9

Paying for the Fourth Revolution

第九章

为第四次水变革做准备

My water bill is just one of many that land in my physical and virtual mailbox every month. In addition to telling me what I owe, it helpfully points out the amount of water my family used and the breakdown of fees for different tasks that my local water company does to keep the water flowing to and the sewage flowing away from my home. Fifty dollars a month puts in the same price range as the monthly bills for cell phones, electricity, and Internet service. In fact, if I calculate the cost by volume used, my family spends a little less than half a cent per liter (two cents per gallon) for our water. That’s not bad if you consider all of the hard work that went into solving the problems of thirsty cities, cholera outbreaks, and sewage-choked rivers.

我的水费单只是每月进入我普通邮箱和电子邮箱里众多账单之一。水费账单除了告诉我该付的水费外，还罗列了我家的用水量，并提供当地水务部门在确保清洁水流进我家及污水流出我家的过程中，各种不同项目的处理费用明细。水费每月５０美元，与每月的电话费、电费和网络费在同一个价格范围。事实上，如果按用水的体积计算成本，我家每升水的花费不到半美分。如果考虑到为解决那些诸如城市缺水、霍乱疫情暴发，以及充满下水道污水的河流所需要付出的辛劳工作，你就会觉得这些费用还是非常合理的。

Although most of us give little thought to the details of the humble water utility bill, it may well hold the key to our urban water future. If the ways in which out utilities collect money prevent them from investing in new infrastructure before water systems reach a state of emergency, the problems described in the previous chapters are going to get a lot worse before anything is done about them. And if patching up the existing system ultimately proves to be a lot less expensive than adopting radically new approaches to supplying clean water and treating wastewater, we may end up investing in repairs to the weak points in the system for decades before we upgrade to Water 4.0.

虽然我们大多数人很少考虑这不起眼的水费账单细节，但它很可能是保障城市水未来的关键。如果水务部门在城市水系统濒临紧急状态之前未能募集到用于投入新基础设施建设所需要的资金，那么在对城市水系统亡羊补牢之前，前面章节所描述的问题会愈加恶化。如果最终证明维修现有水系统（包括提供清洁水和处理废水），比采用全新方法要节省不少资金的话，那么我们可能会在今后几十年里一直投资维修那些水系统中存在的薄弱环节，而不是努力升级进入“水４．０”。

Historically, utilities in the U.S. have almost always struggled to raise the money needed to improve water treatment and delivery systems, but in recent years it has become tougher. Unbeknownst to most people, the ways in which water utilities fund their operations had shifted over the past twenty-five years: before the late 1980s, operating costs were paid mainly through utility bills, while much of the investment in new reservoirs, pipelines, and treatment plants was paid for by deferral grants. A shift away from federal funding, coupled with increasing costs of operation, means that water bills are rising at rates faster than inflation just to maintain the status quo.

从历史上看，美国的水务部门几乎总是很费劲地在筹集用于改善水处理与运送系统的资金。不过，近些年来这种情况更为严重。大多数人可能不清楚，水务部门的运营融资方式在过去２５年已发生了变化：２０世纪８０年代末之前，运营费用主要是靠收取居民水电费的形式支付，而大部分用于新修水库、输水管道、污水处理厂的投资费用由联邦政府拨款支付。联邦资金的减少，加上运营成本的增加，意味着若要维持现状，水费上涨的速度必须超过通货膨胀速度。

(Last two paragraphs of Chapter 9)

New scientific research is also showing that our sewage treatment plants might not be doing a good enough job. As discussed in Chapter 8, newly discovered chemical contaminations in sewage can cause endocrine disruption and other undesirable outcomes in the fish and wildlife that live in effluent-dominated waters. Because sewage treatment plants were not designed to remove the trace concentrations of chemicals that cause these problems, it is possible that additional treatment processes will be needed to protect the aquatic ecosystems downstream of the sewage discharge points. Simultaneously, regulators around the country are reconsidering their approaches for managing nutrients released by wastewater treatment plants and storm sewers as they struggle to control algae blooms and oxygen depletion in sensitive habitats. For example, a lawsuit by a local environmental group in Florida resulted in the EPA setting controversial new discharge standards for nitrogen and phosphorus that are considerably more stringent than those currently in place. The new regulations are expected to require many of the state’s wastewater treatment plants to upgrade to state-of-the-art nutrient removal systems and the managers of storm sewers to invest in measures to remove nutrients from urban runoff. The EPA estimates that the cost will be between three to six dollars a month for a typical family, while industry groups claim it will cost the state’s utilities about $21 billion to come into compliance.⁴⁷

新的科学研究也表明，现在的污水处理厂可能还不够完善。正如第八章中所讨论的，污水中新发现的化学污染物，可能导致生活在以污水为主导的水体中的鱼类和其他野生动物的内分泌失调，以及其他不良结果。由于污水处理厂原先并没有设计来去除引起这些问题的微量浓度的化学物质，所以可能需要额外的处理工艺来保护污水排放口下游的水生生态系统。同时，美国各地的监管机构正在重新考虑用于管理污水处理厂和雨水下水道排出的营养物质的方法，因为他们很难控制敏感栖息地的水华和耗氧问题。例如，佛罗里达州的地方环保组织的诉讼案，导致美国环境保护署设定了有争议的氮、磷排放新标准，这些排放标准比目前正在实施的更为严格。新规定将要求各个州的许多污水处理厂升级到最先进的脱氮除磷处理系统，并要求雨水下水道的管理者采取措施去除城市径流中的营养物质。据美国环境保护署估计，一个普通家庭每月的水费将增加３～６美元。然而工业行业协会声称，为了履行法律的相关规定，佛罗里达州的水务部门将花费约２１０亿美元^［４７］。

As we have seen, modern water systems are being pushed to the edge by costs associated with personnel, pipes, energy, and pollution, and it seems almost certain that all or most of these pressure will continue. We can be sure, then, that our water bills will continue to increase for the next few decades. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), consumers in most developed countries already pay about twice as much as the average American for drinking water and sewer service.⁴⁸ Given the current rates at which water utility bills are increasing, it seems likely that in about 15 years our bills will reach the current levels paid in our OECD peer countries—and there is no reason to think that they will stop there. But the knowledge that a more expensive future is coming can also be the wakeup call we need to not just patch over our aging water infrastructure, but the reinvent urban water systems in a way that ensures that they provide a morereliable source of water that will simultaneously protect our health and the environment.

正如已经看到的那样，现代水系统已被各种与人员、管道、能源和污染相关的费用逼到了绝境，并且几乎可以肯定，这些费用带来的压力，其中的全部或大部分仍将继续。那么可以肯定，在接下来的几十年里，水费还将继续增加。经济合作与发展组织（ＯＥＣＤ）认为，大多数发达国家的消费者已经支付了约两倍于美国饮用水和下水道的平均服务费用^［４８］。鉴于目前的增长速度，水费标准很可能在１５年后达到ＯＥＣＤ其他发达国家目前的支付水平，而且，没有理由认为水费在那以后不会再增长。但是对于这个即将到来的、更加昂贵的水未来的认识，可以作为警示提醒我们，我们需要的不只是对老化的水利基础设施的修修补补，而是重塑城市水系统———一种能提供更可靠水源，并能同时保护我们健康和环境的新型水系统。

ps. I typed up the English myself, so errors are possible.

水４．０：饮用水的过去、现在与未来

［美］戴维·塞德拉克　著

徐向荣　等译    虞左俊　校

上海科学技术出版社

出版时间：2015.08

ISBN：978-7-5478-2729-1

定价：38元

Water 4.0: The Past, Present, and Future of the World's Most Vital Resource

Paperback：March 31, 2015

by David Sedlak (Author)