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and Midwestern US and Ontario, Canada, lost electric power, but some of the most dam-
aging effects came when water treatment plants and pumping stations were shut down,
just as in San Diego. Areas throughout the region lost water pressure causing potential
contamination of city water supplies. In Cleveland and Detroit, the water supply was
severely diminished and contaminated because of inadequate emergency and back up
power generators. Cleveland, Ohio; Kingston, Ontario and NewYork experienced major
sewage spills into waterways. Cleveland, Ohio and Detroit, Michigan issued boil water
orders affecting approximately 8 million people.
While some Northeast waste treatment plants overcame the loss of electricity and
stayed in operation during the extended power outage, other areas were not as fortu-
nate, as where power was lost at every water pumping station and treatment plant.
Within hours of the blackout, water pressure in Cleveland had diminished and over one
million customers were left without access to water. At the downtown pumping station,
which is below sea level, water pressure remained for some time. However, treatment
plants were still in the process of switching over to backup power, and they could not
treat the water supply that was available. Three major wastewater treatment plants in
Cleveland discharged millions of gallons of sewage into the Cuyahoga River and Lake
Erie, polluting the beaches and causing serious environmental damage. While New
York's gravity-fed drinking water system fared well, the wastewater treatment system
spilled nearly half a billion gallons of untreated effluent into New York Harbor over two
days because pumps were offline.
Although many cities believe they have adequate backup power in the case that one
or two of the treatment plants and/or pumping stations are down by pulling power from
separated substation and not investing in on-site power, they are usually unprepared
for large-scale blackouts that cut off the whole city's power supply. Adapting to these
more frequent events for treatment plants and pumping stations could include either
powerful backup generators or on-site power generation with no reliance on the local
electric grid. To be successful in a large-scale blackout, the generators must be capable of
running entire stations, at least at partial load. In Cleveland and Detroit, most pumping
stations did not have enough power to operate their pumps, and treatment plants took
up to 15 hours to fully restore their power.
C. Emerging Contexts For Infrastructure And Urban System
Implications Of Climate Change
As climate change emerges as an impact and response issue for infrastructure and
urban systems, such issues are inevitably intertwined with other driving forces for
change (IPCC, 2007). Cataloguing all of the changes that might be factors, and especially
their interactions with each other and with climate change, is beyond the scope of this
report; but especially important contexts include the following:
1) SOCIOECONOMIC AND LAND USE TRENDS
The U.S. Census Bureau and other sources project that the total U.S. population will
grow from about 310 million in 2010 to more than 400 million in 2050, with most of the
growth between now and 2030 being in the U.S. West and South, both of which will
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