The Crumbling of America

Don · Sep 1, 2009

I happened to catch this show on History Channel last night, and I thought it raised some important issues, so I went looking this morning and found this site by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

They give our infrastructure an overall grade of D, and estimate a $2.2 trillion repair bill over the next five years.

Here's the section-by-section report card.

</EMBED>Aviation D
Bridges C
Dams D
Drinking Water D-
Energy D+
Hazardous Waste D
Inland Waterways D-
Levees D-
Public Parks and Recreation C-
Rail C-
Roads D-
Schools D
Solid Waste C+
Transit D
Wastewater D-

Having been made for television, the show of course focused on case after case of specific locations on the verge of catastrophic failure, including levees, bridges, dams, water systems sewage systems, and the electric grid, as well as describing other, more generic problems that nonetheless pose real problems for our economic future.

The overall impression was that even if we jumped on all these problems tomorrow, it would be a decade before they were all under control, and in the meantime one or more catastrophies related to these problems are going to occur. (Remember the bridge in Minnesota, and the levees in New Orleans? They're expecting more such disasters on a more or less regular basis if we don't tackle these problems soon.)

Meanwhile, FedGov, the states, and even individual communities are going broke at amazing rates, and neither the governments responsible for most of these infrastructure systems, or the utilities responsible for the rest, have bothered to put back reserves for the long-term maintenance that's now coming due, so nobody knows where the money will come from.

I don't have any solutions. I just wanted to bum everybody out by dropping another $2.2 trillion dollar bill in our laps.

You'd think this was more important to TPTB than blowing up and then rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan's infrastructure, or maintaining military bases in over 150 other countries around the world, but what do I know?

Kris · Sep 1, 2009

A good pal of mine is an engineer and is always scaring me with shocking facts about the subsurface of Manhattan. Being that I live on the surface of Manhattan, so to speak, and I like it that way, it kinda gives me nightmares sometimes.

LaceWing · Sep 1, 2009

Don said:
[snip]
I don't have any solutions. I just wanted to bum everybody out by dropping another $2.2 trillion dollar bill in our laps.

Gee, thanks, Don. And a terrific Tuesday morning to you, too.

Used to be that when we got a mortgage loan, our friendly neighborhood banker would advise us to set aside roughly 5% of the purchase price for annual maintenance. Congress critters, take note.

Don · Sep 1, 2009

You're welcome, Lace.

I have to say you nailed the issue in one. Money set aside to pay future expenses isn't as sexy as spending it on something that buys votes today. See the current condition of the Social Security ponzi scheme for a shining example.

robeiae · Sep 1, 2009

Drinking water?!?!?

What fool drinks out of a tap? You're just asking for the mind-control drugs...

BenPanced · Sep 1, 2009

So if they put mind-control drugs in the drinking water, why does Oprah even bother with mind-control rays shooting out of her eyes?

Duncan J Macdonald · Sep 1, 2009

Don said:
I happened to catch this show on History Channel last night, and I thought it raised some important issues, so I went looking this morning and found this site by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

They give our infrastructure an overall grade of D, and estimate a $2.2 trillion repair bill over the next five years.

*massive snip*

The overall impression was that even if we jumped on all these problems tomorrow, it would be a decade before they were all under control, and in the meantime one or more catastrophies related to these problems are going to occur.

As much as I despise FDR for foisting Social [non]Security on us as well as the vast majority of the "New DEal" programs, perhaps reviving the Civilian Conservation Corps and putting the unemployed to work on repairing the national infrastructure? We could even work in welfare reform -- like, want welfare? Sign up for the CCC!

Stew21 · Sep 1, 2009

I watched the part of the show that focused on the electric grid, because that's the industry I'm in. I have to say they did focus on "worst case" scenarios, sensationalized a good deal, and frankly angered me a bit because it's misinformation and scare tactics.

They are talking about the grid infrastructure not being suitable for demand, and while we need to add to the infrastructure to support the demand, the answer is in lowering demand (which is technology that already exists), reverse energy (which already exists), transformer health monitoring (which already exists). Advanced Metering Infrastructure is a booming market. I'm running my butt off at work so utilities of all sizes can use these programs.
the SGIG (smart grid investment grant) is dumping huge $$ into the grid, and scare tactics are doing things like pushing through standards that are not feasible or necessary (primarily to corner the market by some big players).

The program is interesting, but it isn't the whole story, the technology is there to lower demand, shed load, monitor power systems, use new methods of power generation, and involve consumers in demand and conservation decisions. Security is there - but all of these things cost money.

Chances are, most of you get your power from a utility who already has an AMI system working.

Norman D Gutter · Sep 1, 2009

Ah, the infrastructure engineer's full-employment TV show! I'll be singing all the way to the bank in a few years.

Or, we can have universal health care and let the infrastructure continue to crumble.

Decisions, decisions,...

Magdalen · Sep 1, 2009

Duncan J Macdonald said:
As much as I despise FDR for foisting Social [non]Security on us as well as the vast majority of the "New DEal" programs, perhaps reviving the Civilian Conservation Corps and putting the unemployed to work on repairing the national infrastructure? We could even work in welfare reform -- like, want welfare? Sign up for the CCC!

Yes!

CCC leads to Jobs
Jobs leads to Promotion of General Welfare
Promotion of General Welfare leads to Benefit for Common Good
Benefit for Common Good leads to Stable Society
Stable Society leads to Happy Americans
Happy Americans lead to a Better World

LaceWing · Sep 1, 2009

Norman D Gutter said:
Ah, the infrastructure engineer's full-employment TV show! I'll be singing all the way to the bank in a few years.

Or, we can have universal health care and let the infrastructure continue to crumble.

Decisions, decisions,...

Or we can revamp health care to save money overall, and reinvest that waste elsewhere?

Stew21 · Sep 1, 2009

I'd like to see a similar program on TV that talks about the success stories. There are a lot of them. The advancements have been huge.
A new technology for enabling smart grid program (which does NOT include an interview with Al Gore) would be great.

dclary · Sep 1, 2009

I tend to agree with both Don and Stew here.

Our physical infrastructure: bridges, roads, levees, are notoriously undersupported, and shoddily repaired to save on costs.

At the same time, our communications infrastructure is growing by leaps and bounds.

Somewhere in between are our utility infrastructures. California is critically short on power generators. At the same time we've made significant progress in adding desalinization plants along the coast to help alleviate our water shortages.

We are a nation of mixed interests and desires, and the money we give the government is not evenly or adequately spent on the actual mechanisms of keeping our nation prosperous. Instead, it's wasted on the weak and ineffectual.

benbradley · Sep 1, 2009

Norman D Gutter said:
Ah, the infrastructure engineer's full-employment TV show! I'll be singing all the way to the bank in a few years.

Or, we can have universal health care and let the infrastructure continue to crumble.

Decisions, decisions,...

Don't think so narrowly, t's not an either-or situation - we can always make more presses for printing even more money and Treasury notes.

We Have The Technology - or at least we used to. I can see Government bills not being paid (in addition to the car dealers NOW not getting their money for Cash-For-Clunckers within 10 days of each transaction as promised - surely they'll fix this before they become the only paycheck for doctors) for MONTHS while new printing presses are "in the mail," on slow boats from the China factory.

LaceWing said:
Or we can revamp health care to save money overall, and reinvest that waste elsewhere?

Hmm, I'm gonna check out some overseas user-payer health services...

Diana Hignutt · Sep 1, 2009

I can vouch that this nation's sewage/wastewater collections and treatment infrasturcture is decaying quickly. There are lots of twenty-year "can" pumping stations going on into their 40s and 50s. I know of pumping stations still using pumps made in the twenties. It's good for my company because we fix things as they break, because as you know, "the shit must flow." We've been fairly recession-resistant as a result. One day soon, things are going to break beyond our ability to repair them and the toilets will give back everything given to them, right into your homes.

Norman D Gutter · Sep 1, 2009

Infrastructure is crumbling because the American taxpayer doesn't want the higher taxes needed to pay what it will take to keep the infrastructure in best repair, and our elected and appointed officials don't have the political will to sell the American taxpayer on what is needed.

The most inefficient way to improve the infrastructure will be to do so at the Federal level, except for such things that are truly interstate in nature. In the late 1960s or early 70s, in a fit of enviromental euphoria, Congress passed an act that got the Federal government involved in paying municipalities to upgrade wastewater treatment plants (or in some cases construct them for the first time). It had a positive short-term effect and a disasterous long-term effect. Now every municipality thinks the Federal government owes them a wastewater treatment plant.

The same thing happened after the Safe Drinking Water Act was passed by your friendly Congress, except that was with revolving loans rather than construction grants. Now there is pressure on Congress to start funding for stormwater treatment. We'd better hope that's just from municipalities griping they don't want to spend anything.

Improve the infrastructure, yes, but keep the Feds as far away from it as we can. That may include getting them to stop taking taxes from places where the State governments need them.

Zoombie · Sep 1, 2009

Stew21 said:
I'd like to see a similar program on TV that talks about the success stories. There are a lot of them. The advancements have been huge.
A new technology for enabling smart grid program (which does NOT include an interview with Al Gore) would be great.

See, telling people everything is going to explode or global warm till we're dead makes for way better television.

And as we know, the quality of the television program is directly related to how true it is!

dgiharris · Sep 1, 2009

Norman D Gutter said:
Ah, the infrastructure engineer's full-employment TV show! I'll be singing all the way to the bank in a few years.

Or, we can have universal health care and let the infrastructure continue to crumble.

Decisions, decisions,...

You know, there is another alternative. No health care reform and maintain the status Quo. Then, we take all the dead people (from lack of health care) and use them to form the mortar and supports for the crumbling bridges and roads. Cheap, efficient. Its a win-win.

Stew21 said:
I'd like to see a similar program on TV that talks about the success stories. There are a lot of them. The advancements have been huge.
A new technology for enabling smart grid program (which does NOT include an interview with Al Gore) would be great.

And I want a unicorn that shits rainbow flavored ice-cream.

Nothing sells like doom and gloom. Well, celebrity sex scandals do pretty well. Otherwise, that's all the media is interested in nowadays.

Diana Hignutt said:
I can vouch that this nation's sewage/wastewater collections and treatment infrasturcture is decaying quickly. There are lots of twenty-year "can" pumping stations going on into their 40s and 50s. I know of pumping stations still using pumps made in the twenties. It's good for my company because we fix things as they break, because as you know, "the shit must flow." We've been fairly recession-resistant as a result. One day soon, things are going to break beyond our ability to repair them and the toilets will give back everything given to them, right into your homes.

You know, it surprises me how 'old' some of the stuff we use. The average person isn't even aware. It will take wholesale catastrophic failures for us to revamp our system. In fact, statistically, we are due. Given that metal fatigues around 50 yrs or so, and that you can only take so many 'decades' of repeated stress, it's only a matter of time.

Norman D Gutter said:
Infrastructure is crumbling because the American taxpayer doesn't want the higher taxes needed to pay what it will take to keep the infrastructure in best repair, and our elected and appointed officials don't have the political will to sell the American taxpayer on what is needed.

My personal belief ...

*cue Don's salivating for a retort*

...is that we pay enough taxes to get done what we need to get done. It is just that the government is too inefficient at handling the money. Increasing efficiency by 10% actually leads to a 20% increase in revenues if you factor in opportunity costs. It's almost a two for one deal becuase not only are you not WASTING that 10% but then you get to spend that 10% on something else!!!

Example of what i'm talking about? Well, government agencies MUST spend what they have allocated in their budgets regardless if they need to or not and thus are penalized (by way of reduced allocations in the next year) if they fail to do so. If we gave incentives for saving money (i.e. it won't hurt your budget next year, your org gets kudus for saving money, etc) and changed the structure of our allocation process we could save 10% - 20% per year EASY (as said by ex government worker in R&D field)

Zoombie said:
See, telling people everything is going to explode or global warm till we're dead makes for way better television.

And as we know, the quality of the television program is directly related to how true it is!

Quote for Sarcasm, Cynicism and Truth

QFSCT (my new acronym, remember who invented it

)

Mel...

blacbird · Sep 1, 2009

Don said:
You'd think this was more important to TPTB than blowing up and then rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan's infrastructure, or maintaining military bases in over 150 other countries around the world, but what do I know?

Yer a closet liberal commie pinko dovey wuss, ain't ya?

I saw the show, too. No great surprises, but it sure does drive home a point in effective fashion.

caw

blacbird · Sep 1, 2009

dgiharris said:
Example of what i'm talking about? Well, government agencies MUST spend what they have allocated in their budgets regardless if they need to or not and thus are penalized (by way of reduced allocations in the next year) if they fail to do so.

Hey, twenty-five years ago or so we we're all exhorted to make government work like a business. Well, that's what we got, at least in this respect. Big businesses work in precisely this same way, and that's first-hand knowledge. The last thing you want to do if you're a unit manager controlling some level of budget is fail to spend every single penny of it.

caw

dgiharris · Sep 1, 2009

blacbird said:
Yer a closet liberal commie pinko dovey wuss, ain't ya?

I saw the show, too. No great surprises, but it sure does drive home a point in effective fashion.

caw

Is it just me, or does this just seem very obvious.

If we built a bridge in 1920, why do we expect it to last forever?

Now I know some of the suspension bridges undergo routine maintence to include a systematic REPLACEMENT of cables, cement, beams, etc.

But i'm sure we have a ton of bridges that don't get that treatment.

Similarly, if the 'shit pumps' are 1920s and 30s pumps don't you think we should be replacing them before their centurian birthdays? I dunno, to me, you don't have to make too strong of a case for me to believe you.

Seems obvious to me
Mel...

blacbird · Sep 1, 2009

dgiharris said:
Is it just me, or does this just seem very obvious.

I agree. But it obviously wasn't obvious to the drivers crossing that bridge in Minneapolis last year. Or to the kinds of politicians who want hundreds of millions of dollars to build NEW bridges nobody wants rather than for upkeep and repair of existing facilities.

caw

dgiharris · Sep 1, 2009

blacbird said:
Hey, twenty-five years ago or so we we're all exhorted to make government work like a business. Well, that's what we got, at least in this respect. Big businesses work in precisely this same way, and that's first-hand knowledge. The last thing you want to do if you're a unit manager controlling some level of budget is fail to spend every single penny of it.

caw

I guess one difference (my experience with business is on the R&D side) is that the money we spent (at my company) always went to improving the product or in some way shape or form increasing revenue for the company. Plus, on occasion we did shuffle money to other programs that were lacking (when my programs were on the plus side)

But from the government side, extra money is pretty much burned. One time, my R&D unit had some extra money so we spent it on getting really fancy Oscilliscopes (we were swimming in scopes) and some other lab equipment that we didn't need. In fact, we bought a super high resolution ultra fast IR camera ($150K) that spent 2 years unpacked in its crate.

Still, there is DEFINITELY opportunity to improve increase efficiency. IMHO there are so many blatant inefficiencies that you can do a lot of good with relatively 'minor' tweaks that really won't hurt any org.

Mel...

robeiae · Sep 1, 2009

dgiharris said:
Example of what i'm talking about? Well, government agencies MUST spend what they have allocated in their budgets regardless if they need to or not and thus are penalized (by way of reduced allocations in the next year) if they fail to do so. If we gave incentives for saving money (i.e. it won't hurt your budget next year, your org gets kudus for saving money, etc) and changed the structure of our allocation process we could save 10% - 20% per year EASY (as said by ex government worker in R&D field)

It's all about the incentives. We all act--almost always--because of incentives (or lack thereof). Of course, creating incentives doesn't always work the right way. Sometimes, when people think they are creating a particular incentive, they are also creating other ones that can trump the one they were hoping for.

Example? Freakonomics, chapter 1.

Norman D Gutter · Sep 1, 2009

dgiharris said:
It is just that the government is too inefficient at handling the money.

And always will be.

The Crumbling of America

All Living is Local

like motherf&cking Tolstoy

All Living is Local

Touch and go

THE BLUEBERRY QUEEN OF HADES (he/him)

Plotting! Not Plodding!

Engineer Sonneteer

Petulantly Penitent

Unabashed Mercenary

It's a doggy dog world

Very Tired

Engineer Sonneteer

Dragon of the Multiverse

Disgruntled Scientist

Disgruntled Scientist

Disgruntled Scientist

Touch and go

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