The pumps have had enough of our abuse and are starting to turn against us.
Part of the West End area of Lakeview flooded Wednesday when a Sewerage & Water Board pump worked in reverse, sucking water from Lake Pontchartrain and pumping it into the streets of the residential area, according to our news partners at WWL-TV.
The pump was working in reverse for nearly an hour before it was fixed, WWL-TV reported, citing information from S&WB officials.
We always suspected this day would come.
Now that the "Rescue Plan" bill has passed, it's time to pick around in it and see what we've won. Of particular interest now will be keeping an eye on state and local politicians to see if they continue pushing for austerity budget cuts even though the stimulus specifically provides funds intended to prevent that from happening. This morning the LA Budget Project calls attention to one provision of the bill meant to head some of this off.
The law also contains an important provision for states receiving the aid: for every dollar that a state government spends on net tax cuts, it will lose a dollar of federal support. As lawmakers gavel into session next month, they will have an opportunity to make long overdue investments in Louisiana’s people, families and communities instead of providing tax cuts to businesses and the wealthy. This provision provides an incentive to do just that. Nicholas Johnson of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has the details:
Cutting state taxes now would repeat a mistake many states made in the wake of the Great Recession: they cut taxes, which harmed families, undermined economic growth, and exacerbated economic inequality and racial injustice. Instead, states should address critical health and economic needs by making investments that can help build antiracist, equitable states. To help them do so, the American Rescue Plan Act includes $195 billion in fiscal aid for state governments (and more for schools and for local, tribal, and territorial governments).
They can't use the one time stimulus payments to create new "fiscal cliffs" made out of tax cuts for rich people. Republicans in some states are already complaining, of course. But the truth is there will plenty opportunities in the new law for them to steal whatever they want. This line, in particular, seems like a just such an opportunity.
(3) TRANSFER AUTHORITY.—A metropolitan city, nonentitlement unit of local government, or county receiving a payment from funds made available under this section may transfer funds to a private nonprofit organization (as that term is defined in paragraph (17) of section 401 of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 11360(17)), a public benefit corporation involved in the transportation of passengers or cargo, or a special-purpose unit of State or local government.
Which suggests that the city of New Orleans, still beset with serious infrastructure challenges, and which has spent the past year threatening layoffs, furloughing workers, and dropping cryptic hints about "shared sacrifice," could still move ahead with its plans to do all of those things while shoveling the federal stimulus funds out the back door to non-profits controlled by the NOLA Business Alliance or Leslie Jacobs, or even Stephen Perry with very little accountability for any of it. Especially interesting thing to watch for just ahead of an election season when people will need paying off.
Looks like they weren't intentional enough about how to do the intentional power shut-offs Tuesday night.
NEW ORLEANS — When Entergy cut power to customers in the Carrollton and Riverbend areas during Tuesday night's freeze, the Sewerage and Water Board was one of those customers, and a key piece of critical public infrastructure lost power for almost an hour.
New Orleans City Councilwoman Helana Morena said it wasn't supposed to happen. An Entergy spokesman said it was an error on their part.
"It was our water system, our groundwater intake," the councilwoman said. "It was resolved quickly, caught quickly, but in my opinion, it should have never happened to begin with."
The Sewerage and Water Board said it lost power at its Hamilton Station, where motors pump water from the Mississippi River into the Carrollton Water Plant. That water is then treated and sent out to homes and businesses across the city.
A S&WB spokeswoman said the executive director of the water utility, Ghassan Korban, had to call Entergy's CEO David Ellis to complain. Entergy spokesman John Hawkins said it was their mistake.
"Those (electricity) feeders shouldn't have been on that (blackout) list, and they have been removed," Hawkins said. "That was addressed last night, so it won't happen again.
So far it hasn't happened again. Although, they did threaten to run us through the drill again last night to find out.
NEW ORLEANS — Entergy is asking customers to use less power with another night of freezing temperatures ahead for the New Orleans area.
Freezing weather is causing a critical shortage of electricity in our area. It got so bad Tuesday night that Entergy and Cleco implemented rotating black outs in New Orleans and on the Northshore to preserve the integrity of the power grid.
Notice Entergy has gone out of its way to warn customers expecting to be able to heat their homes in dangerous freezing conditions that this is probably their fault for being so greedy.
Entergy asked customers to be especially conservative between the normally heavy use times of 5 pm to 10 pm.But it isn't your fault. It is theirs. Specifically it is the deregulated US energy market that allows this sort of catastrophic failure to happen in the first place.
"This unusual request is due to the demand for electricity potentially exceeding the available generation due to the extreme cold and weather conditions currently impacting our service territory," said Lee Sabatini, the Entergy New Orleans Communications Director. "Current load forecasts are approaching an all-time peak, even greater than those experienced during the polar vortex of January 2019."
Instead of state agencies regulating the business of monopoly utilities in a centralized manner, deregulated grids create a series of perpetual auctions running across the country. Electricity arrives in your home as the result of nonstop bidding and profit-maximization. Put very simply, does Alice’s natural gas plant generate the next unit of electricity that feeds into the grid, or does it come from Bob’s wind farm? Place your bets, Alice and Bob, and let’s see who wins!
Now imagine that happening every five minutes every single day, twenty-four hours a day. There’s also a separate auction for day-ahead dispatch (who plans to generate it twenty-four hours from now?) and, in most RTOs except for Texas, an auction for reserving some amount of power capacity over a year in advance (who plans to have power available in a year?), a market-based perversion of centralized planning.
If the fundamental objective of a grid is to produce enough electricity to meet demand at all times — in other words, reliability — then how does the deregulated market accomplish it? Not through direct coordination of productive assets but through an endlessly complicated system of auctions, requests, incentives, and price signals. Regardless, the blackouts in Texas prove that it doesn’t always accomplish reliability, just like it didn’t in 2011, the last time extreme weather led to major blackouts in Texas, or last summer in California, to pick only a few examples.
What’s worse, there’s nobody to blame because, hey, the grid operator is just the auctioneer who set up the technocratic process to incentivize private development of those productive assets. With wholesale electricity prices hovering at the $9000/MWh maximum price, about three hundred times the normal price, scarcity of life’s necessities means scarcity price signals to encourage future investment. But with average prices far lower due to increasing gas and wind, it’s not economical for private plant owners to weatherize their plants better. Truly, it’s the invisible hand that keeps your lights on — too bad that hand is just as ephemeral as the electricity that powers them.
Nobody to blame, maybe, but also plenty of customers to blame for.. not knowing how to use an oven?
Staying in from the cold weather may make you want to cook a nice, hot meal. To help conserve energy be sure to cook food at the lowest possible setting and refrain from opening the oven door while baking. More tips at https://t.co/DVdrzhqUOV pic.twitter.com/oY7McSlwyD
— Entergy New Orleans (@EntergyNOLA) February 18, 2021
Anyway, it's this thing where individuals are forced to bear the cost of
price spikes in the natural gas and wholesale electricity market and pay
for the mistakes and negligence committed by utility companies that is the problem. Not regular people trying to stay warm.
If your power has been deliberately shut off because we live under a failed neoliberal regime that can't supply life sustaining necessities to people unless corporate entities realize massive profits, don't worry too much. Remember your bill doubled last month because of a "planned outage" that somehow overlapped another unplanned outage or something. This time all the outages are definitely planned so that shouldn't be a... oh.
Consumer advocates also voiced concerns that ratepayers will now be looking at another big jump in their energy bills, which spiked in December because of high use and higher rates for importing out-of-state power supply.
"There is no doubt that customers can expect to have really high electricity bills when they get them next month," said Logan Atkinson Burke, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy, a New Orleans-based consumer advocacy group.
She said New Orleans customers are particularly vulnerable to big spikes because the city's antiquated housing stock is among the least energy efficient in the country. New Orleans homes use, on average, 30% more energy than those in other cities.
"Our houses are old and beautiful and historic, but they're leaky," Burke said.
Okay well we get what she is saying here. Obviously there needs to be a massive public investment in weatherizing homes and infrastructure. That's one important lesson in all of this. If only there were a policy outline just sitting on the shelf the congress could turn into law tomorrow if it wanted. Doesn't look like that's happening, though. In the meantime we'll just sit around in our "leaky" houses tonight trying to resist the urge to bake too much bread. If the lights go out anyway, surely nobody will blame us.
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/skooksie/3210766136/in/photolist-5TJ1UQ" title="KDV Fights the Futilities"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/3419/3210766136_1762b1055b.jpg" width="500" height="374" alt="KDV Fights the Futilities"></a><script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Seeds of Decline "Fights The Futilities" Krewe Du Vieux 2006
NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans is warning residents that a citywide boil water advisory could occur in the next 24 hours because of water pressure drops caused by freezing water mains under the streets.
The city is expecting temperatures to be below freezing for about 12 hours, starting at about 3 pm Monday.
Ghassan Korban, the head of the Sewerage & Water Board, said that the utility does not have much of a margin for error with little backup power.
"Our power and pumping system is vulnerable and (will likely) have challenges," Korban said.
Sounds about right. Happy Mardi Gras, everybody. Famously, a day of challenges. Like we said the other day, Carnival is a lot of things but most of all it is the time for us to be the most, um, intensely whatever we have been over the past year. And this certainly seems like a way to do that.
After an explosion last year at one of their main power-generating turbines, S&WB has been operating on a shoestring power budget, with generators picking up the slack.
This means that if any part of their system gets overloaded and goes down, there could be domino-like effects throughout the city.
Sure, we remember the turbine explosion almost a year and two months ago. It kind of put the capper on 2019 which had already featured multiple major street flooding incidents, a city cybersecurity disaster, and a certain hotel collapse downtown* you may have heard about. At the time, we thought that was a year full of disaster would feel like. Turned out we didn't know yet. But then a few days later the sewer exploded under the French Quarter and we had a little bit better idea.
Ha ha I am just kidding. We actually got a better idea of what a year of disasters was like when the "extreme emergency" of a backed up sewer main under Gentilly was declared immediately after that. Remember that one? No, of course you do not. Because after that came 2020 and... whoo boy.
Anyway, back to those "domino-like effects" they're worried about now. What do those look like?
One of the most pressing of those is a citywide boil water advisory, which Korban said was more than possible.
"We are likely to see water mains ... rupture throughout the city," Korban said.
This will likely cause localized boil water advisories and low pressure in various areas throughout the city.
But if enough pipes freeze, or if a crucial main fails, S&WB could take more drastic preventative measures, such as a citywide advisory.
Ha ha, of course.
There still has not been one citywide boil order since the pandemic began
— skooks (@skooks) February 2, 2021
Because if you demand the cosmos answer a riddle, that is what you get. The boil order is now "more than possible" on Mardi Gras day. Also it will be freezing outside and maybe the power will be out.
And so with little recourse now but to sit and contemplate these mysteries, we have to wonder a little bit if this is happening now because we haven't managed to put our spiritual energies back in balance after the cascading disasters of 2019. The time for that would have been Carnival 2020. But recall that last year's cleansing rituals were themselves interrupted by bad weather, bad.. vibes.. and the horrifying deaths of two parade goers who were crushed by floats. In fact, if we weren't now trying to figure out how to have Carnival in the "not cancelled but different" circumstances of the pandemic, we would certainly have been arguing over whatever new rules might be in place after 2020. Would barricading the route be an overreaction? What about a permanent ban on tandem floats? Come to think of it maybe taking a year off to just eat king cake and decorate houses was the best choice for everyone COVID or no COVID.
In any case, there are multiple years of angst piling up here and no obvious means of venting any of it. Certainly not before Wednesday comes. But something needs to happen before a domino-like karmic effect happens. Probably nothing for it now besides focusing on getting people vaccinated. Assuming that goes off well enough (a lot to assume, I know) then probably Krewe Du Vieux will happen on February 12, 2022. Circle that on your calendar and keep your fingers crossed.
*Still dealing with the ramifications of that, btw
Yesterday I got out on the bike for a little while to see how bad it was around us. It wasn't all that bad, really. A lot of tree debris everywhere. Most not quite as extreme as the photo above but I didn't go very far. The roads were okay by the time I was out. But the night of the storm, one person was electrocuted by downed power lines which is horrifying. A lot of people still don't have power. 325,000 Entergy customers are still down as of this morning. But, generally speaking, for a high category 2 hurricane passing directly over the city, things could have been a lot worse.
It's not over yet, though. Sewerage and Water Board certainly had themselves a night on Wednesday.
Yet another New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board turbine failed Wednesday during Hurricane Zeta, although a spokesperson for the public utility said loss of that power source did not impair drainage.
Turbine 3 was brought online at the height of the storm but went down after “it reached its capacity,” S&WB spokesperson Courtney Barnes said. The turbine has typically been reserved for emergency use in recent years but was pressed into normal service for Zeta because Turbine 4, the largest of the S&WB’s operational turbines, broke Sunday.
Turbine 3 appears to have been activated as a back up for pumps that would have taken Entergy power under normal circumstances. But they made the switch when either that power or some other equipment failed. Anyway, it sounds like they were able to juggle and jerry rig their way through it. Happily, the storm moved quickly enough that the rainfall didn't put the pumping capacity to a serious test.
Yesterday, the city and SWB were asking people to use less water until they could be assured of full sewerage pumping capacity. But the details of that and several other issues were still incredibly vague as of this morning. McBride enumerates a few in this FB post. In the meantime, while it is still highly doubtful that there will be any Mardi Gras parades in 2021, I think several krewes have asked Turbine 6 to ride as a Grand Marshall
We are hearing some concerns about water being safe to drink due to power loss across the city. Power at our Carrollton Water Plant, where water is purified, maintained power throughout impacts from Zeta thanks to Turbine 6.
— SWB New Orleans (@SWBNewOrleans) October 29, 2020
This afternoon the Entergy map is still looking pretty Christamassy. Eyballing it, I think that looks like we might be close to 50% restored in Orleans Parish.
The Lens reports that the clerk of court needs 48 hours advance notice if we have to move any polling locations for Tuesday. 54 of them were without power as of today. Also in that article we read that the city is starting to get estimates as to the general cost of repairs. (It also happens to be city budget season and the outlook is not good.) As is the usual case with a major disaster, we would expect the federal government to reimburse these expenses. How much they pay out, though, might depend on certain data.
FEMA hasn’t approved a major disaster declaration for Hurricane Zeta yet, according to The Times Picayune/New Orleans Advocate, and is awaiting more complete damage assessments.
Cantrell said that the National Hurricane Center would also be reviewing data as to whether the storm was indeed at Category 2 or if it had slipped over the Category 3 threshold. That would have reimbursement implications, she said. Green said the city was also looking into federal assistance for individual residents over lost food.
It has been widely reported that Zeta's maximum winds may have been just 1 mph below the threshold for what we would consider a Category 3. If we had known at the time that this would make a difference, maybe we could have all gone out and waved some fans.
Here is a word problem for you to work out. According to the plan discussed at this week's meeting, how many turbines does the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board plan to have online after all of the projects are implemented?
Be careful. This is tricky, but we can think it through. First we have to know how may turbines are operating now. The most recently installed piece of equipment is called Turbine 6. So you might be tempted to just say six immediately and put your pencils down. But wait...
The S&WB has five turbines, though their designations confusingly run up to six because Turbine 2 was decommissioned years ago. Each has faced significant limitations in the past and caused problems for the agency.
That's quirky. But, in a way, it's very New Orleans. It's kind of like trying to explain to a visitor why a bunch of streets that cross Canal are called "North" or "South" but nobody ever says they are actually traveling in those directions. You just have to know the lingo. Anyway, so it's five, right?
Well, not exactly. To solve for the number of available turbines, we still have additional values we need to factor in. For example, the temperature outside on any given day is one.
Under the timeline discussed Tuesday, the first project to be completed would also be the cheapest: a $700,000 fix to Turbine 6, its newest piece of power generating equipment, to allow it to operate in cold weather. The turbine, originally provided to the S&WB by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2013, was not designed to run when air temperatures are below 45 degrees, a limitation that prompted a boil water advisory in 2018 when temperatures dropped while it was powering the S&WB’s water system.
Now, some would say designing equipment that can only function above 45 degrees is actually very forward-looking policy in the context of climate change. Maybe this is an example of that "resiliency" everyone is always talking about. Also it may be a little confusing to some that a drop in temperature is what causes water to boil. But, again, that's just another one of those quirks. In any case we are currently living in a world where sometimes Turbine 6 exists and sometimes it does not. To solve this part of the equation, add $700,000*
*This value will undoubtedly increase over time. To determine the appropriate function to input here, please see Appendix B
Thankfully, the status of Turbine 5 is more of a fixed variable. It is blowed up. Although, we have now learned, it is not quite as blowed up as originally thought.
Next would be repairs to Turbine 5. That generator exploded in December, causing enough damage that officials initially said it would likely never be worthwhile to repair it. But an inspection showed damage was not as severe as feared and that insurance on the equipment would largely cover the $5 million to $6 million to bring back online, minus a $1 million deductible.
We can rebuild it. And we will. So, let's see where we are now. That's 6 turbines minus one for nomenclature, minus one for explosions, minus one IF < 45 degrees F so, for now we're at three or maybe three and a half operational turbines. Got it? Okay now add one.
Then there’s the plan to buy a new turbine, which would be designated Turbine 7, for $18 million to $20 million. About $13 million of that would come from the federal government, the rest from the infrastructure deal.
The proposal calls for Turbine 7 to be operational in 12 to 14 months.
At which point there should be (assuming the business with the weather is sorted out) six turbines in operation including the one called number 7. Got it? Good, now subtract two.
With all those pieces in place, the S&WB would be able to take Turbines 1 and 3 offline completely, Korban said. Those turbines, powered by steam, are considered to be particularly problematic.
The thinking there being that, there should be sufficient steam just coming out of everyone's ears by this point in the problem that these machines will have become redundant. And we didn't even get into the conversion of 25 cycle to 60 cycle electric power which, yes, is also a factor in this.
It's no wonder, then, that with all this high level math going on, that the billing system is every bit as mysterious.
The S&WB currently estimates about 45% of customer bills, instead of billing for actual use, and Korban said efforts to improve that figure are underway. Those include staffing up internally and bringing in outside contractors, efforts he said have already improved the situation from a low point when only about 30% of customers’ bills were being read each month.
Sometimes you have to pay or what you use. Other times they just make something up. This situation fluctuates over time according to several variables as well which causes many people to wonder if their water bill is determined by a random number generator. They say that's happening 15 percent less of the time now than it was before, though. So make sure your instruments are calibrated before you begin your next calculation.
We gotta round it off. This always bugs me.
The New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board said Saturday afternoon that 98 of its 99 drainage pumps, four turbines and five elctro-motive diesel generators are working ahead of Tropical Storm Marco, whose forecast track shifted east earlier in the day and put the city square in its path.
