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1. Enough clean water
for Springfield’s future
Hunter Dam?
or
Is there a better choice?

2. Start with a tour
 7000 acres of public land
 That you have not yet seen
 A native American trail passes east of town
 Through deep ravines
 Rich wildlife habitat
 Ancient oaks
 A Lincoln-era tavern and stagecoach stop

3. This land is our land

6. Think about what this giant has seen during the last century or two

7. Pensacola Tavern
Imagine hearing Stephen Douglas give a presidential campaign speech here in 1860

8. Forested wetland in summer

9. Forested wetland in winter

11. You’ve been locked out for 40 years

12. Hunter Dam
 >100 miles shoreline
 Average year
 7 ft drawdown
 1 sq mi mudflats
 Dry years
 20 ft drawdown
 >3 sq mi mudflats

13. Mudflat at Corps reservoir

14. Carlyle reservoir, Illinois
 Illinois soils are weak;
vulnerable to annual
drawdowns
 7 ft in normal year
 20 ft every 15 yrs
 Eroding banks are huge
source of phosphorus
pollution
 Hunter dam – only minimal
riprap planned
 CWLP to “rely on tree roots”

15.  Eroding shorelines add sediment
 Sediment contains phosphorus
 Phosphorus feeds toxic algae
 Algae depletes oxygen
 Fish die

16. Why past commitments were made

17. Why past commitments were made
CWLP’s 2007
forecast

18. Why past commitments were made
Consultants’ latest

20. Our dual-purpose lake
 Coal plants require
additional 17 mgd
 3 mgd treated water
 2 mgd induced
evaporation
 5 mgd priority
allocation
 7 mgd to flush ashes
to Sugar Creek valley
 How soon can coal be
phased out?

21. Toxic ash flushed into ash dams
along Sugar Creek floodplain
Lake Springfield
Ash
Ash
Ash
Ash

22. Seattle: 400,000 more people; less water

23. Los Angeles: 1 million more people; same water

24. How they did it?
Conservation rates
 Small “meter charge”
 First few gallons very
cheap
 Big rise from first to
last tier
 CWLP +67%
 Seattle +136%
 Austin TX +375%
 Orange Co. CA
+1300%
RESIDENTIAL
Price of last unit (ccf) purchased
Avg user Largest
CWLP $2.64 $2.74
Seattle $6.34 $11.80
Austin $5.68 $17.77
Los Angeles $4.96 $5.90

25. Summer excess: mostly lawn watering

26. Lake Springfield levels
Nov 88
Jan 00
Nov 07
Nov 12
1954 minimum
Power plant minimum
Water supply minimum

27. Financial risk of expanding capacity
in too-large chunks
 Overpredict future demand
 Raise rates to overbuild supply
 Demand declines
 Increase rates
 Continue rate spiral
 Seek bailout (Exelon) or go bankrupt (Dynegy)
 Don’t bet your company on unrealistic growth
 Remember Dallman 4

28. City’s fortunes tied to CWLP?
 CWLP $327M
 Local taxes $85M (property; sales; etc)
 CWLP violated bond covenants 2012
 Again in 2015?

29. What went wrong?
 Bad management?
 Over-reliance on
engineers vs
economists
 Sunk cost fallacy
 Bet the company on
grandiose vision
 Last coal plant and last
big dam
 Political meddling?
 When business case
not apparent, citizens
 Label it a boondoggle
 Follow the money
 Look for consultants
with vested interest
 While promoters
blame the bureaucracy

30. Corps & EPA permits
 “Corps officials will compare the construction of a lake to
other ways of obtaining the water, such as running a
pipeline to a river. Their goal is to pick the project that is
the least damaging to the environment but also
practical.” (Corps to City, July 1, 1996)
 Predicted phosphorus concentrations in the reservoir
would exceed 2x the standard. (Illinois State Water
Survey, 1997)

31. Havana Lowlands
Gravel pits
Sangamon east
Sangamon west
Illinois valley
Lick Creek dam
Alternatives acknowledged by CWLP

32. 20 years to get a permit?
 Failed in 1993
 Cannot dam polluted streams
 Virden, Pawnee & Divernon sewage flows to Hunter Dam
 Failed in 2000: Environmental Impact Statement flawed
 Compared oversized alternatives
 Federal law:
 Evaluate alternative ways to meet needs
 Least environmental damage, but practical
 Failed in 2007
 Trying again in 2015

33. EPA not the villain
 They are public servants, sworn to
faithfully execute…
 Duty to enforce Clean Water Act
 Risks: City ends up in federal court and
USEPA takes over IEPA administration of
Clean Water Act

34. The real villain
 Agriculture is the only industry exempt from the
federal Clean Water Act
 Farm Bureau successfully defends it 40 years
 Entire burden of assuring safe drinking water
falls on urban citizens to remove
 Fertilizers that cause blue baby syndrome
 and toxic algal blooms in lakes
 Sediment that fills water supply lakes
 Pesticides and herbicides that cause cancer

35. Words of wisdom (Harvard)
 Companies must start to recognize the
environment as a competitive
opportunity—not as an annoying cost or a
postponable threat.
Professor Michael E. Porter
Harvard Business School, 1995

36. Words of wisdom (local)
 A warning about building a supplemental
water supply
“It would appear that before endorsing such an
outlay we should be reasonably sure it is fully
warranted. We must not be stampeded by fear,
nor by overenthusiasm in making a grand
showing of abundance to lure new industries
our way.”
Willis J. Spaulding, CWLP
handwritten notes dated July 11, 1956

37. This land is our land