20181126: Wasserwerkgasse | Waste Treatment Plant

Werner Sprung greeted us in his office at 9 am. Two plates of pastries, a jar of water taken directly from the groundwater, and an espresso. The onsite lab at Holding Graz tests the groundwater daily for pollutants. The site is a water protection area. The building is new, compartmentalized with electronically locked doors and nearly no overhead lights required. Floor to ceiling windows illuminated the hallways. A modest two stories but thoughtfully laid out with a parking garage partially below ground level.

Before we began filming Werner stated that he trusted we wouldn't use the video for the Green Party, who would rather "throw Molotov cocktails" at him. I assured him that my interest was artistic and not propagandistic and that, while I intended to express the concerns of members of the activist group, my aim was to show the ZSK as an urban design project. I was transparent about my intention to ask him about the protest during the interview and he agreed.

Sprung showed us a presentation of the Zentraler Speicherkanal on powerpoint that included the profile of the city and the sewer system. The extent of the catchment area, the age and history of the sewer system. The statistics that he drew out, one of which was repeated, was that the combined sewer overflow would reduce 70% of the untreated wastewater entering the Mur. Prior to the ZSK only 30% of the combined sewer overflow is treated when there was rainfall. A few minutes into the presentation I realized that the only thing more mind-numbing than a powerpoint presentation is a powerpoint presentation on video. It’s not the content nor presenter, it’s the format. The audio into the C100 had reset to microphone rather than XLR when I unplugged it for transport and most of the footage was unusable. Amateur mistake.

The rainwater diversion was a motivating factor that I had heard again and again. But the benefits of the ZSK were not just reducing untreated wastewater entering the river, but the additional storage that would allow for Holding Graz to clean and renovate the existing sewers, some of which are over a century old. Currently, in order to renovate sewers, a line would be closed and the wastewater would be diverted to the Mur, increasing contamination.

The origin of the sewers in Graz followed a deadly flood in 1880 (1860?), the creeks were covered to reduce flooding; subsequently the pipes of homes were connected to the covered creeks. The idea of connected a rainwater runoff to the existing covered creeks was to wash away the smell that accumulated in the sewers.

Werner's response to the protest was that he could not understand why anyone would be against the improvement of the water quality of the Mur. He described how brown streaks can be seen on either side of the Mur during rainy days, and how anything, even bicycles, can be found in a sewer. He laughed at the suggestion of ignoring the organic waste that entered the Mur because fish liked it. His role at Holding Graz was system optimization. It was in his essay that I had first learned about the ZSK.

After the presentation, Sprung offered to show us the wastewater treatment plant.

The great thing about a city employee is they usually know a lot about random information about the built environment that would be otherwise difficult to obtain. While visiting the Schloßberg I had noticed that buildings in Graz are almost uniformly capped at four stories. The explanation, Sprung said, was that the building regulation was informed by the air quality concern for stagnating pollution that is typical for the geographic location of a city at the base of a mountain range. That is, the concern for the tiny particulate matter that the tree defenders were describing was already inscribed into the city code. But if growth was underway and height is capped, then the result is sprawl.

We passed through a 10 km long tunnel, part of the freeway that passed under the city. The design of this tunnel, Sprung noted, was a compromise between planners who wanted to add a freeway through the city and opposition that worried about the effects of automotive amputation. (It reminded me of an alternate universe in which Robert Moses’ Cross-Bronx Expressway had been designed with an iota of compassion for community.) Fortunately, tunneling is a specialty of the Austrians, and can be seen in the Schloßberg tunnels, which were used as bomb shelters in WWII. Under the Graz Hauptbahnhof there are tunneled wine cellars, no longer in use, and of course the sewer and combined sewage overflow, which are also tunnels, though constructed differently than the technique Sprung described, that is produced through the use of explosives, allowing the surrounding rock to collapse to a certain distance to increase the load pressure, like a keystone arch, before being reinforced with metal and then covered in cement. The Montanuniversitaet Leoben is one of the institutions that specialize in this peculiar form of engineering.

At the treatment plant, Werner walked us through the stages of purification, from untreated water to initial solid suspension and separation, large and small sand and gravel, bacterial treatment in anaerobic digesters (which predate New York’s Newtown Creek facility by three decades), into another holding tank and out to the final stage before being sent into the Mur. The water isn’t potable, but there are plans to implement higher purification, such as pharmaceuticals, in the coming decade. I asked Sprung about the impetus to create the wastewater treatment plant, whether the European Union Wastewater Framework directive included mandatory renovation of the sewer system. It did not, he answered, because such a directive could not be enforced across the continent, due to a lack of funding. We saw only two other people while on the tour; most of the processes in the plant must be automated.

20181216: Art Brunch | LTR

The dimensions of the video on the projector were off, by about 10% in the vertical dimension, making the already difficult act of watching one’s own work even more unbearable. I sat on a bench perpendicular to the screen, meaning everything was distorted, and just looked at the floor while the video played. The edit lasted exactly 20 minutes and anticipated that the audience was largely familiar, even experts, on the topic, which allowed me to omit necessary information, such as “What is the Speicherkanal?” or “What is the relationship between the trees that were cut down for Speicherkanal to be constructed” or “Is the funding of the Speicherkanal a conflict of interest since the hydropower plant paid for half of it, but caused 100% of the Speicherkanal’s necessity?” Instead, I was able to just position different elements and see them playout.

My working direction on the edit was not to produce a final video, but simply a vignette of the most interesting footage I had shot since in Graz. This was a mental leap because a month before I was thinking that I would try to at least treat everything that I filmed prior to the screening, and in a sense make something more “finished.” In that period, I was really preoccupied by the my perceived impossibility of this task, and really it was impossible. Just logging the footage that I shot, prior to the screening would have been very demanding. I was filming even the morning of the day before the screening. When I conceded to myself not to attempt something encyclopedic of my endeavor in Graz, I had a clearer sense of not only what could be done but what I would like to do. This equated roughly to three minutes of my four most compelling interviews, which I had time to work over, and some B-roll. I had over thirty hours of footage and hadn’t even had time to process Joachim, Saubermacher or Walter Felber’s footage.

The film opens on Werner Sprung talking about the air improvement project at the waste treatment plant and how neighbors were complaining about the air quality. The neighbors had wrongly assumed that the treatment plant was exuding horrible smells that were actually being emitted by a neighboring industry. The next shot is Romana Ull talking about the loss of the huchen salmon due to the construction of the hydropower dam, and then cuts to the carp in the hands of the statue at the human rights plaza. Steven Weiss gives the statistic that every year since 1900 a hydropower plant was built or being built in Austria, which was to suggest that this particular project was not an aberration but the norm. Viewers were oriented toward the Speicherkanal by Günter Gruber who was introducing the necessity of the combined sewer storage after the water level will rise when the hydropower plant begins production. He then talks about the need for sewer pipes in order to maintain other urban infrastructure. This was a sort of advance response to Martin’s forthcoming remark. The film cuts to a statue in the Stadtpark of lady justice, blindfolded, with no arms and then cuts back to Romana talking about her experience as an activist and what it was like to see the trees cut down. The film drew from the known public symbols of Graz and, during the edit, I realized it’s opacity was largely contingent on the familiarity of the audience with the visual symbols. It had become an homage to Graz.

After the film, Steve Weiss joined Iris and I in a panel discussion, which quickly became a question and answer session on the verge of public announcements without questions. Most of the questions pertained to things I had learned about the Speicherkanal, inner workings or nuances that weren’t known to the activist community, or my perception of something as an outsider. In a sense, I had been presented as an artists but interpreted as a journalist. Part of the rouse may have been my attempt to answer their scientifically or technically directed questions to the best of my ability, i.e. from memory of what I had learned while making the film. Only one person asked about the video as an artwork.

For the most part I tried to hold the line of a reticent sympathizer. The most controversial thing I said, which is a good indicator of my overall position, since that's what the audience of protester's sought, a position, was that protest is important and has made progress and because of that, this uniquely Austrian situation with the Speicherkanal had been reached. Whereas in the United States and Canada, the ecological protest is occurring at the Dakota Access Pipeline, or the Tar sands, in which corporate-funded paramilitary are exercising force over demonstrators, toward the benefit of a non-renewable resource, in Graz the protesters are fighting against hydropower, which by international standards is considered 'green.' Yes, there is third-party research about the detriment of marine diversity and ecological destruction, but even at COP 24, in Poland, hydropower is held up by the international community of politicians concerned with climate change, as a renewable energy.

Eva had prepared me for the turnout, which was predominantly activists, some of whom, like Betty Baloo, I had encouraged not only to attend, but to subvert the event by passing out pamphlets. The most concerning individual in the audience was Werner Sprung, from Holding Graz. The first question was from Remi, director of ESC, and, as the microphone got passed toward the back of the room, the questions became less interrogatory and more commentary. The toilet rolls acted to break up what could have been a siege of activist negativity that, had it gone unmitigated, would have likely co-opted the entire screening event. These serious, pressing questions, aimed at sharing and anchoring perceived forms of corruption were followed by a mention of gratitude and delivery of a signed toilet roll, which charged a chuckle.

After the talk everyone mingled and the chili vanished before I could make it to the buffet. The turnout was exceptional, I was told by Michael. The most rewarding thing I saw was Steve Weiss and Werner Sprung, two people who thought of each other on the other side of the contest of the Speicherkanal, having what looked to be a fun and friendly conversation.

*

LaTable Ronde is a program of structured, anonymous, invitation-only conversations about a predetermined topic within a closed setting. Iris had helped me organize a talk to commence 90 minutes after my conversation ended. The topic was “Soft Skills.” We re-arranged the chairs and the few outliers who were not privy quietly exited as we began on time. The conversation was slow to start and I was interested to see how it would take off in this setting. I knew about 30% of the group; most of them knew each other.

The most surprising element was the frequent reference to neo-liberals and by the third utterance I realized that I had not heard nor discussed them for over a decade. Was this still a thing here? Hadn’t neo-libs won? That is, the deregulatory, multinational corporations became the old guard and well established and now the question was how to bridge the economies of start-ups, which operate by default within a neoliberal reality, with democratic governance that was more suitable to models of production from the mid-20th century.

I made only two comments, preferring to watch the ecosystem of conversation play out. Stefan Schmitzer made many contributions; he is a verbal thinker. Heidrum explored and advocated for the return of the empathetic. I was happy by the vitality of the talk but skeptical about the affirmations. At the end of the 90 minutes, everyone seemed energized and grateful for participating. Courteous and politely, the afternoon slipped into the dusk.