This week I had an up close and personal look at systems complexity. My hot water heater was leaking, and we'd noticed that our in-house pressure seemed a bit high initially when turning on a facet.
I learned from a colleague that in closed-loop plumbing systems pressure can build as water heats up. I remembered that when we finally got "city water," abandoning our pioneer well that had served folks at our house fine for over a hundred years, we were required to put in a "check valve" so that water, once it entered the house could not go back and commingle with city water. The check valve closed the exit loop for water requiring pressure to build up as water heats up. Simple problem, or so I thought.
I dutifully installed an "expansion tank," something I didn't even know existed until this week. I was told that it was a necessity, and remembered seeing one in my daughtor's new house, so I bought one. I also installed a pressure gauge alongside the expansion tank. My problem was not solved, however. Pressure gradually built up even with the expansion tank. I finally thought to turn off the main valve when pressure reached "normal." The pressure remained constant.
So I replaced the pressure reduction valve on the line coming into the house. Our pressure problems were at an end, so I installed the water heater.
EMS Complexity
I won't bore you with more details of my adventures in plumbing. Through the trials and tribulations of the week, though, I thought about Environmental Management Systems (EMS) and all the various and sundry systems the Forest Service is about to catalogue in terms of environmental aspects, impacts, operational controls, etc., AND submit itself to audit checks on.
Maybe other folks in the Service are a lot smarter than I am, and all will go well with our attempts to monitor and control all the open, adaptive systems (social and environmental) that we deal with. Perhaps we will find time and energy, amid downsizing, outsourcing, and all to add one more complicated system on the top of all the others that don't get enough attention to make them work (assuming that they are worth having at all—no small assumption). But as I think about how hard it was for me to pin-down the simple dynamics of my home water system, I once-again began to doubt our ability to make much headway with EMS.
It is one thing to think through and apply EMS to a production line, and something entirely different to think through and apply EMS to nature and society and culture. We deal more with the adaptations of nature, society and culture in the Service more than we do with simple production processes (changing values and value systems, changing political Regimes Administrations, changing ecosystems and climate regimes, etc.).
Many years ago at dinner John Krutilla (renowned economist from Resources for the Future) remarked that he would think forest planning a success if in 30 years we learned a bit more about production functions. About all we learned was that forests aren’t factories and that emergence, surprise, and novelty are more the hallmarks of forest management than production functions.
Managing Organizational Ignorance
So as we continue on this EMS journey maybe we ought to spend more time exploring novelty, surprise and ignorance. Study adaptive management, and read in detail books like Panarchy, Supply Side Sustainability, Compass and Gyroscope, Discordant Harmonies, and more. And don't forget to wander over and read Michael Zack's Managing Organizational Ignorance—either right now, or later after you've worked yourself into a frenzy over EMS and come up short.
Maybe I’m just a lone naysayer, and next year and every year thereafter we'll sing praises to EMS. If so, be sure and check back here, and leave me a comment and tell me the errors of my ways.
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