WE HAVE EXPERTS. NOW WE NEED HEROES!

 

Howard T. Barnes, Alfred Wegener, and Vilhjalmur Stefansson had three things in common. They were all alive and well in 1912 and they were all experts on icebergs. I will get to the third thing later.

If you are wondering what this could possibly have to do with the still somewhat townish City of Watertown, I would ask you to bear with me for the next two minutes, which just happens to be the same amount of time allowed for a member of the public to address the Watertown City Council at the public forum segment of each council meeting.

It was Sunday, April 14, at 11:40 PM, ship’s time, that the Titanic struck the iceberg, sending 1500 people to their deaths.

At the time, the sinking of the Titanic was considered the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history. While later disasters would surpass its death toll, the sinking of the Titanic remains one of the most significant avoidable tragedies due to glaring failures in safety and judgment.

Captain Edward Smith did not see the iceberg before the collision. At the time it was spotted, he was not on the bridge but was likely in his cabin or the nearby navigation room.

First Officer William Murdoch, who was the officer in charge of the bridge at the time, was the first officer to see the iceberg. He immediately ordered the helm "hard-a-starboard" and signaled the engine room to stop or reverse.

It was a useless panic maneuver. 30 to 40 seconds later the ship struck the iceberg.

Captain Smith rushed onto the bridge moments after the impact. Witness accounts state he arrived and asked Murdoch, "What have we struck?" to which Murdoch replied, "An iceberg, sir."

The Captain and his officers had been warned of ice throughout the day and expected to encounter it around 11:00 PM. However, several factors made the iceberg nearly impossible to see until it was too late.

One was calm seas. There were no waves breaking against the base of the iceberg, which would normally create a visible "white fringe" of foam.

The other was the moonless night. The lack of moonlight meant there was no light for the ice to reflect.

Captain Smith and his crew received at least six ice warnings via wireless telegraph on the day of the disaster. While some reached the bridge and influenced the Captain's decisions, several critical messages sent by ships that had already encountered ice never left the Titanic’s wireless room.

The SS Californian, at 8:45 PM radioed to say they were "stopped and surrounded by ice". Because the message was so loud in his headset and lacked a formal priority prefix, wireless operator Jack Phillips famously told the operator to "Shut up! I am busy" while he continued sending passenger messages to Cape Race, the nearest wireless station.

The most critical warning, which came from the SS Mesaba at 9:40 PM reported a massive ice field containing "heavy pack ice and a great number of large icebergs" directly ahead. Phillips still overwhelmed with a backlog of passenger telegrams and never delivered this critical message to the bridge.

Despite the warnings that he did receive, Captain Smith maintained a speed of 22 knots while entering a known ice field.

So, imagine how different it would have been had Howard T. Barnes, Alfred Wegener, or Vilhjalmur Stefansson been in direct communication with Captain Smith and his officers. The fact that none of them were was the third thing those three experts had in common.

 But, what if one or all of them were directly or indirectly in communication with the captain or his officers ? I think it is very likely that any of those experts would have advised Captain Smith to:

 Not  be misled by the calm waters,

To regard the moonless night as an extreme hazard,

To limit wireless communications to vital information only.

And, undoubtably, any of those experts on icebergs would have advised Captain Smith to either drastically reduce speed or to bring the ship to a full stop and wait for the sun to come up before proceeding.

But that may not have worked because Captain Smith was known to be stubbornly confident in his navigational abilities and he believed that the Titanic was absolutely unsinkable.

 

 

Now allow me to introduce you to four experts of a different kind − Joe DeLaura, Patrick De Haan, Mark Wolfe, and Tracy Gordon − which I will do as soon as I set the stage…

While you can’t help but notice the alarming price of gas whenever you pull up to the pump, most of you probably ignore the price of diesel fuel.

Out of necessity, you might be changing your driving habits and/or your fill up habits to use less gas, but you might have the notion that diesel fuel is someone else’s problem.

You couldn’t be more wrong.

It is about to become OUR problem.

DeLaura, De Haan, and Wolfe are  three experts who make clear how  the growing shortage of diesel fuel is on course to collide with the world’s economy. Gordon explains how communities like ours pay the price for energy shock – something we are now experiencing but that so far has been (excuse the expression) the tip of the iceberg.

The closing of the Strait of Hormuz has caused diesel prices to surge more than 50% since the start of the war, with retail prices nearing $6.00 per gallon. Because New England lacks its own major refineries and pipelines, this region is uniquely vulnerable.

Because nearly all of our grocery items are trucked into the Boston area daily, grocery delivery surcharges, ranging from $60 to hundreds of dollars per load, are being passed directly to consumers.

In fact every type of product that arrives by truck, whether we eat it, wear it, or use it, will be taking a bigger chunk out of our budgets and out of our government’s budget.

While gasoline prices command our attention, it’s diesel that runs the city.

Municipal exposure to diesel includes school buses, fire apparatus and ambulances, public works trucks (plows, sanitation, road crews), construction equipment (for capital projects like the middle school / fire station / senior center), and delivery costs embedded in everything the city buys.

And here is the real danger: it happens quietly.

Gasoline prices trigger headlines. Diesel prices trigger budget overruns.

By the time the impact shows up, it is too late to adjust. Contracts are signed. Projects are underway. Taxpayers are on the hook − and that includes renters who pay those taxes indirectly.

And that brings us to the questions our city council has yet to address:

Why, in the face of this kind of systemic risk, are we proceeding with major discretionary projects − like the misadventurous Demonstration Project behind CVS − as if nothing in the world has changed?

Has the council quietly prioritized the Demonstration Project over the replacement or renovation of the Middle School, or the building of a new Senior Center, or a new East End Fire Station?

If so, we have a right to know. And we have a right to know why.

There was a time when our councilors would have questioned our city manager. Kounelis, Woodland, Donato, and Airasian stood out for demonstrating that they were in touch with ordinary people who live outside the current political bubbles and who feel the financial vise that continues to get tighter and tighter.

And of course, when the manager known as “Fiscal” Driscoll, famous for his tight-fisted grip on taxpayer dollars was at the helm, councilors’ budget oversight was often more about punctuation than substance.

Most of today’s councilors seem to be going along for the ride, as though they believe that everything is under control and that we can move forward at full speed as though the world outside Watertown will somehow not reach us.

But the world always reaches us. Covid reached us and altered our daily lives. Inflation and tariffs continue to reach us. The life science / biotech swan dive has reached us. AI-driven job loss has reached us and will only accelerate.

And when the diesel crisis really reaches city hall, it won’t arrive as a headline. It will arrive as higher bids, shrinking margins, stalled projects, and either rising property taxes or deep cuts in municipal services.

This city council needs to stop and heed the warnings of the experts before they continue allowing Watertown to be driven through deceptively calm waters on a moonless night when they should be preparing for impact.

But, they should not take my word for it. They should find their own experts (yes, there are others) or they should listen to mine:

Joe DeLaura: A global energy strategist at Rabobank, tracks how geopolitical conflicts (like U.S. - Israel war with Iran cause diesel prices to surge faster than gasoline due to tight supplies and high energy density.

Patrick De Haan: Head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, is known for explaining the “inelastic” nature of diesel demand, meaning that the amount of  diesel people buy doesn't change much, even when the price goes way up or down. Price spikes hit municipalities especially hard because heavy equipment cannot be switched to gasoline or electric overnight.

 Mark Wolfe: Energy economist,  explains the “filtering effect,” − the process by which rising fuel costs (specifically gasoline and diesel) "filter" into the price of food and other consumer goods, creating a secondary layer of inflation for households.

Tracy Gordon: Co-director and Robert C. Pozen Director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, focuses on the fiscal challenges facing state and local governments, including how cities operate with rigid budgets, limited revenue flexibility, and long-term obligations that do not adjust when costs suddenly rise. In other words, when external shocks hit − whether from fuel, labor, or materials – local governments are often forced to absorb the impact in real time, with very few tools to respond.

We are a long way from 1912. In this day and age, we all have easy access to the best economic expertise on the planet. Now we need a few councilors brave enough and serious enough to face the harsh economic realities and begin asking hard questions about budget tradeoffs and long-term sustainability. It’s about making tough choices right now! If they do, they will be heroes. If they don’t, they will be something else, because Watertown’s fiscal health is not unsinkable.

 

Bruce Coltin, The Battle For Watertown