Reply #28: U.S. Infrastructure: Increasingly Unsafe [View All]

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/caruba032105.htm

Monday, March 21, 2005


Years ago when I had a full head of hair, I worked for the New Jersey Institute of Technology and gained a great respect for engineers and architects. Without them, nothing gets built, nothing works, and we would all be back rubbing two sticks together to make a fire.

In early March, my local daily newspaper ran a story that was four paragraphs long and buried at the bottom of the page. Engineers see U.S. Infrastructure Sinking. It was one of those stories deemed newsworthy enough to include since it cited a report by the American Society of Civil Engineers, but I doubt that anyone at the paper considered the full implications of the story. There was no mention of it on the broadcast news media. After all, how exciting are bad bridges and solid waste management?

Let me tell you how important it is; if some attention and a whole lot of money is not spent on the nation’s infrastructure, i.e., aviation, bridges, dams, drinking water, energy, hazardous waste removal, navigable waterways, parks and recreation, rail travel, roads, schools, security, solid waste, transit, and wastewater, then life in this country as we know it is going to resemble a Third World nation.

How bad is it? The ASCE report, issued every four years, gives the national infrastructure an overall grade of D, down from a D+ in 2001. The Society estimates it would take a total investment of $1.6 trillion dollars over five years to bring these various elements up to acceptable levels. "If we treated our own homes like we treat our infrastructure," says William Henry, ASCE president, "we’d all live in shacks."

"The nation’s infrastructure is sliding toward failure and the prospect for any real improvement is grim," says Henry. One thing I know about civil engineers, they are not prone to exaggeration.

...more...

We are spending half of a trillion dollars "rebuilding" and occupying Iraq while our own country crumbles into a third world nation.

:banghead: