The Water Department’s Shoddy Reporting of Public Water Use

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Don’t mistake the above canvass for a Picasso. Click on it to enjoy it up close. Today’s artwork is courtesy of the Greensboro Water Resources Department. I found it so relevant to my claim that I thought it deserved a nice frame. This mystifying graph is the only graph offered on its web page located at www.tinyurl.com/9y6m8a Usually pictures are supposed to be worth a thousand words, but this one maybe deserves just an expletive or two. Greensboro wants you to believe that lakes perform---when they actually react. It is a clever deception to keep you from discovering exactly how much water citizens and businesses are using. It's simple. When the public uses more water than the amount flowing into the reservoirs, the reservoirs react. So why does Greensboro show us the reaction rather than the cause? Greensboro’s shoddy reporting of PUBLIC WATER USE is no accident. Critical information must remain hidden in order to protect the scam. In its place Greensboro gives you its “History of Lake Performance”---something nobody cares about---and something from which you can draw no conclusions. The City is hoping you and the local news agencies will fail to notice what’s missing from its reporting about public water use. Citizens would really benefit from seeing a graph of Greensboro’s PUBLIC WATER USE HISTORY rather than some squiggly lines about lake performance. And that graph should include the forecast of future water needs so the two could be compared and conclusions could be drawn. I have such a graph and it speaks a thousand words. It’s understandable why the City won’t present my graph's information, but why won’t the News & Record, the Rhino Times or YES Weekly present it? And why won’t any of the local TV stations show you a history of Greensboro WATER USE compared to what was FORECASTED? Won’t the local media be embarrassed when my report is validated in a new book coming out by a respected environmental author who reports on water issues in the US? Until then only those who discover this blog will become privy to Greensboro’s biggest dirty little secret----that public water use is in a 14-year decline. The News & Record has sung like a choir for the Randleman Dam and Reservoir for more that a decade now. Its readers have been brainwashed and convinced that (1) Greensboro is running out of water, and (2) that public water use is increasing. Both are false. The indoctrination has been so effective at establishing the Randleman project that you may deem me a kook, a conspiracy nut and a disgruntled former employee all rolled into one…that is until you begin to digest the facts in this blog and your light comes “on.” If you wanted to learn about Greensboro’s WATER USE you would logically go to the Water Resources web page, right?...So let’s go there now. Wow, WATER DEMAND is even a featured as a LINK on that page. Let’s click on it…… First we find a heading called GREENSBORO PUBLIC WATER DEMAND. Yes, now this is exactly what we are looking for….. Beneath it we are shown YESTERDAY’S WATER DEMAND—30.3 million gallons on Jan 22, 2009 compared to 28.1 million gallons on the same day one year ago. Is that something we can use? Should we conclude that water use is going up by comparing these two figures? No, not at all! In fact, we cannot conclude anything from such a bogus report. Last year on that same day it may have been 30 degrees warmer, or 30 degrees colder, or not raining, or a snow day, or an event like 9/11 may have happened ….or another factory has closed since then. Greensboro’s foolish YESTERDAY’S WATER USE report is an insult to our intelligence. Absolutely no conclusions can be drawn from it. Yet for the past decade the News & Record has seen fit to run this brainless single-day report as though it is some kind of community service. Comparing yesterday’s water use to the same day a year ago is as silly as reporting yesterday’s temperature compared to the temperature on the same day one year ago---or what you ate yesterday compared to what you ate the same day one year ago. It is useless information. There are far too many variables—storms, sun, wind, heat wave, cold snap, etc.—that yesterday compared to one year ago worthless exercise. It only confuses readers instead of informing them. And that’s Greensboro’s objective, to keep the public in the dark about public water use. Greensboro reports silly non-essentials like LAKE PERFORMANCE and YESTERDAY’S WATER USE because it cannot show you the real reports that would expose the scam. The bogus reports are offered to trick you into thinking that Greensboro is doing an honest job of reporting. But what the public is given on the water web page are not reports at all. The FACTS must remain hidden from citizens to keep their wallets wide open for water rate hikes and their frontal lobes well lubricated for the completion of an unnecessary reservoir. On his department’s web page, Water Resource Director Allan Williams writes, “The purpose of the (Randleman) project is to develop a safe and dependable water supply that will satisfy the projected water demand for a period of 30 to 50 years.” Did you catch what I did in his statement? According to Williams there is a “projected water demand” for the next 30 years! So why doesn’t it appear on his department’s web page? And why haven’t any local reporters asked for that projected 30-year water demand that Williams references on his web page? Taft Wireback--- you must have a hard copy of it, right? Why haven’t you published Greensboro’s PROJECTED 30-YEAR WATER DEMAND in your newspaper? In a News & Record 12-12-08 editorial called "Minding North Carolina’s Spigot" it stated, “Williams noted that no matter how kind the weather might be, Greensboro will keep growing. Its water capacity will peak at 60 million gallons a day, he said, even with Randleman Reservoir.” Where in the world did Williams get his figure from? But surely it must appear in his illusive 30-YEAR PROJECTED WATER DEMAND REPORT that you and I have never seen. But even if Williams’ crystal ball projections were handed to us on a silver platter, why should any citizen or any Council member or any reporter believe them when the Water Department’s track record for forecasting future water needs has been such a dismal failure? Director Williams writes on his water web page, “As a City grows, there is a need to find new sources of water, build larger water and sewage treatment plants, and increase system capacities for distributing drinking water and collecting used wastewater”. At first glance Williams’ statement seems to make sense to the layman, but it is completely false. The public is easy to convince that more water will be needed in the future. Williams is capitalizing on its naivety. He knows you’ll buy it, but it is not true. There are other American cities just like Greensboro that are growing in population while their water use is declining. Williams like most municipal water directors is a water seller and a waterworks expander. That’s his job. He speaks Utility-Speak. Williams is concealing the fact that Greensboro water use is declining and Greensboro’s water sales are suffering. Instead of being truthful Williams misleads you to believe that as Greensboro grows it needs more water. I’ll let you in on a little secret; population changes do not determine Greensboro’s future water needs. It is water-intensive industries such as textile mills that determine water use, not population. Greensboro’s population grew by 40,000 since 1995 and yet it needs less water in 2009 than it did in 1995. Did ya catch that camera guy? In the mid 90’s water use began declining because of a highly successful Water Conservation program. Later it continued declining because Greensboro’s water-using manufacturers began leaving town. Ask Williams and the rest of the Randleman Dam Scammers like Kitchen and Allen and Shaw and certain Council members why the waterworks is expanding when water-using industries are departing? Email me with their responses and I will post them here. Water use in Greensboro is declining, but it is easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than it is to get a Dam Scammer to admit that Greensboro water use has declined for 14 years. That’s why they had to stifle and finally extinguish Greensboro’s EPA 1st place award-winning Water Conservation program—because it was working. Can you hear me now John Robinson? ZZZZZzzzzzzzz……… Director Williams continues on his water web page, “Many projects that fall into the above categories are now underway or about to begin, and all are essential to keep your water and sewer system in acceptable shape for years to come. Unfortunately, these projects can not be accomplished without funding and that is why Greensboro continues to raise its utility fees.” Williams claims the Randleman Dam and Reservoir are “essential,” and he’s lying to cover his own neck and the necks of the conspirators. The Randleman Reservoir is unnecessary. I was expected to say on camera in the mid 90’s that we had to have the Randleman Dam by the year 2000---or Greensboro would be out of water. I eventually discovered that claim was untrue and I stopped making it. Now we won’t have Randleman water until 2011. What happened? Why didn’t the City run out of water? Williams explains on his web page why utility rates must be raised, and again he withholds the truth. The real reason why your water rates are being hiked every year now (9% January 1st) is threefold; First, because water sales are radically below what was forecast. Water sales have been low for a decade now. Second, manufacturers, Greensboro’s biggest and best water customers have shut down. That means residential water customers must make up for all the revenue that once flowed into City Hall from Greensboro’s big manufacturers. And third, as water rates radically increase, water use decreases. Just like you turn back your thermostat to save energy, water is becoming so expensive in Greensboro that citizens will use even less of it in the future. Greensboro expanded its waterworks at the same time that its water sales were declining. In the private sector when sales decline, businesses downsize. However, when you enjoy a monopoly like Greensboro Water and you control the rates that customers must pay, you can continue to expand your operation in spite of declining sales. Is it any wonder why Greensboro disbanded its Water Conservation program years ago? Who in their right mind would want to conserve water when water sales are suffering and there’s not enough money coming in to pay for operations? Greensboro has a history of SELLING all the water it gets its hand on. CONSERVATION was just for the cameras. When it comes to water there’s no "green" in Greensboro. A token WATER CONSERVATION program permitted Kitchen and Williams and Allen to say, “We are doing everything possible to….” And while they were making their false claim in front of the cameras, behind closed doors they were trying to figure out how they could dismantle Greensboro’s successful WATER CONSERVATION program. It had become a serious threat to the Randleman Dam. *** Tomorrow I will publish brand new data I just obtained from the Water Resources Department. A new chart will appear and you don’t want to miss it. It contains new information that the Scammers hope you will never see. You won’t find this new data anywhere but here. *** For almost a year now no local reporters have cared to (or dared to) investigate this story. You can do a few things to help spread the truth. First, please remember to recommend this story at http://www.we101.com/GreensboroNC Also, please email this URL to your friends ….or simply tell them to Google “dam scam” to find it. Dam Scam has had so many “hits” that it has risen to the very top of the Google search engine. Google just 2 words—dam scam—even in Tokyo or Paris and your friends will be taken to this story. So tell others to Google dam scam. And thanks for your interest!