The Engagement Matters Podcast
Season 1, Episode 6
George Nikokiris, a GIS Specialist with Abonmarche Consultants, shares how his team is collaborating with communities large and small across northern Indiana to map their water supply lines to root out lead.
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Background
Lead was originally used in water systems as far back as in Ancient Roman times. The metal was resistant to corrosion and was easy to work with. But there’s a problem: lead – in any amount – is highly toxic to humans and other animals. In the United States, lead in pipes was banned in 1986. There are now large-scale efforts to replace lead pipes, but this work can only begin once communities know where these pipes are. George Nikokiris and his team with Abonmarche Consultants are one of the firms that communities in northern Indiana and southwestern Michigan are enlisting to help with these efforts.
Collaborating with local leaders and digging through historical records
Residential water supply lines aren’t something that most of us think about on a regular basis. They’re installed and buried when our home or neighborhood was originally built, and they quietly go about their duty of delivering water to our homes day after day. With a lifespan that typically ranges from 75 to 100 years, they usually only get replaced for one of two reasons: damage or failure. In these cases, you’re likely to notice the problem when your water meter starts spinning like crazy or when you suddenly have a water fountain in your front yard.
For some unlucky residents in older parts of the US, there’s another reason that their water line might need to be replaced: lead. The trouble with lead water lines – besides the obvious health hazard that they pose – is that they were installed decades ago and any records that might have existed are often long gone. This means most communities struggle to know where their lead lines are or even how many homes are serviced by lead lines. You can’t start replacing things if you don’t know where they are. That’s where George’s team comes in.
When George and his team are asked to help communities build a clear picture of where the lead lines are, they start by collaborating with local leaders. The goal is to discover where the lead lines are which means building a complete inventory of all water supply lines in a community. One of the first questions that his team asks local officials is “what kind of information do you already have?” George collaborates with records managers, water superintendents, Public Works staff, GIS staff, really anyone in a community that might already have some information. Historical records like as-built drawings, plats, and maps are located, scanned, and digitized into a central GIS. Anything that is digital like CAD files or – even more rare – GIS layers, is also combined into a single GIS dataset. This foundational work of collecting and extracting knowledge with the help of the town’s staff creates a starting point from which work starts to happen in the field.
Building a Hub to share information and progress
The next phase of George’s work is to build an ArcGIS Hub site to help communicate with residents. The Hub site acts as both “a repository for GIS data and also to explain the goals of the program” that is in place in each community. The process starts by educating the community. Shortened and simplified descriptions of the state and federal laws mandating the work help explain why the work is happening. These same descriptions also talk about timelines and when the inventory is supposed to be completed. There are even illustrations of what a water service line looks like from the main line in the street to a home. Links to the programs and to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website that talk about the risks of lead are also included to give users a direct path to more information. All of these different pieces of information align to give residents a full picture of the program and its goals.
George’s group goes a step further in engaging the public by also creating door hangers, flyers, mailers and inserts for utility bills tailored to each community. These paper information products are designed to mimic each community’s unique branding, logos, and color palettes to communicate a sense of authority (and not get mixed in with junk mail). Wording, graphics, and even language are also tailored to the community to reflect the different demographic, socioeconomic and cultural uniqueness. A QR code is also included on each piece of paper to help drive residents back to the Hub site so that they can get more information or even get involved in the process.
Enlisting the community’s help
Perhaps one of the most important ways that George’s team helps communities engage residents is by building a digital form in ArcGIS Survey123. This survey guides residents through the process of inspecting their own water service line and sending information back to the local leaders – directly into the GIS inventory – in less than 5 minutes of work.
The survey has four distinct steps:
- Introduction: Reminds the user what the purpose of the inventory is and what to expect in the survey.
- Contact Information: Asks the user for their name, address, phone, and email (but only address is required). Also asks for the year or range of years when the home was built.
- Determine Service Line Material: Gives the user clear instructions on what a water line typically looks like in their area along with tips on common ways to test the line (scratch it, try putting a magnet on it, etc.).
- Share Findings: Shows the users pictures of what different pipes look like and how they react to scratch and magnet tests. Then asks the user what kind of material they think the pipe is made of and to share a photo.
This simple survey helps the community speed up George’s team’s work of building the water service line inventory, but – almost more importantly – it gives residents a sense of ownership and control in the process. Rather than waiting for officials to inspect their water service line, residents have the information and tools at their disposal to do their own assessment and get a definitive answer faster. Across 16 communities and counting, George points out that “the survey has been really well received” and acts as a force multiplier for the teams in the field. By including photos of the water lines with the other information captured in the survey, the quality of data is supported.
Ultimately, the goal of doing all of this outreach and engagement with communities is to get really accurate data that helps state and federal officials allocate resources for lead line replacement faster and more equitably.
Learn More or Get Involved
To learn more about the work that George and Abonmarche are doing, check out their website at: abonmarche.com
If you are interested in learning more about ArcGIS Hub – a no-code solution from Esri for creating websites (“sites”) that support stakeholder collaboration and engagement – you can follow this podcast series, read these blog articles, view examples from the ArcGIS Hub community in the Hub Gallery, or watch these instructional videos.
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