Determining essential services and defining what activities are critical to keeping our communities safe and operational are at the forefront for our community leaders. For the water industry, some of this is straightforward. We know we need clean, safe, and reliable drinking water. We know we need functioning wastewater collection and treatment systems. However, there are still challenging decisions to be made: what level of functionality of our stormwater infrastructure is essential? Can we defer some of these functions to a time when it will be safer to perform them? What activities are truly essential?
We know that stormwater infrastructure is vital. It helps keep our urban areas safe during storm events, and our waterways clean from urban pollutants. More and more, we rely on green infrastructure to provide improved stormwater management and water quality benefits, improve the aesthetics of urban areas, and enhance pedestrian and bicycle safety.
To keep these facilities operational, regular maintenance is required, but prioritizing maintenance activities can be a challenge. Resources like funds and workforce are often in short supply, especially as local communities take a hard look at their priorities these days. To limit the spread of COVID-19, the number of crews have been scaled back, and they are often placed on rotating shifts.
Many communities are also restricting hiring as they focus on essential operations. It’s important that we consider that the long-term performance of green infrastructure relies on continual maintenance for functionality of these facilities—or they may end up costing more in the long run. This may require reallocating the current workforce, or reconsidering proceeding with temporary or seasonal hires.
While current circumstances certainly bring challenges to our industry, there may be some surprising benefits as well. Critical maintenance activities on arterials can now be performed more easily because there are fewer vehicles on the road. Reduced traffic can also mean fewer pollutants in our urban runoff, thus decreasing the frequency of some required maintenance activities. More people working in their yards and walking in their neighborhoods could lead to increased trash pickup and debris removal in green streets. If you happen to live in the City of Portland, check out the Green Street Steward Program! You can look around and see if there are similar programs in your area.
These strange times we’re living in inevitably bring challenges to us all. But sometimes periods of intense change can also bring about some great innovations and benefits we never would’ve imagined otherwise. In the end, we can’t always control the forces that affect our industry and our livelihoods. All we can do—as AEC professionals and as humans—is look for opportunities to do good with what we are given.