Sanitary Board Investigative

No Time to Waste: Current Challenges Facing the Huntington Sanitary Board.

Dave Traube

JMC 414

4-27-10

William Shakespeare once wrote, “Delays have dangerous ends.” With sewer lines crumbling and the entire sanitary system struggling to meet the demands being placed upon it, the city of Huntington may find the words of Shakespeare sadly prophetic if the current problems get worse and the cost of solutions grow more expensive.

The Huntington sanitation system laid it first lines in the 1880’s but, despite 130 years of ongoing maintenance and improvements, the question now is how much longer can it effectively function without major modernization upgrades?

Maintenance work on the current system is presently underway in the Hal Greer Boulevard area, Sanitary Board CSO Coordinator Travis Bailey recently confirmed. Still, he says, more needs to be done in a short amount of time.

“As soon as we move on from there (Hal Greer) we have two sewer lines that we need to replace immediately,” Bailey said. “That will help our community with some of the flooding problems we have, as well as sewer basement backups.”

Aside from a decaying underground system, an even larger issue for the sanitary system is the city’s incinerator, which reduces raw waste by burning it into a substance called ash, or sludge, even though it does not actually destroy the waste. Huntington is the only city in West Virginia that still operates with an incinerator as a main component of its sanitary system. In 2008 the incinerator broke down, forcing the city to use its landfill for waste storage without first burning it into the smaller volume ash, which it continues to do. This causes the landfill to receive a much larger amount of waste than it normally would, which ultimately reduces the functional life of the landfill more quickly.

At the latest board meeting two solutions were discussed – fix the incinerator or buy a new one. Both approaches, however, come with concerns. If the apparatus were to be fixed, the city could continue to operate under the original environmental laws for incinerators that were enacted in the 1980’s, but would face an almost certain future of increasing repair and operational costs. A new incinerator would not need repairs any time soon, hopefully, but the concern of the board is that a new machine would force the city to operate under current incinerator regulations, which are much more stringent than those that would apply to the original machine.

While both options have their drawbacks, the larger issue is the city’s continued reliance on an incinerator at all, as the remaining waste by-product still needs to be disposed of. Sanitary Plant Manager Ed Romans says other ideas are being explored so that the sanitary board can ultimately move completely away from the problem of waste storage.

“Incineration isn’t disposal – it’s just reduction,” Romans said, “which makes your final product ash instead of nothing. It comes down to the volume and production of sludge and, because we are not considered a large city, we don’t have a lot of disposal options available to us.”

The only reasonable disposal options that the Huntington Sanitary Board, or any sanitary board of its size, can consider are either an agricultural disposal, which would distribute treated waste to farmers for fertilizing crops, or to put the material in a landfill. To date, the landfill has been the most feasible choice. The landfill is typically only used for the leftover ash from the incinerator, but it has to handle the full waste volume the area produces while the incinerator remains broken. Over-reliance on the landfill has led to the creation of what is called the “ash lagoon,” which is actually a pond of sludge.

This lagoon is a concern, not only because it houses wastes which eventually still have to be dealt with but because it could cause a major health risk to the public if it is not constantly maintained properly. Since, according to the sanitary board’s mission statement, “the primary purpose of wastewater treatment is protecting the health and well-being of our community,” this has forced the board to look for more stable and permanent solutions for the sludge than in the on-site waste lagoon.

“We’re trying to take a green approach on our bio-retention basin (ash lagoon) at the treatment plant,” Romans said. “We’re working with engineers to try and develop an area of trees and plants that would put the run-off water into the ground instead of having it sit where it currently does.”

Flooding is another issue the sanitary board has been dealing with, albeit very slowly. The incidences of area flooding have become so common in recent years, however, that the issue has moved up the list of the city’s priorities, making a resolution to the issue perhaps more important to the area’s long-term health than sewage pipe replacement has become. While flooding is not a new occurrence, how cities deal with the issue has undergone a metamorphosis.

At the beginning of the 20^th century, not many cities yet understood that putting raw sewage directly into a water supply could cause health problems. While the development of modern sewage-treatment facilities in the mid-1900s were planned to more completely contain waste, excess rainwater still caused flooding and allowed sewage to occasionally overrun into a municipal water supply. Many of those facilities are still in operation around the country, including in Huntington. Bailey said the long-term plans for the sanitary board continue to deal with this dangerous issue.

“As sewer pipes decay, our infrastructure and roads are going to start collapsing,” Bailey said. “So we’re going to start decreasing our combined sewer overflows, which means we need to improve the quality of the sewage and water flow that we release into the river.”

With 31 pumping stations in the city of Huntington and 350 miles of sanitary and combined sewer lines to manage, the task that lies before the sanitary board is not an easy one. As head of the board’s long-term planning team, Bailey admits this is true.

“It’s going to be an ongoing process and for the most part we try to put out the big fires first, like a sewer line that has already collapsed,” Bailey said. “It’s all very difficult. Everything is underground so we have to tear through the ground to even make any progress.”

To be fair to the sanitary board any repair or upgrade, not just a total system overhaul, would require money that is hard to find, even though the recent budget cuts in Huntington did not affect the board’s operating budget. As an independent organization it gets its money from customers. Still, a city with a population hovering around 50,000 does not have the customer base to make every needed improvement on a sanitary system that is staffed 24 hours a day and operates 365 days a year. Executive Director of the board, Loretta Covington, said that the only option left for the board to raise funds to do the necessary upgrades is a very unpopular one.

“Unfortunately, the only way to raise the money is by raising fees,” Covington said. “Right now, the City of Huntington has one of the lowest fees in the state of West Virginia (see chart, below) and we pride ourselves on that, but I don’t know whether that was to our benefit or not and, because of that, it has hurt us. It’s come to the point where we may have to (raise fees) because the city needs a lot of money pumped into it.”

So, the sanitary board will continue to focus on completing needed repairs and maintenance, as the budget allows, and to look for new and creative ways to improve the area’s sewer system. Time is the issue, however, and with a crumbling infrastructure and the ultimate solution for the incinerator unclear, the future direction of the entire sewer system is also uncertain – which makes concern for the modernization of Huntington’s sanitary requirements a growing problem.

Literally and figuratively.

When I was nearly cheated...

Dave Traube

When I was in high school I worked as an assistant manager at Blockbuster Video. One day while working a weekend shift, a guy approached me and complimented me about my work ethic. He was a frequent customer and said that he had observed me working hard, and thought I had the perfect out-going personality for a specific job he had come across.

He gave me his business card, and I called him after I got off work. He proceeded to talk about the job he was prepared to offer me. It was in e-commerce, and according to him the sky was the limit in terms of advancement. I can even quote him saying, “My boss has been doing this for a decade and he makes six figures. I’ve only been doing it for three years and I’m already pushing $60,000.”

Even though the job description was a bit foggy, I decided to have a meeting with him in person. He wanted to meet me at a Hardee’s near my house, (which I thought was VERY strange) but I had already agreed to meet him so I went. After I got there he explained what I would be doing in more detail. It was a “pyramid scheme” in every way possible, in which I would have to recruit people like he was recruiting me to work under me, and then I would start to make money.

After he explained it he attempted to get me to commit to a $300 ticket to a training session for new hires in Charleston. I told him I would have to think about it, and never called him back.

I think that this situation is a smaller scale version of the story in Chapter nine about the new community being built. A pyramid scheme is only profitable for the people at the top, and the people at the bottom are constantly doing work to recruit more people so they can eventually make money as well. An investigation into where the initial money that must be paid to join goes, as well as if any money changes hands between people that work together in the company would be good place to start in investigating this story.

The problem with this story is that even though it feels wrong, there is nothing blatantly illegal about what this guy is doing. It is more a matter of personal discretion then anything else. It is very possible, however, that a more thorough look into the company would expose how people had been unfairly cheated out of their money because a pyramid scheme like this can easily be illegal because it is simply trading money around, with the new hires constantly losing money until they are replaced by new ones which is not allowed by law.

Huntington Area Food Bank Story

Dave Traube

Huntington Area Food Bank

4/6/10

By definition, a non-profit organization is exactly what it says it is: a group that makes no profit but instead relies on outside help to survive financially. A tumbling economy weighs heavily on this kind of group.

The Huntington Area Food Bank has been serving the surrounding community for nearly 28 years, providing food and non-food necessities to those in need and, despite the struggling economy, has seen a slight increase in its total revenue over the past few years.

A federal 990 tax form helps to provide important information about an organization like the Food Bank by detailing the filing organization’s mission, programs and finances. According to the latest 990 form available from 2008, the Food Bank received $4,449,577 in donations and support that year, which was up from $3,917,131 in 2007 and from $3,296,207 in 2006. Brooke Ash, the Public/Agency Relations Coordinator at the Food Bank, said that the trend continued in 2009 – but came with a price.

“We actually did see a small increase in our monetary funds for 2009,” Ash said, “but the big concern now has been the large jump in the need that has happened.”

Need is precisely where the current economy has most impacted the Food Bank and so, while the actual number of assets has grown, the offsetting need almost makes the rise insignificant.

The Huntington Area Food Bank is only part of a larger network, however. It operates in conjunction with America’s Second Harvest, the largest hunger relief agency in the United States, so while the existence of the Food Bank is integral to feeding the area’s hungry, it is America’s Second Harvest that interacts face-to-face with the people being supplied assistance.

The rise in need, however, makes the picture perfect process appear to be cracked.

“Just in our area we’ve seen an increase of 6,000 people from this time last year,” Ash said. “Our totals have now risen from 85 to 90,000 people in the Tri-State Area that we serve.”

John Rickey, Executive Director for the Food Bank, echoes Ash’s comments. Rickey said that simply remaining pro-active in finding assistance is important in helping the process along.

“With this economic 'downturn', the demand for food has risen by 6% during the past year,” Rickey said. “Hunger is a serious issue but one that has a solution. We find that many people are willing to help give back when awareness is raised.”

Relying on support from the community, most people, including Ash, see a bright future for the Food Bank, despite the dim picture the economy sometimes paints for non-profits.

“We’ve become a staple in the community these past 28 years,” Ash said. “We rely on the support from the community and area businesses and they help with the need. We just have to let them know.”

Just letting those with the checkbooks know may not solve an underlying problem for the Food Bank, though. Board Member Stan Mills said he isn’t so sure a shake-up may not be headed the Food Bank’s way, to help ensure stability in the years to come.

“There may be some change headed for the Food Bank in the future,” Mills said. “We need to maintain and improve on what we already have established, and so we’ll have to do whatever we can in this down economy.”

As with many non-profits, The Huntington Area Food Bank acts as a middle man to get a good or service, in this case food, to struggling members of a community who rely on the assistance to survive. The importance of its future can be seen in part of its mission statement: “…provides food and commodities to other member agencies who distribute the items to the hungry in 17 counties in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio.”

Rickey said that serving that many people is a challenge that the Food Bank has risen to meet for nearly 30 years – and doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon.

“We MUST remain pro-active in the communities we serve to not only provide as essential service to them,” Rickey said. “But to advocate, educate and create awareness of the hunger issues facing the Tri-State area.”

So with the enthusiasm of employees like Ash, and perhaps the hard realities of board members like Mills, the economy has made the Huntington Area Food Bank do what it has made many a business and non-profit alike do – take an internal look at the way things are run and perhaps, if needed, consider change for the better

And the more important the service provided, the more important that change may be.

Total Revenue and Yearly Increase for The Huntington Area Food Bank
Year	Total Revenue (rounded to the nearest million)	Yearly Increase in Revenue
2006	$3.3 million	N/A
2007	$3.92 million	$620,000
2008	$4.45 million	$530,000
SOURCE: 2006,07,08 990 Forms

2011 budget for The City of Huntington

Dave Traube

Project 4 (Option 2)

4/1/10

Huntington City Council approved a 2011 budget of more than $40 million, which is up from Mayor Kim Wolfe’s proposal of $39.5 million, but down from levels of spending approved for 2010. The details of the budget show reductions in 11 city departments, including both the police and fire departments.

At it’s March 21 meeting, the City Council voted unanimously to cut the proposed budget by nearly $900,000 for the upcoming year, which would in turn result in the layoff of at least 10 city employees.

Mayor Wolfe said many factors contributed to the decreased budget level for 2011.

“All budgets are estimates of revenue,” Wolfe said. “A combination of things caused our revenues to tail off, such as the fact that we saw a large reduction in the workforce this year. So, we were forced to submit a bare bones budget.”

The cuts in the mayor’s proposed budget reflect a $198,871 reduction for the Police Department and a $120,000 decrease for the Fire Department, focusing strictly on cuts in overtime and equipment purchases. Reductions in personnel will affect other departments such as legal, building maintenance, motor pool and floodwall The decreases total nearly $315,000 in just those four departments.

City Council member Frances Jackson said making decisions on funding reductions is one of the reasons passing a budget is so difficult.

“It (passing a budget) is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” Jackson said. “When you have to look over every line item because you know the city is short of money and some of them will have to be cut out – it is very, very difficult.”

Wolfe had previously discussed using furloughs in his proposed budget for the city, which are unpaid leaves of absence from work, as a way to offset the strain of the recession in the upcoming budget. The council did approve some furloughs in the final budget but not for the police or fire departments, as Wolfe had mentioned in his initial proposal. The actual approved furloughs are for public works and administrative employees.

“We don’t have the luxury of just buying something when we need it,” Wolfe said. “Charleston is running their city on roughly the same amount of people as we are – 50,000 - and has twice the budget - around $80,000,000. I think we are very efficient at operating with what we have.”

The mayor maintains that the planned amount of unpaid time off for public works and administrative employees will not adversely affect major city operation or public safety, as would likely have happened with furloughs for the police and fire departments, but it does signal that – at least in the near future – the City of Huntington will not be conducting business as usual.

Council members like Jackson are against furloughs as a means to reduce city spending.

“We are hoping not to have to do furloughs at all,” Jackson said. “We are trying to come up with a better way because furloughs mean that we have less people serving our city, in both big and small ways.”

Despite budget cuts across the board, the cities two biggest expenditures, the police and fire departments, will still account for over half of the city’s proposed budget, coming in at more than $21 million.

Wolfe said that while smaller issues are still important, it is the safety of the citizens that should be top priority in Huntington in regards to the budget.

“It doesn’t matter the size of your city, if you don’t have a safe environment,” Wolfe said. “I make the decisions on what I think is the right thing to do, and let the politics take care of themselves. There is no use in making your streets smoother unless they are going to be safer.”

* For my sources I went to City Hall and was told that all City Council members do not have regular hours that they are at City Hall. I was given a directory sheet with all their home phones listed on it and called all of them. The only one who answered my call was Jackson and she was gracious enough to answer some questions for me.

FY 2011 Budget Table

Division	Proposed Budget	Reduction Amount	Adopted Budget
Legal	$363,530	$26,573	$329,703
City Council	$94,210	$2,500	$91,710
Building Maintenance	$296,236	$32,971	$262,135
Engineering	$363,530	$35,987	$874,574
Finance	$908,732	$27,918	$858,078
Purchasing	$106,600	$100	$102,843
Floodwall	$648,677	$102,345	$534,187
Police	$10,741,819	$198,871	$11,069,488
Fire	$10,121,153	$120,000	$10,429,956
PERS	$1,194,534	$165,000	$9,266

SOURCE(S): City of Huntington Annual Budget Estimate, Levy Estimate

Investigative Essay

Dave Traube

3/18/10

“The Future of Investigative Journalism in an Era of Downsizing and Economic Uncertainty.”

In true watchdog fashion, investigative is a form of journalism designed to get to the bottom of what is going on in the world. The future of this type of journalism, however, may be changing right before our eyes.

News organizations continue to lay off more people as the economy continues to remain an unstable beast, and reporters are asked to take on more roles – including ones that are uncomfortable, at best, such as being asked to cover stories that are short, easy to understand, and more sensational; even more celebrity focused. There’s less time for the effort and expense it takes to conduct investigative stories.

This is where change assaults the future of investigative journalism. It is not going to be an option to continue these investigations as they have always been approached. In his book, Investigative Journalism, Proven Strategies for Reporting the Story, author William C. Gaines discusses a general definition of what these journalists do and the guidelines that mold their findings. Gaines writes that an investigative journalist works to reveal important information someone is trying to keep hidden, uncovers stories that are a matter of importance to the public, works hard to secure stories rather than obtain them from a “leak from a government agency investigation,” and exposes things like government corruption or wasted tax money.

Just from that explanation alone, it is not hard to tell that it isn’t a job for the faint of heart. The problem with an audience that is always looking for the next story is that this kind of information needs to come at a faster pace than ever before. The audience wants to be entertained and, with the downsizing and uncertainty that is affecting many organizations, this makes accuracy an increasing issue.

The good and bad side of the future is the role that the Internet will play. In a forum headed by the Web site concernedjournalists.org, USC professor Richard Reeves said, “The first (challenge) is being in a time of terrific technological change where news cycles are disappearing and even news magazines go on the net to report so that they can have an around-the-clock connection to the people.”

Investigative journalism does not lend itself well to this type of immediacy. Instead, it frequently relies on three and four-part stories to get its point across instead of being rushed to print in one night.

The economy has forced news organization to rely more on entertainment news than hard news and for this reason, hard hitting reporting like investigative pieces are either more rare, reported before they are thoroughly fact checked, or non-existent. All forms of media are being forced to adapt, but print is perhaps the one most likely hanging on by it’s teeth.

Discussing his time working for a newspaper is his article, “A Thousand Cuts,” author Terry McDermott discusses what makes print journalism great – and why those aspects are being threatened by lay-offs and money issues.

“The second circumstance (when a paper is at its most prominent) is when breathtaking stories you knew nothing about, but that people had been working on for years, suddenly appear in the paper, “ McDermott writes. “The depth of a newspaper’s staff allows for this relative luxury.”

McDermott goes on to say that this kind of hardnosed, investigative reporting is threatened, as the way newspapers have always gone about their business is under increasing economic pressure, but “because of their irregular, episodic nature, readers will not necessarily know they are gone, but their absence will make a community’s news culture considerably poorer.”

This is the reality of the time we live in. The type of print journalism that uncovered Watergate may soon be changing and acquiring a noticeable lack of depth to it.

Finally, and it may be hard to believe, but the new faces of investigative journalism are popping up in places never before imagined, such as the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Stewart not only gives satirical political commentary on current hot-button news topics, he gets to the bottom of political and governmental situations that before were only touched by newspapers. Educated people who once relied on newspapers for their investigative stories are turning to shows like Stewarts; programming that also has a very strong Internet following.

All citizens need to be informed regardless of their education or social status. According to a study done by the Nielson Media Research firm, viewers of shows such as Jon Stewart’s, are more likely to have completed four years of college than people who watch other more hardnosed news shows like, “The O’Reilly Factor.” What I think this research shows is this – Stewart is wildly popular but is liberal. O’Reilly is wildly popular but is conservative. American politics are wildly polarized and partisan; journalism seems to have become the same. Informed people will need to access more than one source to get the complete story.

Investigative journalism is not going away by any means. Instead, it is changing to survive in a culture more full of opportunities and uncertainties than any time before it.