Sustainable Land Development Today - September 2008 - (Page 37)

Neither septic tanks or centralized sewer were options for the developer of this Boston-area condo project. Instead he installed a decentralized, wastewater system manufactured by Aquapoint Inc. which allowed for greater housing density on the property. and disposal. The prospects for development, and particularly for rapid development, were complex at best. However, under the leadership of two developers and a thoughtful mayor, a very unusual and creative, public-private arrangement began to emerge that understood the difficulties and complexities of the issues involved. One developer was in a valley and had constructed an elaborate golf course. The other developer had a significant portion of the land in the sensitive zones. An arrangement was made whereby the golfcourse developer would fund the treatment and disposal system for the community. He would do it with collateralized pledges from the other developer and use the treated wastewater to irrigate his golf course. He would also secure a revenue stream from the pledges to help fund additional infrastructure for the town and existing homes. The initial treatment and disposal system would be sold back to the town on a discounted basis, while he retained the rights to the treated wastewater and receive a royalty from the ongoing revenue for having put the project together. A traditional public approach to infrastructure could not have put this arrangement together. The regulatory codes are not structured to do it. Further, elected and administrative leaders in cities, towns, and counties often lack the expertise or networkings for such endeavors, and rarely, if ever, have the will to take the associated political risks. Network Centric Distributed Sewer or network-centric, integrated, water-resource management, is the language I like to use for situations like Cave Springs (“Network Centric” is used by the Pentagon where they practice Network Centric Battlefield Warfare). Unlike the platformcentric or traditional approach, which is informed by the available technology, the network-centric approach is informed by the context or battlefield itself. It is the site and the local circumstances that inform the skills, technologies, processes and organizational structures with which the site is approached. As the town of Cave Springs learned, networks of trust that can respect the possibilities and limits of the others involved, and when creatively structured properly, release value propositions that revealed the capacity of the infrastructure to pay for itself. A more revealing look On July 12, the British Environment Agency cut river withdrawals to protect habitats. They required water companies in the country to slash the amount of water they take from rivers and aquifers, which required them to find alternative supplies. The move came after a review that found current withdrawal practices were responsible for widespread damage to wildlife. This fall the Water Environment Federation (WEF) will release its new educational program, “Water is Life and Infrastructure Makes it Happen.” One fundamental premise of the program is that water should be withdrawn, used, treated, reused and returned to its source. Some traditional utilities are thinking about how network-centric, distributed sewer could assist in strategies for flow control of discharges into Chesapeake Bay. Others are beginning to think about their collection systems as reservoirs from which to draw water for treatment and reuse as close to the source of initial supply as possible In Massachusetts, the Harvard Urban Economist, Edward Glaeser observed that regulation which appeared to make sense at the town level led to land-use policies that drove housing starts down in some suburban Boston communities while driving housing prices up by the cost of living plus 179 percent to 204 percent. The dilemma is that the regulatory climate has not yet modified its commandand-control framework for pollution and disease control. The demands of natural systems and human communities must and will be brought into some semblance of equilibrium. Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) compliance and similar efforts to sustain the integrity of watersheds and resources are indicators of the policy shifts that will release the capacities in technological innovation that are already demonstrated and available. However, this is no longer a scientific, technological or policy option. It is an ethical imperative and it is not achievable without a change in governance on the one hand and responsible, private-sector creativity on the other. It seems to me that the point of engagement is simple. Innovation requires confirmation that the rewards are worth the risk Institutions are structured to be either enabling or restrictive. The Department of Agriculture is enabling. The EPA is not. If you have an innovation, an enabling institution is structured to say “yes” and a restrictive institution is structured to say “no.” In this situation the best you can get is “maybe.” The risk of failure to any prudent business person is not worth acting on the “maybe.” The result is that we continue to use unsustainable, central sewers and septic systems. To alter the processes exemplified in Boston while searching out the capacities inherent in a Cave Springs, we need an institution that can negotiate affirmatively for integrated, water-resource management within the context of a viable, triple bottom line. Sustainable land development will require the capacity to create accountable, autonomous institutions to bridge the historic distrust between the public and the private sectors and enable them to see that in the context of the triple bottom line and the practice of sustainable principles, there are opportunities for capital and job formation as well as community preservation and sound resource stewardship that they were literally unable to see without this change in perspective. SLDT About the author: Craig Lindell is president of Aquapoint, a comprehensive wastewater treatment company focused on performance based distributed wastewater treatment and distributed sewer applications. He can be reached at: 508998-7577 or chlindell@aquapoint.com. www.SLDTonline.com 37 http://www.SLDTonline.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Sustainable Land Development Today - September 2008

Sustainable Land Development Today - September 2008 Contents Our Voice The Bottomline Editorial Board SLDT Resources Digging Deep Oases of Capital Build a Better Business on an Interactive, Virtual Landscape Regulation SLDI in Focus �� SLDI Sponsored Summit �� Workshops �� Bookstore Tee’d Up for Sustainability Retention Solutions Wastewater Redevelopment Industry News Marketplace Products/Services Showcase Advertiser Index The Last Word

Sustainable Land Development Today - September 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.