Page 38 - Water and wastewater engineering

THE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION PROCESSES 1-9

reading journal articles, and participating in workshops. Appropriate organizations for municipal
water and wastewater engineering include the American Society of Civil Engineers ( Journal
of Environmental Engineering ), American Water Works Association ( Journal AWWA ), and the
Water Environment Federation ( Water Environment Research ).

1-4 RESPONSIBLE CARE
Codes of ethics are minimalist (Ladd, 1991). They stipulate only the minimal acceptable stan-
dards. To say that only minimal standards qualify as reasonable and sufficient is to suggest
that these standards result in a product that is as good as anyone could expect it to be (Harris
et al., 1995). This is belied by the fact that others in the profession choose to exceed the mini-
mal standards:

“A major responsibility of the engineer is to precisely determine the wants of the client.”
(Firmage, 1980).
“. . . the fi rst task of the engineer is fi nd out what the problem really is.”
“An important aspect of the problem defi nition that is frequently overlooked is human
factors. Matters of customer use and acceptance are paramount.” (Kemper and Sanders,
2001)
The responsibilities of engineers are to (Baum, 1983):

1. “Recognize the right of each individual potentially affected by a project to participate to
an appropriate degree in the making of decisions concerning that project.”

2. “Do everything in their power to provide complete, accurate, and understandable infor-
mation to all potentially affected parties.”

To go beyond the minimalist requirements is to endorse the concepts of responsible or reason-
able care and informed consent. Reasonable care is “a standard of reasonableness as seen by a
normal, prudent nonprofessional” (Harris et al., 1995). Informed consent is understood as includ-
ing two main elements: knowledge and voluntariness. To elaborate, informed consent may be
defined by the following conditions (Martin and Schinzinger, 1991):

1. The consent is given voluntarily without being subjected to force, fraud, or deception.
2. The consent is based on the information that a rational person would want, together with
any other information requested, presented to them in an understandable form.

3. The decision is made by an individual competent to process the information and make
rational decisions.
4. The consent is offered in proxy by an individual or group that collectively represents
many people of like interests, concerns, and exposure to the risks that result from the
decision.

To go beyond the minimalist level of holding the public welfare paramount, the professional
engineer must view the relationship to the client as fiducial. They owe the client responsible care.
The client must be given the right and opportunity to express informed consent or to withhold