Grant’s Blog

I’m not much of a shopper. Last time I’ve been inside of a mall was maybe two years ago. I can’t remember. I do, however, regularly frequent Walmarts. And, Lowes. Love ‘em both.

I also go grocery shopping. Solo. No tag team shopping for me.

Last week, as I was negotiating my way through the produce section, I could not help but notice a fellow shopper. She was covered head to toe in black cloth with only a slit for her to see through. Yup, a burkha. With her was a boy of four or five years.

I was intrigued, but not very comfortable with the situation. Afterward, I talked about it with a few people. They confided that they wouldn’t feel all that comfortable being in a store with a burkha wearer either.

I’m fine with people who dress differently. Hasidic Jewish men stand out because of their traditional hair and clothing styles. Indian women wear colorful print shawls and often have a red spot on their foreheads. Amish not only dress differently, they travel by horse and buggy and live without electricity. Some men, for religious reasons, wear turbans. I don’t know about you, but people like this don’t blend in with others in my neighborhood.

These folks believe strongly enough in something to be different. I may not share their values, but they have a right to look and live and they wish. Some – the Amish, for example – impress me. I admire their courage, commitment, and resolve. So, good for them. Good for diversity.

If you are waiting for me to make a connection to wastewater treatment, I’m not going to. There is no connection. Not to wastewater. Not this time.

Nope, it is the DISconnection that concerns me. Not “concerns,” more than that. The burkha represents the enemy: a group of people who wish you and me dead. Far from all of them want me dead, I realize. But, more than a few do. Me, I don’t wish harm to anyone – well, not anyone that prevents me and mine from living our lives. But, I don’t want to be naïve either.

When you come across someone in your neighborhood wearing a burkha, it is hard to tell yourself that everything is hunky dory.

Here are some of the thoughts that went through my head when I pushed my grocery cart around the woman in her burkha.

Cool, I’m looking at my first burkha. I wonder why she is wearing that thing here? My, what a cute boy. Maybe I should chat her up. No, Grant, she is wearing the black wrap because she wants me to know that she does NOT want to talk to me. It may be against her religion for an unaccompanied man to talk to her. Doing so could, in her mind, be a sin. Fact is, Grant, she’d prefer you to be further away from her, not closer. So, move on.

The thinking then went something like this.

Hey, this Stop & Shop is what, one mile from a nuclear submarine base? Who is her man? Where is he? Is he friend or foe? Not likely a friend. Likely, best is neutral to my existence. At worst, yipes! I wonder what would happen if she walked into a bank with that thing on?

Aye-yi-yi.

More later.

Thanks for reading.

Grant

I attended a municipal sewer authority meeting this week. It wasn’t my first. Not by a long shot. A group of civic minded volunteers authorized the spending of nearly $10 million. As these things go, it is a small project. As board members go, this group is enthused and engaged. They are working hard at what they believe best for their community.

In an effort to secure a 25% grant and 2% loan, the municipality voted to hire lawyers at a cost of $465,000. And, engineering services totaling $1.8 million. The regional health district will receive $494,000 to monitor construction.

Not counting the health district’s “force account expenditures,” the professional services overhead makes up 22% of the total project cost. Spending 22% to save 25% seems like a pretty good deal, especially since some engineering and legal work needs to be done, regardless of the funding source, does it not?

No. Not really.

But, by no means is this the “fault” of the volunteers who sit on the sewer authority. They are doing what they are supposed to do: put their faith and trust in the government agencies that exist to serve them and rely upon the professional guidance that the professionals they employ give them.

Fact is, there is not so small hidden cost that nobody told them about: the inflated cost of compliance with federal and state Clean Water funding requirements. These costs cause project costs to skyrocket. Please read on…

We don’t partake of Clean Water funds. Our clients fund our work without big government money. You’d think it would cost them more. It should. But, since the system is broken, they realize huge savings. If we can’t deliver a project for a 75% savings, we take a pass. Yes, you read correctly. We get the job done for one-fourth the cost of traditional Clean Water funded projects, or not at all. Make no mistake, our designs are not “cheap.” We are very big on instrumentation; more so than most design engineers. To save clients money, we use pre-engineered, pre-fabricated components. Mostly, we save client money by reusing existing equipment differently.

And, we get the job done a LOT faster.

The municipality mentioned above has spent a decade getting their funding application approved. For the past ten years, the pollution that the project is supposed to remove has been ongoing. Now, ten years later, and at a considerably higher cost than going it without Uncle Sugar, the municipality is finally about to get a shovel in the ground.

If you need your toilet paper holders made of brass and curbing made of granite, feel free to stand in line for some Clean Water funds. If you want a treatment plant that does an outstanding job of making clean water, faster and less expensively, go without federal and state funds.

Better, give me a call. Let me show you what we can do.

Thanks for reading.

Grant