Job 1

Several years ago, one of the auto companies – Ford, I think it was – advertised that “Quality is Job 1.” If my memory serves me correctly, some of the television ads punctuated the statement with a loud sound as the word “Quality” was stamped onto a car or truck. It was an effective slogan.

Any number of organizations promote workplace safety with the theme “Safety is Job 1.” Maybe you have one or two such posters adorning the walls of your wastewater treatment plant.

Which brings me to ask; “As wastewater superintendent, what is your highest priority?” What is “Job 1” at the treatment plant?

Most of us, I’m betting, believe it to be permit compliance. Or, more generically, environmental protection.

At the risk of getting my workplace TP’d*, I disagree. Environmental protection is a critical component of what we do, but I respectfully submit that serving the needs of our community is our highest priority. Environmental protection is a component of community service; a very important component to be sure. But, the highest priority, I submit, is providing wastewater service so that the community can prosper: to effectively and efficiently meet the community’s need for wastewater collection, treatment, and disposal services.

The difference is important.

If environmental protection is job 1, then there is no limit on cost. Our job would be to spend as much money as necessary to make the environment better. And, better. And, better.

If community service is job 1, then it becomes our job to protect the environment at the least possible cost. That is, to optimize. And, compromise. (Compromise, for the record, is not one of my strong suits.)

I’m in the profit business. I pay my bills using money my company makes by assisting municipal wastewater superintendents protect the environment in the most cost effective way. I believe, perhaps naively, that making clean water affordable means that more water will be clean. Which, in turn, means that providing community service is more environmentally sustainable. But… maybe I am just coming up with justifications for what I do.

Regardless. I’ll keep promoting the notion that the most effective wastewater treatment plant operators are those that “tinker” with their facilities in order to produce the highest quality effluent at the least possible cost. To those that do, here’s hat’s off to you.

Thanks for reading.

*Explanation. TP’ing, for those of you who didn’t grow up in the Midwest in the ‘60s, is the practice of looping rolls of toilet paper into trees. A high impact, but otherwise harmless, prank.

Grant