by Burney Simpson
The Y2K "bug" may or may not
shut down computers, but it sure
gets the pendulum of public opinion
swinging. Whoosh — the effects will be
catastrophic. Whoosh— this is just
another excuse for consultants to earn
fat paychecks.
Still, while Y2K— shorthand for
the year 2000 — may be overhyped,
many experts believe computer glitches could cause at least some serious
problems. And certainly Illinoisans
who don't want to be left shivering in
the dark in the middle of a Midwestern winter will want to be assured of
the continued availability of the services that guarantee safety and
health. So, because we rely on the
public sector to provide many of life's
basics, including power and water, it's
reasonable to ask what government is
doing to get ready for one of the bigger maybes of our time.
But here's where things get really
confusing. For starters, the nature of
the Y2K problem crosses so many governmental boundaries and political
turfs that it isn't at all clear who should
be in charge. There are so many public
agencies and private trade organizations heating up the Y2K pot that even
providers of essential services may get
a little overwhelmed by all the cooks
stirring the broth.
Take electricity. While the Illinois
Commerce Commission regulates
major utilities in the urban areas of
the state, the federal government
oversees many electric cooperatives in
more rural regions. And collectively,
the industry has given internal regulatory authority to a trade association.
Because the energy industry is so
extensive, there actually are numerous
organizations and government entities
that provide some oversight and regulation. The key federal players are the
Department of Energy, the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Rural Utility Service, a division of the
Department of Agriculture. But the
industry has tapped the North American Electric Reliability Council, a trade
and self-regulatory association, to take
the lead on trouble-shooting Y2K.
That group coordinated a national
test of telecommunications capabilities
at electric utilities last month. It
declared the trial run a success. And
asked us to trust that they're right.
As for water, municipalities may be
in charge of their own supply, but the
state's Environmental Protection
Agency is responsible for monitoring
what comes out of our taps and goes
into our sewers. Nevertheless, the
agency has no authority to close a
city's water supply, even if it believes
there may be a Y2K problem.
Indeed, the state has little legal
authority over Y2K compliance. The
state Department of Public Health for
example, can't order the state's hospitals to get their Y2K efforts
in gear.
Illinois Issues May 1999 / 17
Some state agencies
have offered guidance on
Y2K to the industries
they regulate, but the
focus of most agencies'
efforts has been to assure
that their own internal
systems will continue to
function normally.
From 1996 to the beginning of this year, in fact,
the agencies that report to the governor spent $125 million on that effort.
(This figure doesn't include costs
incurred by other constitutional officers. And it doesn't include municipalities, counties, water districts and
other units of local government.)
Mary Reynolds of Gov. George
Ryan's Illinois Technology Office
expects executive agency costs to rise
as the year goes on. And a revised
state agency spending total was
expected to be
announced the first of
this month.
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So how well is government doing at finding
and solving potential
problems? Pretty good.
Not so good. Depends.
That is to say, every unit
of government in Illinois
is at a different level of
preparedness. Not to put
too fine a point on it,
where you live could pretty much
determine how well you fare, should
disaster strike. And it would be difficult, if not impossible, even to draw
up a map of problem areas. The Illinois Emergency Management
Agency, meanwhile, is urging us to
take our own precautions. At the
very least, they seem to suggest, we
should think of this as a high-tech
tornado watch.
The worst case scenario? Fearmongers paint a picture of electric
plants failing, quickly leading to a
nation of shut-ins, hunkered down
with guns as roving bands of thugs
take over the streets. Traffic lights
will go out and our roads will
become out-of-control killing
grounds. Food supply lines will be
cut and shops will close. Fresh water
will run out after a few days and raw
sewage will flow from kitchen taps.
Cooler heads suggest there may be
sporadic, short-term failures of some
systems, but life will go on pretty
much as usual.
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The reason for this uncertainty is
the limited memory of some computers, but not all. In the early days
of the technology, programmers,
attempting to conserve space, used
only the last two digits for years,
instead of the four that will be needed
in the new century. When a computer
reads "00" come next January 1, it
may conclude the year is really 1900
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Government can be the problem and the solution.
For Y2K paranoiacs, the fear of hospital equipment
going "flat line" is almost on par with the possible
failure of the electric grid.
Illinois is making efforts to alert health care providers
that the problem is real and to offer a series of steps that
must be taken to be ready
But a U.S. Senate committee may have inadvertently
done more to raise the prospect of patients' hoarding
medicine than any end-of-the-world fanatic.
The U.S. Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000
Technology Problem held hearings and gathered information last year and issued its findings in March. Those
findings focused on eight key areas that could be affected
by the Y2K problem, including utilities, telecommunications, transportation and health care.
In essence, the committee found that many industries
had begun to address Y2K. Still, it announced it had a
special concern regarding the nation's health care system.
Part of the concern was that back office functions could
sputter, meaning bills may not be properly processed.
More frightening, the Senate report stated that the
American pharmaceutical industry depends on foreign
sources for 80 percent of its basic ingredients. It identified
Denmark as the country that produces 70 percent of the
world's supply of insulin, a critical need for this nation's
diabetics.
But a careful look at some of the statistics the Senate
committee members cited indicates they got ahead of
themselves. The report was based on numbers from the
Gartner Group, a Stamford, Conn.-based think tank,
and from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, a trade group of 100 U.S. name- brand
drug producers.
But the Gartner numbers came from a study that organization did in the spring of 1998, according to Ken
Kleinberg, Gartner research director on health care. He
charges the Senate's use of year-old numbers "was a
crime," especially since Gartner has done follow-up work
that showed the industry is farther along in fighting Y2K.
And a spokesperson for the pharmaceutical association
says Eli Lilly and Co. of Indianapolis supplies about 80
percent of the insulin in the United States. Lilly, meanwhile, maintains the company manufactures 99 percent of
its insulin near its headquarters and that all but 15 percent of the materials come from the United States.
Kleinberg says the industry must walk a fine line when
discussing Y2K and the nation's drug supply. If it ignores
the problem, people could become blase and not have
enough medicine on hand should supplies be cut. If the
industry overstates the problem, people could panic, buy
too much medicine and spark a shortage.
In Illinois,, the leader of the state's technology office
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18 / May 1999 Illinois Issues
and freeze or make incorrect calculations. (Then again, it may not.)
One possibility is that a given computer will be confused when reading
the birth date of a 65-year-old
Medicare recipient and kick her out
of the system. That kind of problem
may be fixable and not too damaging. But what if the security system
at a nuclear power plant were to fail?
What if a municipal water treatment
plant were to stop cold?
This potential for disaster stems
from our increasing reliance on computer technology for most all things
mechanical. Fortunately, much of
this equipment is not date and time
sensitive. But some of it is. And especially pervasive are the so-called
embedded computer chips. They are
in use everywhere, in such consumer
products as telephones, fax machines
and building security systems. More
threatening, they also are found in
control systems for the nation's electric grid, satellites, water systems,
even traffic lights and parking
meters. And these systems are the
engines for the kind of services we
rely on government to provide.
In fact, as of year-end 1998, staff
for the state's Year 2000 Project
found that 60 percent of state agencies that report to the governor had
completed their Y2K cleanup, while
74 percent of the systems considered
critical to supporting health care and
public safety had been fixed —
meaning computers running those
systems have been checked and,
where necessary, date codes have
been changed. That, it can be fairly
noted, was three-quarters of the way
done with a whole year to go.
But project officials issued some
other news. At the beginning of the
year, the Emergency Management
Agency said its critical systems were
only halfway to being Y2K compliant. And the state police reported it
was at best 79 percent compliant. Of
course, that was four months ago,
and these agencies can expect to be
further along as the year progresses.
Agencies now must issue monthly
updates on Y2K preparedness.
Meanwhile, the project's survey of
local governments was especially
troublesome.
Collectively, Illinois municipalities
have spent tens of millions of dollars
finding and fixing Y2K problems.
Chicago, for example, will spend $32
million this year. Last month, that city
announced it had focused on police,
fire and other emergency needs and was
well prepared for the year 2000. Officials there have conducted an inventory
of embedded chips across several essential departments and systems, including
water, police, fire and emergency communications, aviation and traffic lights.
The city's Y2K office says it found a
failure rate of 4 percent and expects to
solve the problem this summer.
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makes a point of cautioning against panic. And the state's
public health department has issued Y2K educational
materials that include readiness timelines. That agency
also sent a survey to the 250 hospitals and 1,300 longterm health care providers that it regulates.
William A. Bell, the public health agency's deputy
director, says the threat of liability suits is one reason the
health care industry, including equipment manufacturers,
is moving to address the problem.
"[The manufacturers] don't want their name in the
press if there is an equipment failure. And there are
potential liability issues there," he says. But, Bell warns,
the department doesn't have statutory authority over
health care providers when it comes to Y2K problems. Its
"hammer" is the consequences faced by a provider if it
does not provide adequate patient care.
The Illinois Hospital and Health Systems Association,
a trade group, issued its own Y2K education kit last year
to the association's 200 members. The kit covered everything from getting started, to checking systems, to meeting compliance. And the organization, a state subsidiary
of the American Hospital Association, is considering surveying its members on the issue, according to Karen Porter, an association spokeswoman.
Meanwhile, the national association announced in
March that less than 1 percent of the hospitals it surveyed
would face Y2K computer problems.
Nevertheless, an independent survey conducted last
December found that only 40 percent of hospitals nationwide had a disaster recovery plan in place in case there were serious Y2K problems. And only 23 percent were
Y2K compliant or close to being compliant. Consultants
PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Chicago-based Zinn
Enterprises, which conducted that survey, contacted executives at 301 hospitals for its ninth annual survey done in conjunction with Modern Healthcare magazine.
"A lot of hospitals don't understand how integrated a
computer has become to the running of their operations,"
says Timothy Zinn, president of the health care information technology firm. "This is life threatening stuff. I don't want to be alarmist but we have a lot of room for
improvement."
Still, Ron Damasauskas, group vice president at the
Illinois association, testified to the Illinois House Committee on Computer Technology in March that every hospital in Illinois had a Y2K preparation plan in place and would rely on manual care if a disaster occurred.
"Every hospital has a disaster recovery plan. It may not
have been implemented for Y2K. It could have been for
the electricity going out or a tornado. This is different
because they will have to manage in a non-electronic
environment," Damasauskas says. "Hospitals will put
their time and effort where patients are most dangerously
affected."
But most involved in the Y2K effort can agree on one
point: When it comes to health care services, panic could
jeopardize the best-laid readiness plans.
Burney Simpson
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Illinois Issues May 1999 / 19
Chicago also has organized a task force to coordinate Y2K efforts,
including representatives
of the business community, the major utilities, the
Red Cross and the Building Owners and Managers
Association.
One midsized city is
taking a slow but steady
approach to the problem.
Kankakee, the governor's
hometown, has hired a college
student part time to check all
municipal office computers with
software designed to fix Y2K bugs
"on the fly," says Pete Schiel, assistant superintendent at the Kankakee
Municipal Utility.
The part-time helper will earn her
degree in engineering from Kankakee's
Olivet Nazarene University this
month. Meanwhile, she's been busy
going from computer to computer in
the hydroelectric plant, the sanitary
district, the police and fire departments
and the library. Next on the list were
city-owned faxes and alarm systems.
But not all of Illinois' municipalities
are as far along as these communities.
Only 16 percent of localities even
bothered to respond to the state's Y2K
compliance survey. That dismal rate,
and an analysis of the few responses,
led staff in the project office to conclude the problem was not well understood by many localities.
"There's no doubt some small
municipalities are behind," says
Reynolds of the governor's technology office, the agency that is leading
the state's Y2K efforts. "They are a
key link in the supply chain of services and some did not understand
the impact [of Y2K]."
Ken Alderson, director of the Illinois Municipal League, acknowledges that some of his 1,072 member
cities and towns are scrambling to
catch up, though he believes most
services will go on as usual.
"A lot of cities, particularly smaller
ones, are probably behind the eight
ball. We finally figured out this is serious and everybody wants it fixed
now," Alderson says. "But I don't see
the world ending. There shouldn't be
problems with police and
fire service."
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Alderson notes that
most police services are
not time and date sensitive. There may be some
back office problems, but
police should still be out
there patrolling the
streets, he says.
That's Pete Schiel's
assessment, too. Because
much of Kankakee's
equipment is not date sensitive,
Schiel says he's confident his community will be ready. "I'm not sure
we'll ever be done. There's so much
equipment, like faxes, phones and
everything else," he says. "But our
priority is public safety. That's the
first concern."
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Like many facing down the Y2K
clock, Schiel's main worry is that the
power will go out. Then, however
prepared Kankakee and other
municipalities may be, everything
could be up for grabs.
There are about 3,200 electric
utilities in America that make up the
grid supplying the country's power.
Those utilities make up four interconnected regional segments laid out over
North America.
The nature of this grid is both a
strength and a weakness. It is common practice for the utilities to sell
their excess power to each other
every day, so any January 1 breakdown by an individual supplier
shouldn't mean widespread outages.
But some worry that an unprepared utility could go down, depriving the municipalities that rely on
that supplier for power. The largest
suppliers are investor-owned utilities, which provide nearly 80 percent
of the nation's power, according to
the North American Electric Reliability Council.
Here in Illinois, the Commerce
Commission monitors these investor-
owned companies, including Commonwealth Edison in the Chicago
metropolitan region, Decatur-based
Illinois Power and half a dozen other
major power producers.
ComEd maintains it was 92 per
cent Y2K compliant at the end of
March and will be fully compliant by
the end of June, according to a
spokesperson. That utility and others
participated in the association-run
national drill on April 9th, the 99th
day of the year. The industry will
undergo another drill on September
9th, or 9/9/99, which in some programs is code for the end of a file.
The computers running ComEd's
nuclear plants are not date sensitive
and its Braidwood plant has already
been audited by another government
agency, the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission. That agency plans to
audit all 103 nuclear plants nationwide by July and expects most will
be Y2K compliant by then.
For those living outside larger
metropolitan areas, the Rural Utility
Service, a division of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, has
some oversight of 1,000 rural electric
cooperatives, 1,000 telecommunications systems and 7,000 water systems. Some of these utilities are privately owned, but many are owned
by the communities they serve. The
Rural Utility Service, which offers
loans to these providers, is requiring
all of its borrowers to buy Y2K compliant equipment.
An April survey of the electric coops found that 86 percent of those
responding were Y2K compliant and
all expected to be ready by the end of
the year, according to a U.S. ag
department spokesman.
But here, perhaps, is a millennial
twist. It turns out that the co-ops
have something of a low-tech advantage over the bigger for-profit utilities. The operating systems of the
smaller user-owned utilities are run
mostly on older analog equipment,
which does not have embedded computer chips. Further, while the larger
utilities may have automated
switchgears that kick in after a power failure, most of the 25 members of
the Association of Illinois Electric
Cooperatives have manually controlled equipment that is not date
sensitive. The co-ops' dependency on
outdated equipment and manual
labor means their consumers do not
face the same degree of risk as do
20 / May 1999 Illinois Issues
the customers of the big utilities
with sophisticated control systems,
argues Carl Dufner, a vice president
of engineering with the state's electrical co-op association.
"We don't foresee major problems,
though there might be some scattered
power outages," Dufner says. "Where
one of our members buys power from
[another] utility is where there would
be the possibility of a problem."
One member, the Rural Electric
Convenience Co-op, distributes power
to about 5,100 customers in central
Illinois' Auburn. Tom Jones, coordinator of the utility's Y2K efforts, says his
power co-op, like other smaller
providers, brought in a consultant to
do a compliance study. "The rural
electric [co-ops] will meet the deadline," Jones says, echoing Dufner. "Any
problems won't be because of us but
due to our suppliers."
Water supplies are another concern. But, again, older may be better. Most of Illinois' water systems and
wastewater treatment plants are, or
can be, manually operated.
Still, a survey by the industry
group, the American Water Works
Association, found last summer that
the largest systems had plans to
address any Y2K problems, but
smaller systems weren't as organized. Of those systems with less
than 10,000 water connections, only
45 percent had formal plans.
And if a water system fails, there
could be serious consequences,
including drinking water that is
impure or contaminated by too
many chemicals.
Time sensitive embedded chips
are most often found in water suppliers' aeration blowers, pump motors,
storage tanks, heating and ventilation systems and monitoring equipment, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Nevertheless, Alderson, of the Illinois Municipal League, downplays
the Y2K threat to drinking water.
"Water plants have an override.
Computers at water plants have broken down in the past and you are
still able to deliver water."
One utility that does appear to be
Y2K-ready is City Water, Light and
Power, a municipally owned provider
of electricity and water for the
Springfield metro area. Because
Springfield's water equipment is not
date sensitive, the main concern in
that community is loss of power,
according to Phil Gonet, the city's
Y2K point man.
"We operate pumps to get water
from the lake into the plant," says
Gonet. "Then we need pumps to distribute the water." Otherwise, gravity
moves the water from tank to tank.
Says Ted Meckes, project manager of
Springfield's water treatment plant:
"Our chemical feeders are controlled by
raw water flow. That is automated, but
can be switched to manual control."
The state's EPA oversees most of
Illinois' 1,800 public water supply
systems. And while the agency has
not surveyed suppliers, it has issued
Y2K guidelines, according to
spokeswoman Joan Muraro. "We
have no way of knowing if an individual supply has a problem. Our
information spells out steps to take,
things to do and a timeline for when
they should be finishing," she says.
One reason for the difficulty in
assessing the compliance status of
the state's water supply lies in the
convoluted distribution network. A
supplier may be compliant, but the
second- and third-party seller may
not be ready.
"A lot of drinking water suppliers
buy their water from Chicago,"
Muraro notes, "and they in turn sell
it down the line."
So can the agency ensure there will
be no Y2K problems? "We regulate
water, we don't walk on it."
Waste treatment systems may
be even more problematic than water
supplies because a shutdown could
release an overload of chemicals. But
many localities have moved forward
on Y2K readiness on this front, too.
Springfield operates its sanitary district in a similar manner as its water
supply system. The capital city has
completed an inventory and test of all
its equipment, according to its Y2K
project leader. And it has checked with
its vendors about their compliance.
Other localities are taking extra
precautions. Though it is already
testing its own systems, the Urbana
& Champaign Sanitary District is
spending about $15,000 to rent power generators for the weeks around
the turn of the year. Just in case.
That community's electricity supplier is Illinois Power. Steve Stengel,
a spokesman for the investor-owned
utility, says the company has done
extensive internal Y2K testing and
repairs and is participating in the
industry-wide drills.
Dennis Schmidt of the Urbana &
Champaign district acknowledges he
may be overly cautious, but maintains the situation warrants it.
"We're probably being ultraconservative. But we'd rather be more prepared than unprepared," he says. "If
there were a problem, we didn't want
to go to the public and say 'we didn't
know.' Obviously, everyone knows
about this."
There may be some good in the
Y2K preparedness, no matter what
transpires on January 1. Mary
Reynolds of the governor's technology
office says, if nothing else, it has driven
the state to create an extensive inventory of its equipment and systems, and
to buy new compliant computers.
Further, she says, the issue has generated more open communication
among Illinois' myriad units of government. "We've established relationships that we never had before. With
the federal government, other states,
private industry and municipalities."
With about seven months to go
before the big day, it does appear that
many, if not most, government-regulated activities essential for public
health and safety already are at some
level of Y2K compliance. And if government's efforts are on target, most
Illinoisans should experience few
Y2K problems come New Year's Eve.
Still, it may make sense to follow
the Illinois Emergency Management
Agency's guidelines for storms: Collect three days' worth of bottled
water, food and medications; keep
on hand a battery-operated radio
and flashlight; and buy some extra
blankets. ž
Illinois Issues May 1999 / 21
