Abstract
In an age of growing infrastructure needs and increasingly limited resources to meet those needs, governments at all levels must search for ways to close the resources gap, as is the case of wastewater treatment and the requirement to treat stormwater. Recent efforts to address water quality have focused on collaboration as a mechanism to achieve desired outcomes. This article traces the development and implementation of a mandated collaborative effort to address stormwater infiltration into the sanitary sewer system in the Hampton Roads, Virginia, area. We find that, unlike more traditional conceptions of collaboration, the consent order in place served to require the participants to work together to achieve positive outcomes. We conclude with some general thoughts about the use of mandated collaboration as a lens to understand collaborative processes in public works settings.
Keywords
Introduction
In an age of growing infrastructure needs and increasingly limited resources to meet those needs, governments at all levels must search for ways to close the resources gap and deliver services to citizens. This need grows greater as new requirements are placed on infrastructure, as is the case of wastewater treatment and the requirement to treat stormwater.
This issue is particularly acute in the Chesapeake Bay watershed on the East Coast of the United States. The watershed stretches across six states and more than 64,000 square miles (Morris, Gibson, Leavitt, & Jones, 2013), and has the largest land-to-water ratio (14:1) of any coastal body of water in the world (Davison, Merwin, Capper, Power, & Shivers, 1997). The watershed is home to more than 17 million people and represents the terminus of five major rivers and more than 100,000 streams, creek, and small tributaries (Chesapeake Bay Program, 2012). In addition to serving as a major conduit for international shipping through its two main ports in Norfolk, Virginia, and Baltimore, Maryland, the Bay also supports a significant seafood industry and serves as a mecca for hundreds of thousands of recreational users. In spite of its importance, the Chesapeake Bay has suffered from exceptionally poor water quality for decades. Efforts have been undertaken at the national, state, and local levels to address the water quality issues (see Ernst, 2010; Morris et al., 2013).
More recent efforts to address water quality in the Bay have focused on collaboration as a mechanism to achieve desired outcomes (Morris et al., 2013). This article traces the development and implementation of a collaborative effort to address stormwater infiltration into the sanitary sewer system in the Hampton Roads, Virginia, area. Located at the southern edge of the Bay, the region is home to more than 1.7 million residents and includes more than 14 separate local government entities. The efforts of some of those localities to work collaboratively to address their system capacity needs provide a useful case study in how seemingly disparate groups can achieve common goals through collaboration.
Beginning in 2006, the Hampton Roads Sanitation District (HRSD), and the localities that it serves, collaborated to produce a document that would outline the development of a Regional Wet Weather Management Plan (RWWMP) to address reoccurring sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) in Hampton Roads. This document would become the set of standards under which the region would work to produce sewer investigation efforts, flow monitoring, rainfall monitoring, and ultimately the development of a Regional Hydraulic Model (RHM) that would serve as the basis for the selection of the projects to be outlined in the RWWMP. This article examines this collaborative effort to see what worked, what did not, and what the influencing factors were during this process.
This research is important for several reasons. First, the use of collaboration to meet infrastructure needs is a largely unexplored area of research. Although some efforts have been made to explore collaboration in this setting, it remains an arena ripe for further study. Second, the case described in this article is one of the mandated collaboration. There is a growing literature that suggests the nature of mandated collaboration is fundamentally different from voluntary collaboration (see McNamara, 2016), and understanding the nuances of mandated collaboration is key to determining the suitability of collaboration in infrastructure settings. Finally, the lessons learned from this case study can inform other scholars and practitioners with interests in similar settings and arrangements.
We begin with a discussion of mandated collaboration and its applicability to public works settings, followed by a short discussion of our study methods. We then move to a section describing the background of the setting for the case, followed by an analysis of the case of HRSD. We conclude the article with some general thoughts about the use of mandated collaboration as a lens to understand collaborative processes in public works settings.
Mandated Collaboration and Public Works
The term “mandated collaboration” is relatively new in the collaboration literature. Early theorists generally conceived of collaboration as a purely voluntary process (see Cline & Collins, 2002; Gray, 1985, 1989; Wood & Gray, 1991), and much of the work of Elinor Ostrom (1990) such as her Governing the Commons conceived of these interactions as completely voluntary on the part of participants. Later work began to acknowledge that not all collaboration occurred in the same settings or with the same imperatives; scholars such as Imperial (2005), McNamara (2012), Ansel and Gash (2007), and Jennings and Ewalt (1998) began to describe a form of collaboration that carried with it the imperatives and authority of organizations.
Moore and Koontz (2003) provided a useful framework through which to consider the case for mandated collaboration. Based on a study of watershed collaboration efforts in Ohio, Moore and Koontz offer a typology of collaboration “types,” based on membership in the group, that helps us understand the setting for mandated collaboration. Citizen-based collaboration is comprised primarily of individual citizens who represent themselves. Agency-based collaboration is comprised of organizations that come together to achieve a common goal. The organizations are represented in the collaborative structure by individuals, but those individuals are participating on behalf of their parent organizations and thus represent the organizational authority of those organizations in the collaboration. The third type, mixed collaborations, are amalgamations of both individuals and organizational actors.
This typology is particularly useful in this research, as it provides a basis for mandated collaboration. Mandates in collaboration occur with the force of organizationally based legal-rational authority. Although organizations can and (and do) choose to collaborate with others on a purely voluntary basis (see Diaz-Kope, 2016), public organizations are subject to external sources of authority (policy-making bodies) and accountable to both political bodies and citizens. Agencies are therefore subject to legal, policy, or political mandates to collaborate with other entities. Because these mandates often carry the force of law and the potential for substantial civil penalties, agencies cannot refuse to collaborate. We thus have a conceptual basis for mandated collaboration: Because only public agencies can be mandated to collaborate, any mandated collaboration must fit Moore and Koontz’s (2003) description of either agency-based or mixed collaboration. 1 As HRSD and the localities that it serves consist of only public agencies and local government agencies, we may describe the setting as agency-based, mandated collaboration. 2
Mandates for collaboration can be found in many governmental organizations and can take many forms. Drafted in the years following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the National Response Plan (NRP) not only creates a structure based on the principles of contingent coordination (see Kettl, 2003; Morris, Morris, & Jones, 2007) but also mandates all participating federal departments and agencies to collaborate with other organizations participating in the NRP. The United States Coast Guard, for many years a practitioner of voluntary collaboration, is mandated to collaborate with other agencies under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. Social service agencies at the local level are often required to collaborate with other organizations (see Jennings & Ewalt, 1998). Likewise, intergovernmental agreements for shared services, such as public authorities created to provide wastewater treatment, may be conceived of as collaborations consisting of the municipal governments and their respective public works departments. In many ways, mandated collaboration is an attractive mechanism to achieve common goals: It removes the requirement for political entities to create a hierarchy of authority for missions that cut across political boundaries; it provides a means to marshal resources toward a specific goal without allocating new resources; and it helps assure democratic and organizational accountability in the collaborative setting.
Kettl (2006) provided a useful framework for addressing the challenges of mandated, organizationally based collaboration. By focusing on the issue of boundaries between organizations, and the tensions that arise at those boundaries, Kettl draws our attention to issues that can make the collaborative delivery of services challenging. There are five specific tensions that arise. First, the issue of differing missions across organizations comes into play. Kettl notes that mission not only defines what an organization does, but it also defines what an organization does not do (Kettl, 2006). We expect this tension to be somewhat less important in this research, as the participating organizations all have very similar missions. Second, resource allocations help define the importance that organizations attach to goals. Resources are typically inherently unequal, as is the willingness of an organization to commit its resources to specific purposes. Organizational capacity questions address the ability of an organization to marshal expertise necessary to carry out its mission. Responsibility is an individual-level trait and delineates what individuals can do in the name of an organization. In an interorganizational setting, individual responsibility defines both what individuals are empowered to do and what they may not do (Kettl, 2006). Finally, accountability is the confluence of the previous four boundary tensions and is grounded in the authority given to each organization. Organizations are in turn accountable to policy makers.
These issues gain increased importance where organizational boundaries touch or overlap. When several cities decide to collaborate to treat wastewater, for example, differences in wealth, political culture, government structure, and citizen expectations can lead directly to the boundary tensions described by Kettl. Cities have differing resources available and different levels of capacity, and may define responsibility differently from their geographic neighbors. The localities in this case study range from the City of Poquoson, with a population of just over 12,000, to the City of Virginia Beach, with a population of over 437,000 (El Nasser, 2011). In the face of a mandate to collaborate to solve a common problem, how do organizations navigate these boundary tensions and arrive at satisfactory outcomes?
Our setting for this study is a mandated collaboration between 17 political entities in Southeast Virginia. Although the public authority created more than 70 years ago has been relatively unremarkable for most of its life, the requirements of a recent consent order have resulted in new tensions for both the collaboration and the member organizations. This article analyzes that setting from a framework of mandated collaboration.
Study Methods
Our approach to this case study was largely inductive, in that we sought to identify themes from the case. Data for this study were gathered from a variety of sources. One of the authors of this article is employed by the HRSD and has firsthand knowledge of the facts and events described here; we treat those data as participant–observer and employ a methodology of cooperative inquiry (Reason, 1998). This initial knowledge was supplemented by information gleaned from additional discussions with other participants, 3 as well as public documents from HRSD and public accounts of events found in the two regional newspapers. 4 After collecting the data from the sources described above, the research team met to discuss the data and their meaning, and to corroborate our data sources to reduce any inherent bias. We developed our themes through a recursive process of review of the data from all sources; by reviewing the data individually and then discussing the themes, we sought to ensure that each theme was supported by triangulation.
The Case of HRSD
Technical Problem
In 1940, a referendum was passed establishing the HRSD to eliminate sanitary sewage pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. HRSD became the conveyance and treatment authority for the region, while the jurisdictions retained control in their local collection systems and discharge into the HRSD system. With the expansion of development over time, the sanitary sewer systems grew and expanded to serve 14 localities in the Hampton Roads area. These systems inevitably age and eventually begin to allow inflow and infiltration (I/I) of water into the sanitary sewer system. This I/I can be affected by the high groundwater table in the region as well as rainfall events that let clean water or storm waters into a system designed only to handle the anticipated wastewater flows for the service area. By introducing more water into the collection system than it was designed to handle, the system could back up and if left unaddressed long enough could cause an SSO. As these overflows could reach the Chesapeake Bay, the Clean Water Act considers these flows as illegal discharges.
Litigation Background
In 2001, the Commonwealth of Virginia took action against the City of Norfolk and the HRSD for unpermitted discharges due to SSO, ultimately leading to a Consent Special Order signed on December 17, 2001, by HRSD and the City of Norfolk. This was subsequently superseded by a State Water Control Board (SWCB) Enforcement Action in March 2005 (Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Environmental Quality [DEQ], 2005).
In light of the ongoing action by the Virginia DEQ against the City of Norfolk and the HRSD, in 2006 HRSD and 13 of the other jurisdictions that it serves had come together in a joint effort to address SSOs in Hampton Roads and to develop a mutually acceptable plan. In April 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asked the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to undertake legal action against the HRSD for unpermitted discharges caused by the I/I of stormwater into the sanitary sewer system (Harper, 2007). The April 2007 action was reportedly initiated by EPA headquarters staff rather than EPA Region 3 personnel, thus taking the HRSD and localities by surprise (Harper, 2007). In August 2007, the EPA issued an Administrative Order and Information Request to HRSD ordering the Commission to conduct the assessments and engineering analyses to identify measures needed to ensure compliance with its permits issued under the Clean Water Act. HRSD was ordered to “consult and coordinate with the Localities and with HRPDC” 5 in the development of a variety of plans and an RHM (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region III, 2007). In September 2007, the SWCB issued a final Special Order by Consent to the HRSD and the Localities (other than the City of Norfolk) (Commonwealth of Virginia DEQ, 2007). The DOJ (2007) filed a civil action against the HRSD in federal district court on behalf of the EPA, the SWCB, and the DEQ.
The localities that were involved included the cities of Chesapeake, Suffolk, Williamsburg, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Newport News, Hampton, and Poquoson; the town of Smithfield; and York, Gloucester, Isle of Wight, and James City Counties (see the appendix). The City of Norfolk, which had been under a separate consent order, was added later during negotiations with the DEQ and the EPA. The localities fall under the jurisdiction of the DEQ which enforces the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) in Virginia on behalf of the EPA. The HRSD, as a political subdivision of the Commonwealth with an independent revenue source, is subject to direct enforcement action by the EPA (United States, 1972, Sec. 309). As a result of the federal suit filed by the DOJ on behalf of the EPA, there was a need for two separate orders. 6 For the localities and HRSD, the Special Order by Consent (consent order or the order) would be filed with the Commonwealth and regulated by the DEQ. HRSD would in turn file a consent decree with the DOJ that would be regulated by the EPA. The consent decree, although a separate document, would reflect the technical requirements described in the consent order. 7 Both documents were to include a set of technical standards that would detail the efforts required by all the parties to produce the RWWMP. This plan would outline and commit the localities and HRSD to the construction of projects that would address I/I and capacity within the regional sanitary sewer system.
On February 23, 2010, after extensive negotiation, the HRSD entered into a consent decree with the DOJ, the EPA, and the Commonwealth of Virginia agreeing to pay a civil penalty of US$900,000 and to take corrective action to reduce SSOs from its systems. In addition, the settlement incorporated the principal requirements of the 2007 Administrative Order and Information Request which tasked HRSD to collect data and conduct modeling to develop a regional water management plan working in concert with the localities it served (DOJ, 2010). The costs to HRSD for the associated upgrades were estimated to exceed US$140 million (EPA, 2009). The total estimated costs to the region were estimated to be US$3 billion (Hampton Roads Planning District Commission [HRPDC], 2013, ES-8).
As a result of the collaborative process, HRSD and the localities entered into a Memorandum of Agreement on March 10, 2014, that made HRSD solely responsible for drafting, funding, and implementing the RWWMP. At the request of the EPA, the 2010 federal consent decree was modified in August 2014 to reflect the provisions of the Memorandum of Agreement, and in December 2014, the SWCB issued a revised Special Order by Consent to the localities that reflected the shift of responsibilities (Commonwealth of Virginia DEQ, 2014).
The Collaborative Effort
The catalyzing event for this collaborative effort was the DOJ decision in September 2007 to file a civil suit on behalf of the EPA, the Virginia DEQ, and the SWCB against the HRSD for unpermitted discharges caused by I/I of stormwater into the sanitary sewer system (DOJ, 2007).
Although the consent order/consent decree process ultimately succeeded, there were some areas where collaboration struggled. In the beginning, before the development of the 2010 consent order, there were collaboration failures. The localities, as well as HRSD, each designated a representative to participate in the development of the consent order. These representatives were the leaders from the respective public utility departments who came together to form a team (to be known as the “capacity team”) that would craft the order and the accompanying technical standards. Being the leaders from the region gave the team a wealth of knowledge and experience from which they could craft the technical standards for the order. Although everyone had a representative on the team, the old biases still prevailed. Localities were only concerned about themselves and not about how they affected their neighbors. The HRSD blamed the localities for the overflows because they failed to maintain their collection systems, which in turn introduced excessive levels of I/I. The localities blamed HRSD for failing to maintain the appropriate system pressures during rain events. The localities thought that the system should be designed for one set of criteria while HRSD wanted something substantially less. Even though they were nominally working together, most team members were only concerned about who was at fault, who was right, and that their design criteria were incorporated into the technical standards. For a time, the group was at a standstill on the development of the regional standards. It was not until a change in leadership that effective collaboration began. With a new general manager at HRSD and other new hires, a director for compliance was appointed as the HRSD representative on the capacity team replacing others that were already a part of the group. This change of management also brought other changes to the capacity team as well. A third-party consultant was hired to lead the capacity team, that is, someone to lead the leaders. Here, leadership played a significant role as there were 14 different leaders all trying to represent their own interests. The third-party representative gave the group focus and kept them on track to develop standards that were favorable to everyone. This change in management personnel brought changes in leadership, which influenced the outcome in a positive manner. This leadership presence allowed the team to reach compromises that would not have been possible with the previous members. Planning also played a large part in the overall collaboration success. The capacity team held weekly meetings so that the order could be completed within a time frame acceptable to the DEQ. The staff who were committed attended every meeting, even though these weekly events often went well into the evenings and the process continued for several years.
Although the region had its own issues and disagreements on various sections of the order, it was able to come together and produce the final document. With the technical standards, consent order, and consent decree completed, it was time to begin the work outlined in those documents. The first major challenge was that of data collection for the development of the RHM. Even though the capacity team agreed to a minimum standard for flow monitoring, it was not until the calibration period for the RHM that the team realized that those minimum standards were not sufficient. This led to the overreliance on assumed data to achieve model calibration. This technical challenge stemmed from the localities’ unwillingness to commit more than they thought was necessary and were willing to fund.
The next challenge came when the region needed to select software for modeling the sewer system. Here collaboration worked as well as it could have. The capacity team brought in hydraulic modeling expertise that reviewed the vendors’ products. The companies making proposals gave presentations on their products and their respective capabilities to the regional representatives. Each product was evaluated by an outside modeling team that made recommendations on the pros and cons of each of the software products. Vendors were scored on their ability to meet the technical standard requirements for modeling and each of the localities in turn voted on their preference. The votes clearly favored one over the others and that company was chosen as the modeling software vendor for the development of the RWWMP without argument. The technical challenge here was overcome by bringing in outside expertise to evaluate each of the products and to inform the capacity team of the results. This eliminated the tendency for positions to be influenced by the personal preferences of locality representatives and allowed the team to focus on the technical aspects of each vendor instead. They could evaluate the products based on their ability to achieve the requirements in the standards without personal bias for one company or another.
The next step after selecting the modeling software was the building of the RHM. As the lead organization, HRSD needed to collect the locality information required to build the RHM. This included force main and pump station information for each jurisdiction. Although an established requirement in the order, the localities were reluctant to share the information across the region. The HRSD could have it, but they were not to share it with anyone else. The leaders at the local level were still stuck in the older ways of keeping to themselves. Over time, they finally realized that the information would eventually be available to everyone when the RHM was completed and distributed across the region so they let the issue pass. As counterintuitive as it seems, the best solution to the problem was to have patience and wait. By letting the leaders come to their own conclusions, they were more amenable to having their information shared.
Part of the collaboration process was the participation of DEQ. Although they were not involved in the weekly meetings that developed the order’s various details, they were included at regular intervals to ensure their buy-in and acceptance as sections were developed. The team did not want to spend time and effort to develop the order only to have it rejected by the DEQ in the end. By bringing them along at various stages of development, the team was able to continue work knowing that what they had so far was acceptable. Quarterly briefings with the EPA served a similar purpose informing them as to HRSD’s progress on the consent decree. This regular information sharing ensured that HRSD was on the correct path and that they had the buy-in from the EPA as time went along.
A related challenge was the education of the DOJ and EPA staffs on the hydraulic model. As the only entity subject to the federal suit, HRSD had the responsibility of reporting progress and the results of the model to the DOJ and EPA representatives. The main challenge was that those representatives had limited hydraulic engineering knowledge. For every status report, the presentation needed to be delivered with documentation of all the assumptions, reasoning, and methods used as well as the technical details behind the work. This enabled the regulators to understand the work that was being accomplished and gave participants an opportunity to discuss any emerging issues so that they could be promptly addressed and resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
During an analysis of several alternatives, it was discovered that by combining the separate sanitary sewer systems into one organization (HRSD), the region could save nearly a billion dollars during the expected 20-year life of the consent order. This is due to the different requirements between regional solutions versus separate locality solutions as outlined in the consent order. Instead of requiring each locality to do a specific amount of I/I reduction and a certain amount of capital spending, a regional solution targets the areas that have the highest amount of I/I regardless of location to improve the regional sanitary sewer system. This led to an effort to convince the localities that this was the most cost-effective solution for everyone and that it would reduce the overall costs to the ratepayers. After much negotiation and deliberations by the jurisdictions and their respective councils, the consolidation proposal was ultimately turned down. Even though it was shown that there was a significant savings, the local governments did not want to give up control of their systems. To overcome this issue, HRSD offered the localities another alternative: HRSD would assume responsibility for all improvements and all SSOs for the region. This would allow for the implementation of the regional solution set instead of the locality driven set to realize the additional savings. The HRSD general manager led the way with suggesting the third option of taking full responsibility for all the improvements in the region. The HRSD Commission voted to accept the proposal. Implementation also required that the localities accept the proposal as well as the DEQ, the EPA, and the DOJ that had been responsible for filing the 2010 consent decree in the federal courts. In December 2014, the localities entered into a new consent order with the DEQ under which HRSD became accountable for the implementation of the RWWMP.
Discussion
As noted previously, the problem confronting the HRSD and the localities in September 2007 was not new and previous efforts to address it had not resolved the issue. The federal suit followed almost 2 years of negotiations among the localities and HRSD, which resulted in an SWCB consent order deemed unacceptable by the EPA. This leads to the question: “How were long-standing challenges overcome?”
Boundaries
One of the aspects of multiple government agency collaboration efforts typically includes discussion on the different boundaries each agency puts in place to designate where its domain begins. In Kettl’s (2006) discussion on the five different types of boundaries, three of them stand out as being applicable to the collaborative efforts in the consent order, the first of which is resources (Kettl, 2006). Each of the localities tended to fall back on not having sufficient resources to adequately comply with various sections in the technical standards. In general, for the localities, resources could be translated as available funding. Claiming insufficient resources to comply with the level of effort required in a specific standard, they would argue that the proposed standard was too stringent and that there needed to be allowances for jurisdictions that could not achieve those goals. One example is the flow monitoring requirement needed for the calibration of the hydraulic model. As originally proposed, the original standard would have required metering of 100% of the locality pump stations. This was eventually reduced to 20% due to lack of available funding (resources) for many of the jurisdictions.
The second boundary is that of capacity (Kettl, 2006). Although some localities had adequate financial resources, another boundary that they encountered was the lack of sufficient internal staff to do the work. Although the lack of capacity was not a direct boundary that separated the localities, it did hinder the collaboration process. Jurisdictions that lacked the staffing hired consultants to do the work. These third-party consultants sometimes had little working knowledge of the locality’s system and could not make decisions on behalf of the locality. This hindered the collaborative process. When issues arose, the consultant had to relay the question to the jurisdiction’s representative for clarification and possibly a decision. The jurisdiction’s response was then relayed back through the consultant for input into the discussion. This sometimes led to several iterations back and forth through the consultant to address a single issue. The lack of resources and “back and forth” through consultants due to capacity limitations continued throughout much of the consent order process. Although many localities were affected by these constraints, it did not stop the collaboration; rather, it lengthened the process.
The third boundary that was significant in the collaborative process was accountability. As indicated previously, the localities were accountable to their citizens and the Virginia DEQ for their actions. The HRSD was, in turn, accountable to the Commonwealth and the EPA for its actions. From a practical standpoint, the penalty structure established under the 2010 Consent Decree placed the onus on HRSD for implementation. Given the close relationship between the EPA and the DEQ, the HRSD was ultimately able to develop and implement a single accountability regime for the implementation of the RWWMP. With HRSD assuming more of the responsibility of the RWWMP implementation, the collaboration from the localities has drastically shifted. With the jurisdictions no longer financially bound to pay for their share of the RWWMP improvements, the resource and capacity boundaries have almost completely been eliminated.
Significant Factors
During the consent order development, several key factors stood out that influenced the collaboration among all the parties involved. These included leadership, information sharing, technology, planning, and accountability. Each of these factors contributed to the success of the consent order by influencing the outcomes of the various challenges that occurred during the collaborative process.
Leadership
The first factor is that of leadership. Leadership appears to have been a critical factor in this collaborative effort. The leadership change at HRSD precipitated a series of changes in staffing and approach that facilitated progress. Without strong leaders, diverse groups cannot come together and hope to achieve progress. The use of a third-party consultant to guide the deliberations kept the group of locality leaders focused on the common objective.
In developing the 2010 consent order, the region sought collaborative, rather than adversarial, relationships with the DEQ and the EPA. As Landy (2008) noted in his analysis of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, leadership behavior can have a decisive impact on relationships between the various levels of government. In the case of Louisiana, the governor and the mayor of New Orleans did not pursue open collaborative relationships with their federal counterparts, which exacerbated the tragedy. In contrast, Mississippi worked collaboratively with the federal government even when they disagreed on specific measures.
Finally, the HRSD general manager guided the localities through an analysis of alternatives to determine the most cost-effective approach for addressing the SSO problem. When it became evident that the political barriers were too great for system consolidation, he proffered an innovative alternative that allowed for the regional solution that was ultimately approved and adopted.
Information sharing
Donahue (2004) said it clearly when analyzing the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster response: “At the core of any operation is information” (p. 6). Early on, one of the requirements that was included in the draft order was information sharing. All the parties involved agreed that to be successful in the RWWMP, there had to be an equal sharing of information among the members. For the region, this was an unprecedented event. Prior to the development of the order, each entity was focused exclusively on how it operated regardless of others. Localities cared about service to their citizens and not how their system affected their neighbors. Without the free exchange of information among the participants, the RWWMP would never have been developed, and the consent decree and associated consent orders could not have been negotiated.
Technology
In the development of the consent order, technology played a key role. First, a method was needed to represent the amount of I/I entering the system and to develop solutions that would solve the overflows. This led to need for the selection of hydraulic modeling software that would be used to simulate the sewer systems in the region. With this software, the region would be able to predict the impact of selected storm events on the system and to see where the shortcomings were so that solutions could be developed and incorporated into the RWWMP.
Garnett and Kouzmin (2007) pointed out that “downsizing in the public sector has greatly reduced the number of professional specialists within government who can competently oversee such technologically complex applications” (p. 180). Even though their assessment is of the communications system issues during the 9/11 attacks, this statement is valid for any part of the technology deployed in the government sector. This is especially true where hired consultants are being used increasingly to install and operate various technologies because the expertise no longer resides in government organizations. So how does one effectively use available technology and retain control of it in the government? As technology becomes more ubiquitous, this becomes a question of ever increasing in importance that needs to be addressed by each government organization. In this case, the decision was made to bring in outside expertise to evaluate each of the software vendors’ products against the agreed-upon standards.
Another important element was the rainfall and flow metering that was needed to develop the inputs for the hydraulic model. The localities, as well as HRSD, had to monitor the flows into their pump stations to properly represent how the system reacts during a rainfall event. To address this, HRSD made the decision to create a system that could be shared with the localities so that they would also be able to use the information collected by the regional meters. The HRSD’s metering program was made available to the localities through a web-based portal allowing them to log into the data site and view the meter information.
Planning
Throughout the consent order process, it was evident planning contributed to the collaborative success. This is consistent with collaboration literature (see Cohen, Eimicke, & Horan, 2002; Donahue, 2006; Kweit & Kweit, 2006; Landy, 2008) that suggests planning is a cornerstone of all successful interagency collaboration or, in terms previously discussed (Moore & Koontz, 2003), agency-based collaboration. Regular, routine joint planning efforts such as the weekly meetings improved collaboration as the locality and agency representatives gained an understanding of each other’s problems, capabilities, and available resources. The capacity team led the way with planning out the list of items that would become required in the technical standards. These standards would establish what each locality would have to follow to comply with the final order. This enabled team members to socialize the developing standards with their localities’ leadership. Planning continued with the development of the comparative analysis study. This intermediate study analyzed the differences between a separate locality-based RWWMP and a plan that had only one responsible entity (HRSD). This plan put estimated costs to potential solutions and compared which alternative would be the most cost-effective on a regional basis. Again, this allowed the localities to participate proactively in the process and ultimately built the case for the regional solution that was adopted. Finally, the impending development of the RWWMP is a plan in itself.
Accountability
Although leaders can influence and direct a group, being accountable is a necessary part of making the decisions required to move forward. Without a sense of accountability, leaders cannot make the decisions for the greater good of the citizens they represent. In the 2010 consent order, the localities were responsible for carrying out their respective portions of the RWWMP. Whatever solutions were proposed for the locality, sewer systems would become the jurisdiction’s responsibility to carry out within a specific time frame. Those localities that proved to be unable to comply with their schedules would be subject to DEQ enforcement actions. When the order was complete, the locality representatives stood by the document and accepted responsibility as it was presented to their respective administrators and city managers for final approval by the jurisdictions.
Although the 2010 consent order held HRSD accountable for any improvements needed in the regional conveyance system, as well as any treatment plant improvements needed to achieve the overall plan’s goals, HRSD ultimately went further and with the concurrence of the localities assumed full responsibility for addressing all SSOs within the area. This decision recognized that failures on the part of localities were likely to result in violations that would subject the HRSD to substantial civil penalties under the consent decree. The accountability imposed by the EPA through the DOJ suit undoubtedly served as a catalyst for the entire effort. Nonetheless, it seems unlikely that the efforts would have succeeded if the participants had not accepted personal accountability for their actions.
Conclusion
Although the RWWMP has not been completed at the time of this writing, many of the challenges in working with the now 14 different government entities have passed and the progress to date can be considered a collaboration success. The work that went into the consent decree/order and technical standards development can be attributed to the leadership and dedication of each of the representatives on the capacity team. Other influencing factors include the sharing of information among all the parties involved, the technology that made the development of the RHM possible, the planning that went into the consent decree and subsequent consent order, the accountability of all the members on the capacity team to take on the task and commit someone to represent the locality, and the accountability of HRSD taking on the full responsibility of solving the region’s SSOs. Through the consent order process, several of the old barriers to collaboration between HRSD and the localities were broken down or removed altogether. The old bias of “my way is the only correct way” was forgotten as organizations took to new leadership and learned to work together under a common umbrella. The HRSD general manager’s proposal to take on all the RWWMP commitments addressed the accountability border. The change in leadership also caused the resource and capacity boundaries to be dropped. With the localities no longer responsible for funding projects outlined in the RWWMP, they can commit their limited resources to improved maintenance of their collection systems. All of these factors led to the consent order being a successful example of mandated collaboration.
Our article also suggests that Kettl’s “boundaries” are applicable in a framework to help understand the dynamics of mandated collaboration. Although mandated collaboration can differ markedly from voluntary collaboration (see McNamara, 2016), the successful application of these boundary tensions serves to further our knowledge of mandated collaboration. It remains the focus of future research to test the applicability of this framework in other mandated settings.
Footnotes
Appendix
Entities under the jurisdiction of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality State Water Control Board (SWCB) Consent Order
aThe City of Norfolk was not initially subject to the SWCB’s September 2007 Enforcement Order due to the previous March 2005 order.
Entities under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Federal District Court Consent Decree issued on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)b
bUnder the provisions of the Clean Water Act (PL 92-500, as amended, 33 USC 1251 et seq.), the EPA administers the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). Section 309 of the statute provides for civil and criminal penalties to be imposed for noncompliance. See also 40 CFR Part 122 Ch. 1 (7-1-15 edition) for a detailed discussion of the administration of the NPDES by the EPA and delegated states. Retrieved from http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=0af56256d6aff54714dff7e412ed5452&mc=true&node=pt40.22.122&rgn=div5. In cases where litigation is brought by the federal government, responsibility falls to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
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