Rural Water Systems: Dancing Backwards and in High Heels

Jim Lauria

About 30 years ago, a Frank and Ernest cartoon tipped its hat to Fred Astaire while giving long-overdue credit to Ginger Rogers. “Sure, he was great,” said a lady in front of a movie theater sign touting a Fred Astaire film festival, “but don’t forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did…backwards and in high heels.”

Rural water utilities are playing Ginger Rogers’ role every day. That’s not to say that every water utility team, big or small, isn’t dedicated and resourceful, serving as America’s front line of defense against disease and thirst. But rural water systems are held to the nation’s high standards for healthy drinking water while being constrained by small ratepayer bases and, often, the need for more miles of pipe per customer than tightly packed urban systems require.

And instead of big staffs with specialists in various technologies, most rural water providers are run by small teams of committed jacks of all trades who must be capable of handling all sorts of challenges. That’s a lot like Ginger Rogers herself. Fred Astaire pointed out that her tireless professionalism and ability to learn on the fly—as well as the athletic flexibility that allowed her to pull off elegant, romantic gestures—were integral to the duo’s success. (So was her acting ability, which helped sell audiences on the idea that an elegant beauty like Ginger Rogers could be so smitten with a plain-looking guy like Fred Astaire.)

Adding to the challenge faced by those rural water system operators, many of those small utilities are drawing mineral-rich groundwater to supply their customers, which can often require more treatment for odor, color and off-flavors—as well as the ions that cause hardness—than water from surface reservoirs or rivers. If that wasn’t tough enough, many groundwater sources are dwindling, forcing utilities to contemplate new sources of water.

That’s like dancing backwards, in high heels, all day long.

“A lot of systems out there are doing a great job on a shoestring budget,” says Kelly Matheson, operations director for the Oklahoma Rural Water Association (ORWA). “Any new regulation coming down the pipe hits them really hard. They’re on very limited manpower because of budget constraints.”

It’s tough to keep that manpower, too, adds Junior Welch, training specialist for the ORWA.

“A lot of the older managers are retiring,” Welch notes. “To bring in new managers, districts are competing on salaries with the larger systems or the energy industry. It’s still not easy to hire them or to keep them. With turnover, we’re right back to training new people. But the ones who stay, it’s not just their job—it’s their passion.”

Ginger Rogers learned to dance in the wings of the Majestic Theater in Dallas, Texas, watching vaudevillians perform and picking up their moves. That’s not much of an option for water plant operators, who need more than smooth steps to keep up with the latest water treatment technology, ever-changing regulations and creative, new approaches to running a business on a shoestring.

That’s where Matheson, Welch and their co-workers at the Oklahoma Rural Water Association—along with their colleagues in other state associations and the National Rural Water Association (NWRA)—come in. These tireless training staffs keep far-flung teams up to speed, putting on countless miles per year to make sure even the most remote communities on the continent can deliver water to a standard that our grandparents would never have dreamed of. Think of them as the dance instructors, a deep and dedicated resource for rural water treatment operators and managers.

There’s also the water trade media, whose editors, publishers and contributors do a remarkable job of informing the industry of trends, technology and regulations. Here’s a sample: in an article about the use of Venturi injectors to enhance ozonation that appears in the current Water and Wastes Digest, I detail the engineering behind cost-effective ozone systems in use in rural Texas.

In a way, we’re at least giving those rural water systems great heels to dance in. But I want to go a step further and tip my most dapper Fred Astaire top hat to the hard-working people in rural water systems across the country, the folks who are dancing backwards and in high heels every day to keep small communities safe and healthy.