem originating in one country but negatively affecting only the other takes us back to the days of address the problem by just sending it somewhere else – a kind of environmental tribalism that encourages endless finger-pointing at the other side rather than action to address the problem.

Can We Overcome Environmental Tribalism?

Both Mexico and Canada discharge untreated sewage into ocean waters just adjacent to their respective U.S. borders. In 1990 Mexico signed an agreement with the U.S. known as Minute 283 in which it promised that no untreated wastewater from domestic or industrial sources would be discharged to the Tijuana River and enter U.S. waters. Almost three decades later, the problem is worse than ever, leading to amongst other consequences beach closures in tourism-dependent Southern California.

In Canada, the City of Victoria on Vancouver Island treats none of its sewage, discharging it directly into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. This will change though in 2020 when Victoria is due to open its first wastewater treatment plant. Although owing to a unique set of factors, there is some valid question as to whether the current discharge method is actually harming humans or the environment. The lack of a treatment plant has been a source of embarrassment for locals and used as a shaming tool by outsiders wanting leverage on some issue. Eventually, shame led to enough political pressure to force Victoria’s hand.

In the international context, without clear regulatory structures that carry specific and meaningful penalties, adequate political pressure both within and outside the polluting country – along with the availability of funding – are critical to spurring action on water pollution that crosses national boundaries – and overcoming environmental tribalism.

As experts in the water RegTech sector and water-conscious citizens, we, at Klir, are passionate about water and environmental issues. We strongly believe that implementing sustainable water operations and practices is critical to ensuring water availability and sanitation for all human beings in the future.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.