HYDROTHINK
Apparently the Budget Numbers Were Fixed
William J. Stone, MEM-2164
wstone04@gmail.com
The anticipated expenditures in an annual project budget must be realistic in view of the funds available. Managers deplore overruns. In fact, it goes beyond that. They are ever watchful for ways to reduce costs, thereby freeing up moneys for other uses.
I once worked at a mine where a wide range of hydro- logic phenomena were covered by the monitoring plan. This effort included monitoring stream flow, sampling springs, monitoring water level and ground-water quality in wells. These monitoring tasks were shared with the U.S. Geological Survey. Their services were paid for by a fund-matching arrangement. That is, the cost was split equally between the mine and the survey.
Our portion of the annual cost always seemed high. One day the head of the hydrology department asked me if we couldn’t reduce it by eliminating some of the monitoring sites and analyses. We had completed a few seasons of monitoring by then and the results might show areas of redundancy.
I reviewed possible areas of unnecessary duplication and was able to recommend cutting back on a number of monitor- ing sites and activities. For example, I reduced the surface- water monitoring costs by converting to non-recording or crest gages on ephemeral streams, I reduced the number and location of springs sampled, I eliminated some of the wells that were close together or otherwise in non-unique positions and I trimmed the number of analytes in ground water, now that background values had been established.
This cut our annual cost to about half of what it had been. The boss approved and gave me the nod to present that cut to the U.S.G.S. The Survey agreed that by now we knew more and could indeed cut the things I’d suggested. However, they had been reviewing the monitoring program as well and decided a number of things should be added.
Guess what? That brought the cost back up to exactly the original value. Apparently they had to have that amount to cover operations in their District. The figures in the budget were fixed. I know now why my counterpart at an adjacent mine laughed and shook his head when I told him how I’d cut our cost of U.S.G.S. services in half. TIP: Don’t argue with federal budgets. Finances often trump science.
Dr. Stone has more than 30 years of experience in hydro- science and is the author of numerous professional papers as well as the book, Hydrogeology in Practice – a Guide to Characterizing Ground-Water Systems (Prentice Hall). Feel free to argue or agree with him by email: wstone04@gmail. com.
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