Stormwater Runoff Fees Omitted on 20,000 Detroit Properties

Over 20,000 parcels that contribute stormwater runoff but aren’t being charged will be added to DWSD’s billing system this October.

***  SUMMARY  ***

Every year, billions of gallons of contaminated stormwater runoff and snowmelt pour off roofs, sidewalks, parking lots and other impervious surfaces into Detroit’s combined sewer system, then perhaps to a retention-treatment basin (RTB) and eventually to the wastewater treatment plant. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD), Detroit’s retail water agency for the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA), says this runoff costs more than $125 million annually.

Federal and state regulators required DWSD to spend more than $1 billion in combined sewer overflow storage facilities (RTBs) to reduce polluted overflows into natural waterways like the Detroit River. The drainage charge to property owners offsets this investment and the drainage treatment costs.

Most DWSD customers have been paying for drainage as part of their water and sewer bills. The City Assessor’s Office and DWSD are working to ensure that all parcels are billed for their share of drainage costs.

DWSD intends to begin a green infrastructure credit program in October. Customers who reduce runoff can earn credits to be applied to their bill. Fair, accurate billing and green infrastructure practices will benefit the city and its residents.

DWSD provides a  Parcel Viewer  on which to search for parcel information by address. Impervious surface area is used to calculate drainage charges. DWSD says it has data from the City Assessor's Office and flyover images to determine impervious surfaces. Property owners who disagree with the data can complete a drainage survey form.

Over 20,000 parcels that contribute stormwater runoff but aren’t being charged will be added to DWSD’s billing system this October. Customers who need to update parcel information or ask questions should contact DWSD.  A Customer Steering Committee meeting has been scheduled for July 14, 2016.

http://www.detroitmi.gov/drainage

Free Press Resurrects DWSD Against KWA

Detroit Free Press - Have you been off on another planet the last five years? No, more likely you’re playing word games with an ulterior motive.

In today’s (6-12-16) Free Press (“Official: Flint will 'lose everything’…“) you wrote:

“While those punishing terms appear to make a Flint default unlikely, whether Flint hooks up with the new KWA pipeline to Lake Huron or opts to continue receiving treated Lake Huron water from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, as it does now, remains a live issue.” (Emphasis added.)  

As you know very well, Flint presently gets water from the regional successor to DWSD, the Great Lakes Water Authority. Your misstatement lingers until a correction at the bottom of the piece, which many readers won’t reach.

I suspect the Free Press is surreptitiously advancing the idea that an abused, downtrodden Flint should make common cause with an abused, downtrodden Detroit in part by resurrecting the DWSD brand, as if oblivious to GLWA and its Detroit retailer, DWSD-R.

I agree that an urban alliance against everything Republican, from Snyder to out-county Genesee, might be useful, but the means you’re employing could do more harm to Flint than to Republicans.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2016/06/11/official-flint-lose-everything-if-leaves-kwa/85662110/

Notes from Macomb County, KWA, GLWA

Macomb -- U.S. Representative Candice Miller, who is leaving Congress, has announced that she will run for election as Macomb County (Michigan) public works commissioner.

Karegnondi Water Authority pipe installation

“The upcoming campaign, between Miller and longtime Democratic incumbent Anthony Marrocco, a powerful force in Macomb County politics, shapes up as one of the oddest, most intriguing 2016 races in Michigan,” wrote Chad Selweski this week in Bridge Magazine.

“The public works commissioner oversees sewer systems, drain construction and maintenance, soil erosion and pollution controls, and anti-flooding measures. Whoever holds this office has the power to halt, or approve, residential subdivision planning and layout.”

“Annual overflows at the sewer facilities fluctuate with summertime precipitation, but during Marrocco’s 24-year tenure they have remained mostly at or above 200 million gallons of human waste discharged each year, including a recent summer, in 2011, in which 1.7 billion gallons were dumped into [Lake St. Clair].”

http://bridgemi.com/2016/05/why-on-earth-is-candice-miller-running-for-county-drain-commissioner/

KWA -- Genesee County Drain Commissioner Jeff Wright says the Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA) has completed about 95% of the 80 mile fresh water pipeline from Lake Huron to Genesee County on schedule and under budget. Completion is expected in a few weeks.

Genesee County has been paying nearly 12% of the Detroit water authority’s total budget, although the county represents less than 2% of the total population served via Detroit.

A related but separate project, a county water treatment plant, is expected to be completed in a year.

Bill Petzold wrote about the KWA project in the Burton View on May 5, 2016:

http://burtonview.mihomepaper.com/news/2016-05-05/News/Karegnondi_project_on_schedule_under_budget.html

GLWA -- The Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA), which provides potable water, wastewater and stormwater services in the Detroit metropolitan area, announced recently that Freman Hendrix has been appointed to the GLWA board, the City of Detroit’s second representative, joining Gary Brown. Hendrix had been former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer’s chief of staff and deputy mayor. Hendrix succeeds Ike McKinnon, who retired.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2016/05/04/freman-hendrix-named-regional-water-authority-board/83940252/

MDEQ Says GLWA Layoffs Violated Agreement

Excerpts from an Oakland Press article by Ronald Seigel, 4-1-16:

voiceofdetroit.net

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality sent a notice March 9 to both the Detroit Water and Sewage Department and the newly formed Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) serving the suburbs, that employee layoffs made in the Detroit Water System last October violated state environmental laws and a consent agreement made several years ago. [Emphasis added.]

 The State MDEQ stated these layoffs violated an administrative consent order between that state agency, and the Detroit Water and Sewage Department and agreed to by the newly formed GLWA, which took charge of suburban water at the start this year. MDEQ stated the agreement required at least 95 percent of the minimum staffing level of the MDEQ’s approved staffing plan “on an average annual basis,” but after the layoffs the staffing level went down to 85 percent.

[GLWA Director Susan] McCormick stated that many or most of the functions of the laid off employees will be replaced by new hires and internal transfers.

GLWA Counsel William Wolfson said because the consent agreement requiring GLWA to have 95 percent of the minimum staffing level specified, that this would be done on an “annual average basis.”

http://www.theoaklandpress.com/general-news/20160401/state-concerned-about-threats-to-water-and-sewage-safety-in-detroit-and-suburbs

Do MDEQ’s sudden concerns about staffing at GLWA and the obvious bearing staffing has on public health and safety reflect a new vigilance at MDEQ? If so, we can expect a lot more actions like this one.

Consider the past inattention to Michigan’s numerous impaired waters, in addition to the glacial pace of restoring Michigan’s toxic Areas of Concern, not to mention the disgraceful pollution caused by turning a blind eye to the discharged manure of hundreds of thousands of animals in Michigan’s industrial-scale livestock feeding operations.

Or does laissez faire continue to reign supreme in those arenas? Time will tell.

GLWA Takes the Reins

As of the first of the year, the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) now manages water and sewer service for most of metropolitan Detroit. It succeeds the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department (DWSD), which becomes a wholesale service purchaser from GLWA and retail distributor exclusively to the city itself, designated DWSD-R (R for Retail).

GLWA and DWSD Accountability

The Great Lakes Water Authority and its largest wholesale customer, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, presently are accountable only to a federal judge. But they need to be fully accountable to their ratepayers and the general public.

First, the GLWA and DWSD boards should be taking steps to facilitate the transition from disclosure of records pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to Open Government or Open Data, whereby the government and parties acting on its behalf make public information (with very few exceptions) available proactively and put that information within reach of the public (online), without barriers for its reuse and consumption.

http://sunlightfoundation.com/opendataguidelines/

Second, the boards’ various constituencies (the other wholesale customer groups, for example) ought to be challenging the U.S. District Court gag order that prevents public disclosure of ongoing negotiations between GLWA and DWSD and, generally, any information even remotely related to those negotiations.

Last but certainly not least, citizens, the media, communities and their wholesale organizations should demand that the Michigan Legislature provide for the democratic election of GLWA board members.

Neither social media nor traditional mass media have done much to engage the public in these issues.  One can only wonder why.

Water Efficiency in Detroit

Wouldn’t it be beneficial for everyone if the Great Lakes Water Authority could pull the City of Detroit into water efficiency, as that term is used to describe policies being implemented in other cities, Atlanta for example?

Think of “water efficiency” as meaning best water practices or cost effective water or affordable water.

The problem is that Detroit, GLWA’s largest wholesale customer, may be adamant not to be influenced in any respect whatsoever by an Authority dominated by its (Detroit’s) suburban neighbors. (Could it be a matter of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face?)

Unfortunately, GLWA doesn’t appear to have the power to compel such a positive outcome as water efficiency in its wholesale customers. (As concerns efficiency, note also that GLWA inherited five operating potable water treatment plants, while it’s been known for years that the system could get by nicely with four.)

Atlanta, on the other hand, has taken significant steps toward water efficiency. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy reports:

Atlanta

Water Efficiency

The Office of Water Efficiency makes Water Saver Kits available to its water customers. Each kit contains a showerhead, faucet aerator, and toilet-leak-detection tablets. The city also offers rebates for high-efficiency toilets for residential and multifamily units. The City of Atlanta has also adopted a goal of achieving a 20% reduction in per capita citywide water consumption by 2020.

Energy Efficiency and Self-Generation

Under the Power to Change initiative, all city facilities, including the Department of Watershed Management facilities are striving to meet a 20% energy reduction by 2020. The RM Clayton wastewater treatment facility’s combined heat and power system converts waste biogas into energy which is used on-site.

Green Stormwater Infrastructure

Atlanta’s Green Infrastructure Ordinance promotes green infrastructure and runoff reduction practices and complies with the metropolitan north Georgia water planning district’s model Post-Development Stormwater Management Ordinance. The city also has an ordinance to allow and regulate rainwater harvesting to control stormwater runoffs.

Since 2009, the City of Atlanta has required the installation of water sub-meters for new and some existing multifamily and mixed-use, multi-tenant buildings.

Last Updated: December 2014 - See more at: http://database.aceee.org/city/water-services#sthash.JLZmuHxv.dpuf

Now compare ACEEE’s assessment of Detroit:

Detroit

Water Efficiency

There are currently no water efficiency goals, policies, or programs in place for the City of Detroit.

Energy Efficiency and Self-Generation

There is not currently any programs in place for energy efficiency in water operations. Detroit’s wastewater treatment plants do not have methane self-generation capacity, but the facility’s solar panels have a generating capacity of 20 kW and produce an estimated 21,500 kWh per year.

Green Stormwater Infrastructure

In 2013, the City of Detroit updated their Stormwater Management Program Plan to reduce and control wet weather discharges from its combined sewer system. This includes guidelines for educational outreach, new construction, redevelopment, and municipal operations. There are no programs, funding, or incentive structures in place to further encourage green infrastructure stormwater management in Detroit.

Last Updated: December 2014 - See more at: http://database.aceee.org/city/water-services#sthash.JLZmuHxv.dpuf

This is a challenge only Detroit’s mayor and city council can address. If they fail to meet the challenge, the whole region will pay (as usual).

                        
                                        *****  jl  *****

Profitable Green Canopy and Stormwater

Let’s expand our green canopy in the upper regions of the Clinton, Rouge and Huron watersheds. Trees generate oxygen, capture carbon and absorb water. Tree roots also guide excess surface water down into the ground.

New York City, Philadelphia and Los Angeles already have plans to plant one million trees in 10 years, mostly with tax dollars, volunteers and philanthropy. What I have in mind for southeast Michigan is a different  model.

Overlooked by many green infrastructure advocates is that some trees have commercial value other than lumber.  We could increase the canopy and simultaneously create or expand commercial fruit orchards, Christmas tree farms, sugar maple groves, nut tree groves and ornamental tree nurseries, in addition to native woodland stands.

Chestnuts are grown as a cash crop in west Michigan.  Why not here in southeast Michigan?  In California, the meatier English walnut variety is grafted to native walnut rootstock.  Why not here?   

Growing trees for profit requires lots of water, a resource California and other southwestern states are running out of.  Michigan has a water advantage, and we should make the most of it.

If 120 communities in the Great Lakes Water Authority system each committed to planting 1,000 trees per year, we’d have a million more trees - and a magnificent canopy -  in less than 10 years. And if done as I suggest, the project would eventually pay for itself twice, first in stormwater control savings and second in cash crops.

KWA Water: Less Expensive for Detroit's Northern Suburbs?

Last year, water service from the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department (DWSD) to the City of Flint was terminated in anticipation of Flint receiving tap water from the Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA), a creation of Genesee County’s drain commissioner.  KWA’s pipeline from Lake Huron was then (and still is) under construction.  The project is expected to be completed by June 2016.

During the interim, Flint has been processing water from the Flint River.  Flint residents have complained about the taste, smell and appearance of the treated river water.  There have been occasions when state inspectors have found the water to be below federal standards.  The city contends that the water is safe to drink.

(A group of residents asked a federal judge in Flint to order the city to reconnect to the Detroit water system, but this past June the judge refused.)

KWA announced last month that it had awarded a contract to begin construction of a water treatment plant near the Genesee-Lapeer border to tie into the new pipeline.

With KWA’s water system scheduled to be completed in a year or less, the prospect of a new source of water for communities in northern Oakland and Macomb counties arises.  While DWSD’s successor, the regional Great Lakes Water Authority, continues to operate more, costly water treatment plants than it needs, the possibility of less expensive water from KWA will be tempting; and due diligence requires that the potential for savings be examined.

Price Increase? Detroit's Water Scam

Detroit’s water department says it has to jack up the price of potable water because the consumer base is shrinking while the cost of producing water is mostly fixed.   

Yes, the customer population is shrinking, but the truth is that the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department (DWSD) has had too much water production capacity for years.  Ratepayers have been carrying the cost unnecessarily.

The following is quoted from the analysis of Veolia in its Peer Review Report to DWSD in December 2014 (p.14) -- note that the overcapacity issue is anticipated to fall on DWSD’s post bankruptcy successor, the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA):

5. Right-Sizing Capacity

Reduce the long-term expense of operating and maintaining capacity surplus to requirements

GLWA’s significant water production over-capacity should be right-sized in order to reduce both capital investment requirements and operations costs. The necessary analysis could be done to reach a revised capacity decision in the next 12 to 18 months and Veolia recognizes that work is already underway in this regard. It is critical, however, to increase the speed and urgency of executing this particular initiative.

Indeed, existing discussions about closing one water treatment plant have been ongoing for many years. With almost twice the capacity of water treatment required, Veolia considers it both reasonable and responsible to execute this plan unless an alternative method of utilizing the excess capacity is identified. One such option includes selling it to other communities.

It is beyond the scope of this report to calculate the net detailed savings that would result from these approaches; however, the benefits would be significant in terms of both operational and capital savings, freeing up resources for other important initiatives.

Veolia recommends expeditiously determining if there is a reasonable possibility of selling water to other communities, while at the same time evaluating which of the plants to consider shutting down.

As I wrote this past February, closing at least one of DWSD’s five water plants should be a condition precedent to finalizing a regional water deal.

http://detroitwatersewerblog.blogspot.com/2015/02/dwsd-close-one-of-your-water-plants.html

Stormwater Management: More Trees, Less Concrete

Chicago built a giant stormwater/wastewater retention tunnel as part of the city’s Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP).  It’s similar to the tunnel system recommended years ago for Detroit (which Detroit couldn’t afford).

But following storms earlier this week, Chicago’s Deep Tunnel filled to capacity and overflowed, spilling polluted stormwater into Lake Michigan.  CBS in Chicago (WBBN) reported, “ ‘All the tunnels combined, it’s 2.3 billion gallons of capacity that we maxed out,’ MWRD supervising civil engineer Ed Staudacher said.”

The lesson over and over again is that big, downstream, end-of-the-pipe processes and facilities by themselves aren’t the solution to combined storm and wastewater overflows in large metropolitan areas.

Another lesson is that concrete and steel remedies such as the retention-treatment basins (RTBs) that are being expanded in Detroit’s system cost more but aren’t as effective as well planned, region wide green infrastructure.

In New York City, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, for example, forward thinking leaders designed and are completing projects to plant a million trees each.

Trees generate oxygen, remove pollution, store carbon, save energy, improve water quality and slow stormwater runoff.

If each of the 120 upstream communities in the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) system rallied service clubs, chambers of commerce, church groups and Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops to plant with thoughtful placement 1,000 trees per community per year, we’d have a million new trees in eight or nine years.  It’s doable.

Dissension over Detroit Water Deal

Concern about secrecy and the public’s right to know caused Macomb County, a principal participant, to balk at ongoing negotiations to create a regional water services authority in southeast Michigan.

A lease of Detroit’s water and sewage treatment facilities by the new Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) was envisioned by bankruptcy officials as a source of revenue necessary to restore Detroit to solvency.

Macomb’s chief executive, Mark Hackel, objects to a gag order imposed on the talks by a bankruptcy judge during Detroit's bankruptcy proceedings.  Court authority for the secret negotiations, administered by a federal district judge as mediator, is set to expire on Sunday, June 14.  

In an editorial in the Detroit News on June 4, Nolan Finley wrote (excerpts):

[The federal mediator] has maintained a gag order on negotiations to finalize the regional water authority agreement, even though a governing board was appointed to publicly conclude its formation after a memorandum of understanding was signed a year ago…

Hackel is dead right that once that public board was in place, the private backroom dealing should have stopped and the gag order lifted.

"It's not about creating an effective water system," [Hackel] says. "It's about how they force this issue through bankruptcy and get what they need for the city of Detroit…”

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/nolan-finley/2015/06/03/finley-hackel-bucks-gag-order/28426647/

In a follow-up note published in the News on June 5, Finley added (excerpts):

Mark Hackel has been on a seven-day rampage since learning he wouldn’t be included in a private mediation session to firm up the regional water authority, which included his Oakland County counterpart, L. Brooks Patterson and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.

Detroit Federal District Judge Sean Cox [mediator] cut the Macomb county executive out of the meeting…

The mediation session may not have moved the parties closer to a deal. But it did accomplish one thing: It drove a wedge between Hackel and Patterson, who had been united in opposition to the water deal as currently proposed.

And perhaps that was the objective.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/nolan-finley/2015/06/05/ed-note-secret-talk-hackel-patterson/28496521/

On June 8 in an opinion piece in the News on the same topic, former Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr said (excerpts):

The mediation process has given all the parties a seat at the table. [Emphasis added.] It provided a forum to air differences and consider counter proposals in an open [sic] and collegial environment without concern that a proposal would be taken out of context and blasted across tomorrow's headline. Those that participated in mediation have enhanced the process to the betterment of the the systems' customers. Those that have withdrawn from it have robbed their constituents of the ability to make any agreement that much better by the value of their participation.

To those not participating in the mediation process, it may seem shrouded in secrecy and unfairly hidden from public view. However, the confidentiality imposed on this process is both common and necessary for the parties to have full and frank discussions...

Some say that mediation is gagging the public discourse. But those who hold this position may be allowing themselves to be stuck in the process instead of being participants in a solution...

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2015/06/08/orr-mediation-best-hope-water-deal/28551457/

It seems obvious to me that “all the parties” are not at the table.  I’m referring to the 120 communities throughout the region that are compelled to rely on and pay for a water and sewage system in the alteration of which they have no voice and can’t even find out what’s being discussed.

UPDATE:  On June 9, 2015, the author wrote Detroit's major newspapers, in part, 

Kevyn Orr’s rationale for secrecy confuses apples with oranges.

The typical bankruptcy case in which secrecy is invoked involves the bankrupt and creditors, i.e. claimants in the case which are commonly savvy, well represented financial institutions, not the public (here in 120 small,unrepresented communities scattered throughout seven counties), which is entitled to transparency.

Furthermore, Mr. Orr’s comments reveal the type of false assumptions that are the undoing of most federal court gag orders.

From DWSD to GLWA: Transition without Reform?

This past February, Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes extended his gag order in Detroit’s bankruptcy to cover ongoing regional water negotiations being mediated by U.S. District Judge Sean Cox.  The order reinforces the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department’s (DWSD’s) tradition of secrecy.  What kind of example does this set?  When does reform enter the picture?  How can democracy work where one federal judge after another presumes to know for a period of nearly 40 years what the citizenry wants in the way of water services?

DWSD’s history is riddled with secrecy, corruption and incompetence.  Not all of those characteristics ended with the convictions of Kwame Kilpatrick, Bobby Ferguson and Victor Mercado in federal court.

The following will serve as a review of some of the shortcomings that have plagued and, in some instances, continue to plague the department, its intended successor (the Great Lakes Water Authority or GLWA) and water services customers in southeast Michigan.  Also included are reminders of suggestions to correct some of the deficiencies.

1.  TRANSPARENCY

No matter how accurate and thorough, traditional annual audits can’t be read and understood by the public.  The means are available today to correct this shortcoming by making the details of public transactions instantly accessible. Of course, any steps taken to reveal mischief, sloth and mistakes as they happen will be resisted by some in the public arena.  Nevertheless, from New York City to South Bend, Indiana and Jackson, Michigan, the change is being made. Detroit and southeast Michigan shouldn’t be the last to adopt the new technology.

http://detroitwatersewerblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/support-revolutionary.html

2.  ABSENCE OF AUDITS

If there’s one thing worse than the typical DWSD audit, it’s no audit at all. DWSD didn’t release an annual audit report for 2013.  Ditto 2014.  What about 2015?  Your guess is as good as mine.  In the meantime, it occurs to me that the region’s news media has been conspicuous by its silence on this subject.

http://detroitwatersewerblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/dwsd-cooking-books.html

3.  FORENSIC AUDITS

Until such time as the newly available technology can be deployed at DWSD and/or GLWA, transparency could be achieved through the routine use of a formidable process known as the forensic audit.

Over the decades, millions of dollars have been spent on audits that failed to alert the public to crimes, waste, inefficiencies and incompetence within DWSD. Who knows why the auditors in Detroit failed?  A few years ago in a town in Massachusetts, however, they figured out why.  Said one of the town’s selectmen, surmising why a derelict auditor had not been forthcoming, “If you open your mouth, you’re going to get fired.” http://detroitwatersewerblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/forensic-audits-another-tool-related-to.html

4.  THE ARGUMENT FOR DISMANTLING THE DETROIT WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT

The wastewater treatment plant in Detroit is too big and unmanageable.  It is too susceptible to corruption.  Too much of its revenue is prone to be siphoned off for less than legitimate purposes. The plant’s technology is out of date. Equipment and facilities are broken down.

Detroit’s sewerage plant should be replaced by a number of smaller, modern plants with the latest technology, scattered throughout the region like the eight in Oakland County (Holly, Commerce, Milford, Walled Lake, Pontiac, South Lyon, Wixom and Lyon Twp.).

http://detroitwatersewerblog.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-plan-to-dismantle-detroits-wastewater.html

5.  DWSD’S UNJUSTIFIABLE OVERCAPACITY IN POTABLE WATER PRODUCTION

DWSD frequently cites fixed costs in water production, coupled with the decline in water customers, as causes for the escalating water rates that burden customers, especially the impoverished.  What DWSD rarely mentions is that fixed costs are high in part because the department operates five water plants, but only needs three or four.  There is no excuse for DWSD to pass on to GLWA all five of those plants or for GLWA to accept all five.

http://detroitwatersewerblog.blogspot.com/2015/02/dwsd-close-one-of-your-water-plants.html

6.  IS THE GAG ORDER CONSTITUTIONAL?

In the opinion of renowned legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, virtually all gag orders are flawed because they depend on untenable assumptions.  Look at his reasoning and consider how well it applies to Judge Rhodes’ order.  Doesn’t the public interest require transparency?  What other interest supersedes the public’s?  Why doesn't someone challenge Rhodes' gag order?

http://detroitwatersewerblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/is-glwa-gag-order-constitutional.html