Manny Teodoro’s area of expertise can be boiled down to the difference between a hydrated, well-functioning society, and a brutal, post-apocalyptic wasteland where scorching deserts stretch endlessly, rusted remnants of civilization litter the landscape, and lawless marauders clad in scavenged armor battle for dwindling resources amid a backdrop of anarchy, dust storms, and relentless survival.
Alright, that last bit may have drawn inspiration from Mad Max, but you can see the point. At the forefront of preventing the demise of society stands Manny Teodoro, professor of public affairs at UW–Madison, along with the thousands of water and sewer workers that keep our cities alive.
Let’s start with the basics: who are you and what do you do?
I’m Manny Teodoro, and I’m a professor at the La Follette School of Public Affairs [and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies] at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. What do I do? I study, teach, and offer expertise on environmental policy and public management in the United States. Much of my research focuses on water, sewer, and stormwater infrastructure and governments.
What first sparked your interest in environmental policy and public affairs?
I kind of ended up focused on this stuff by accident. I studied political science and economics as an undergraduate, and then I got a master of public administration (MPA). When I finished my degrees, I ended up working for a consulting firm that did economic analysis where virtually all of my clients were governments in the western United States. We worked with them on financing and water, sewer, and stormwater infrastructure. I knew nothing about these topics, but I had learned a little bit of regulatory economics when I was in graduate school, and I found it really fascinating.
I ended up going back to earn my PhD and become a professor, and I kept one foot in the water sector. As somebody who’s interested in management, public policy, and governance, this is a subject that is endlessly fascinating and offers all kinds of empirical fodder. Because in the end, what do we all need? Drinking water. We need water to drink, and we need to treat wastewater. The end goals that we’re trying to achieve are the same everywhere, but we have all this variety in the environmental, governmental, and social world.
What’s one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned?
Follow the data and be willing to be wrong. The thing that separates a scientist from a pseudo-scientist is whether you’re willing to be wrong. One of the things that’s very difficult in the study and the pursuit of public policy is that people bring deep and passionate beliefs into the study, and that’s tough psychologically because sometimes the data doesn’t align with your expectations. It takes tremendous self-knowledge and self-discipline to be willing to be wrong. That’s tough. People don’t like to feel wrong, but the advice I give to students is that that’s the value we offer to the world as scholars of public policy, that we do follow the evidence. We let the evidence tell us what the policy should be.
What does the U.S. need to do to better serve its public related to water policy?
In the United States, I think the single biggest thing we need to do is consolidate the water sector. By that, I mean we need to have way fewer water utilities. Right now, there are about 40–50,000 community water systems in the United States. That’s just way too many. The vast majority of those utilities lack the financial, technical, and organizational capacity to operate modern water and wastewater treatment systems. We’re facing all kinds of new challenges every day, and it’s a technically complex field. A lot of those utilities just cannot keep up, and we’re leaving our small communities behind. Ideally, we should consolidate the smaller water utilities which would make water more affordable and higher quality. Wastewater treatment plants would also have better, more equitable, environmental outcomes.
What does the public get wrong about water policy?
Water systems are the bedrocks of civilization. Potable drinking water and sanitary sewer systems are the definition of human development. These humble, ubiquitous pipes beneath our streets keep us alive every single day. I wish people would think about these systems more and the [people] who make them work. If you live in the United States, a water utility is the last thing you think about until it’s the only thing you think about. When you have a water main break, you turn on that faucet, and nothing comes out. Suddenly, that’s your whole life. These systems are critical, and we ought to care about them because they keep us alive. Nothing happens without them. We don’t have an economy without them. We don’t have a civilization without them.
Do you have a favorite water bottle brand? Stanley®? Owala®? Hydro Flask®?
I think my favorite would be whatever branded steel water bottle they give out for free at an event. I’m tough on my water bottles, so they take a lot of abuse. That’s why I prefer steel. The one that I have is so well loved that the label is pretty much gone and it’s all dented and scratched. To me, it’s a positive development that there’s such a thing as a “fashion brand” of water bottle because it shows that people are using reusable water bottles instead of plastic water bottles.
Give us some insight on your upcoming Earth Fest event about PFAS policy.
Last year, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the first ever maximum contaminant limits for PFAS under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The Safe Drinking Water Act is the main regulation we have for tap water quality in the United States. The PFAS rule the EPA set is one of the most aggressive national regulations in drinking water. It’s a very, very, very low contaminant threshold.
As someone who studies public policy, what I think about is the implementation challenges that are going to come with meeting that standard. There are a hundred different contaminants that the EPA and the states regulate under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The good news is most drinking water has no PFAS. That’s really good, despite lots of clickbait-y headlines you’re going to see out there on the interwebs. It is not a very widespread problem. The bad news is where it is a problem, it tends to be really, really bad. There are also other sources of PFAS in the environment and in consumer products that are far worse than drinking water. Unless you happen to live in a PFAS hotspot, you’re far more likely to be exposed to PFAS from food packaging or cosmetics.