Get generators, SAWS told in ’15

Consultant’s advice went unheeded

Five years ago, an Austin consulting firm assessed the possible harm that disasters, natural and human-caused, could inflict on San Antonio. It recommended that the city-owned San Antonio Water System buy generators to back up its pumping stations in case of significant power outages.

In a 2015 report commissioned by the city and written with input from the water utility, disaster consulting firm H2O Partners said the generators could prove useful during a calamity caused by a terrorist attack, tornado or winter freeze. SAWS could keep clean water flowing to residents, businesses, hospitals and police and fire stations.

SAWS didn’t follow the recommendation — a fact made stark two weeks ago as record winter weather led to widespread loss of water service. CPS Energy shut off power to circuits that included SAWS pumping stations to help stave off a collapse of the statewide electrical grid.

SAWS did not make officials available to answer the Express-news’ questions about the decision not to acquire generators. But SAWS leaders said at a Tuesday board meeting that installing generators powerful

enough to keep large amounts of water moving at each of the utility’s 80 pumping stations would be too costly, given how rarely they would be needed.

In less drastic circumstances, the remaining pumping stations could make up for the loss of one or two in an emergency. But SAWS leaders acknowledged that the winter storm posed an altogether different challenge.

“The game has clearly changed,” Steve Clouse, the utility’s chief operating officer, told SAWS trustees. “We never anticipated we could have a systemwide outage to the extent that we have had.”

The cost of equipping every pumping station with a backup generator could run from $500 million to $800 million, Clouse estimated. A single generator powerful enough to fuel a pumping station costs several million dollars, Clouse told the board.

That’s far higher than the estimate laid out in the H2O Partners report five years ago, which put the cost of a single generator at $875,000. All 80 of them would cost $70 million at that price.

The firm suggested applying for funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which provides grants to local governments for such equipment. Five years of FEMA grants could cover the cost, the firm’s 2015 report said.

Clouse dismissed the H2O estimate — “That number is an order of magnitude short of what this would cost,” he said. But didn’t explain the wide gap between it and SAWS’ own estimates. Federal dollars to pay for the generators have not materialized, he said.

But there was some appetite on the board for equipping at least some stations with generators. Prioritizing certain stations to receive backup power wouldn’t be as costly as backing up all of them, SAWS trustee Eduardo Parra said.

Sixty of the utility’s pumping stations were shut down at some point as freezing temperatures and winter weather pummeled the city. Making matters worse was the proliferation of leaks from pipes that had cracked in the bitter cold, causing water pressure to drop across the city.

SAWS set up sites to distribute bottled and packaged water to utility customers.

In the wake of the water outages, customers and community leaders have called for the utility to purchase backup generators.

Robert Puente, the water utility’s CEO, said last week that the utility couldn’t buy the generators without ratepayers picking up the tab in the form of higher bills.

On a scale of “low” to “high,” the 2015 report — dubbed the “Hazard Mitigation Action Plan” — ranked buying generators a “moderate” priority.

The prospect of a winter storm ranked second-tolast on the city’s assessment of potential hazards, just above a potential dam failure and below events like terrorism, infectious disease, hail and extreme heat.

Such a storm was deemed “highly likely” in terms of probability but “minor” in possible severity, according to the report.

In the meantime, SAWS has hired the engineering firm Black and Veatch to probe the utility and make recommendations for how it can avoid future loss of power to its pumps as part of a $250,000 contract. The firm must present its findings in April.