Many organizations are unprepared to solve their "year 2000" problems on time.

KELLYN S. BETTS

     EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response is preparing for the possibility that not everybody in the private sector will be Y2K-ready ("Y" stands for year, and 2K represents 2000 in computer jargon) and that there may be multiple chemical releases, said Jeffrey Heimerman, director of technical user support in the EPA's Office of Technology Innovation. EPA officials anticipate that their ability to respond to Y2K environmental problems could be hindered by failures within other societal infrastructures, such as electricity, communication, and transportation. Difficulties stem from the computer industry's historical use of two-digit dates, making the year 2000 a problematic "00."

     Last August, the agency became actively involved in a government-wide initiative spearheaded by the Clinton administration to address potential problems that the nation could face on January 1, 2000. By December 1998, the agency had contributed assessments of the water and waste treatment, chemical, and pollution control industries as part of the President's Council on the Year 2000 report discussing the Y2K readiness of 25 industrial sectors.

     There is also widespread concern outside the United States that the millennial New Year could ring in environmental havoc. Although nearly all of the 29 countries that belong to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have begun to address Y2K problems, an OECD report released in October 1998 indicated that no country had gone further than halfway in its preparations (1). OECD noted that problems occurring within any one country are likely to produce effects elsewhere.

     By the end of last year, however, computer experts were already saying that it was too late to start tackling Y2K problems. In November, Gary Leake, formerly a principal engineer at Westin Engineering, Seattle, Wash., commented, "The world recognizes that if you're not almost done by now, you can't begin a [Y2K-repairing] program, finish it, test it, and have absolute faith that you are not going to have any downtime."

     Leake recently formed his own independent consulting firm to deal with technical issues, including the Y2K problem. "There isn't going to be a magic answer. There isn't a lot in writing. You can't wait for Microsoft, or Compaq, or some computer company to come fix it for you. [Organizations] have to be proactive in figuring out where they have the problem. Though there are common threads, each problem is going to be a little unique," he said.

Not enough time
Drinking water and wastewater treatment facilities got a late start confronting year 2000 problems, said Richard Haugh, manager of automation services for Carollo Engineers of Sacramento, Calif. As late as last summer, there had been very little discussion of the issue, he said. Al Warburton, legislative affairs director at the Washington, D.C.-based American Water Works Association (AWWA) disagreed, claiming that his organization has been doggedly trying to get the word out since January 1998--timing that Leake characterized as late. Warburton admitted, however, that water utilities are not as receptive as would be ideal and may not be considering the problem fully enough. People at the AWWA suspect that utilities haven't devoted enough time to investigating whether the computerized equipment that controls plant operations will work properly, he said.

     "Even the U.S. government has been lagging way behind," Leake said, characterizing it as more reactive than proactive. Congress began holding hearings last summer to determine the potential scope of the Y2K problem. The hearings ultimately led to the passage last October of the Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act, which is intended to provide impetus for organizations to share information about their successes--and failures--in sleuthing out problems related to the interchange of computer date-sensitive data.

     Although he believes that the Y2K act inspires corporate information sharing, Leake said he was not aware of much data sharing among the drinking water, wastewater, natural gas, or oil utilities since the act was passed. "My clients don't see that the law really helped them a bit. Nobody wants to share bad news, and nobody wants to claim that they have no bad news because they fear they could be taken to court if they make such a claim. The worse the news is, the closer they're holding their cards to their chest," he said

     There have already been lawsuits associated with the Y2K problem. "Lawyers are lined up for class action lawsuits against the directors and officers of public utilities," Leake said. "They're as thick as flies on roadkill." This is hampering the interchange of information, Rick Cowles, an engineer who consults for the electric power industry, noted. In an attempt to mitigate the legal fears of those who must cope with potential Y2K problems, in December of last year, EPA promised to waive 100% of the civil penalties that might apply and to recommend against criminal prosecution for environmental violations caused when tests for identifying and eliminating Y2K-related malfunctions are run (2).

Embedded risk
Any piece of equipment that relies on or interacts with computer systems could have problems, according to Leake. This includes HVAC, power, security, telephones and PBXs, satellites, elevators, PCs and mainframe units, as well as environmental, inventory, and process-control systems. In wastewater treatment plants, for example, computerized, packaged units tell pumps how to move sewage toward treatment plants, and embedded electronic chips trigger water-sampling monitors to test the next batch. Both could be affected by Y2K failures, Leake said.

     Although none of the equipment containing these packaged units and embedded electronic chips looks much like a computer, the information that this equipment provides the computers in a utility or chemical-manufacturing control room is necessary for the system to function. If everything is not following the same calendar, "you may not be able to get major portions of your plant to work," Leake said.

     The risk of any facility having Y2K problems is directly proportional to its level of automation, Leake said. In the water utility community, the mid-sized entities are at the largest risk, he said. Although utilities of this size--which he defines as serving a community of 50,000-200,000 people--have automated equipment, they "don't have enough engineers to fix problems, or even staff to go out and operate things manually if they don't work," he said. Because they tend to have the lowest level of automation, Leake contends that small utilities are likely to have a lower risk of problems.

Power supply problems
The millennial New Year could also ring in power shortages that compound other Y2K emergencies. "My biggest concern is the smaller rural electrical cooperatives and municipal power agencies," said Cowles. The larger investor-owned utilities, which control 75% of the nation's electrical power supply, are largely on top of Y2K problems, he said. However, Cowles explained, most smaller power providers serve as an arm of the local government. Consequently, in terms of assessing Y2K problems posed by their use of computers and other electronic process-control systems, they are typically very constrained by budgets and resources, he noted.

     The primary concern of the electric utilities is the performance of automated controls used in association with relays, substations, and energy management systems, which regulate the nationwide flow of electricity to consumers. In testing its energy management system, the Hawaiian Electric Company of Honolulu, Hawaii, found that its Y2K problems could have resulted in the loss of all generating capacity--and a major power outage--when the date rolled over to January 1, 2000 (3). Utility officials reported that the problem has since been repaired.

     The biggest challenge associated with testing is that every company's and utility's use of technology tends to be unique. Water systems are usually cobbled together using parts from different vendors, for example. This compounds the challenge of sleuthing out problems, Leake said. Even if two interconnected parts are year 2000-compliant, "you still need to check the interface between them to make sure it works," he said. Hundreds of operating subunits are automated in a typical medium-sized utility, he explained. The way that any pump in the system is interlinked to other components is likely to be completely different. "It is like a chain where the weakest link is the one that's going to kill you," he commented.

Information outreach efforts
At the close of last year, officials at EPA's Office of Technology Innovation were still trying to assess Y2K issues that could affect pollution control equipment, according to Heimerman. Agency outreach is targeting groundwater pump-and-treat operators and facilities with continuous monitoring equipment. As with most of EPA's information transfer efforts, this one is mainly being waged through industry associations. But said Heimerman, "Trying to pull information from these associations is like extracting teeth. We don't have any real authority to demand it."

     The agency is also targeting outreach campaigns to manufacturers of chemicals, pulp and paper, and metals, said Don Flattery, a team member of EPA's Y2K project. As is the case with utilities, it is the small- and medium-sized chemical companies that are of biggest concern. Over half of the nation's 11,700 chemical manufacturers employ fewer than 10 workers. Flattery is not confident that they are all aware of potential problems. "Our first attempts [to conduct a survey of Y2K readiness] in the chemical industry were not successful," he said. Last November, the only planned survey was of the Washington, D.C.-based Chemical Manufacturers Association's 190 member organizations, most of whom are large companies.

     Certainly, in the federal government, there's no lack of awareness, Flattery admitted. He also believes that most of the big companies in the nation's major industries are aware of the problem. The banking, chemical, and electrical utility industries have been working on Y2K for quite a while, he stressed.

     "People are moving down a continuum," he explained. After becoming aware that they could have a problem, organizations must assess their vulnerability, implement any corrective fixes that are apparent, and then test the repaired computer systems, he said. At this point in time, however, "if people are still in the awareness phase, they're behind--they might as well move right to contingency planning," he said.

     Of course, it is all a matter of speculation. Only so much can be inferred from present events about what will actually happen on January 1, 2000. "The ground is shifting beneath our feet," as Flattery puts it. Even so, "the Armageddon-like-asteroid-is-ready-to-hit-earth camp out there has a right to be stimulated if people profess a lack of awareness at this point," Flattery claims. By the time this article is published in March, he said, "everybody should be in the contingency planning mode."

References

(1) The Year 2000 Problem: Impacts and Actions; Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development: Paris, France, http://www.oecd.org/subject/e_commerce/y2k.htm (accessed December 1998).

(2)  EPA's Y2K Enforcement Policy; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Washington, DC, http://www.epa.gov/year2000/finalpol.htm (accessed December 1998).

(3)  Cowles, R. Electric Utilities and the Year 2000, http://www.euy2k.com/reallife.htm (accessed December 1998).

Kellyn S. Betts is an associate editor of ES&T.