America's crumbing infrastructure... check this out, folks

[theHandpuppet]

Talk about timing!

State of Repair
Friday, June 22, 2007
An NBR Series - PREMIERES Monday, June 18th

A 4 part series examining America's crumbling infrastructure.

Every time you hop on the highway, cross a bridge, or cruise through a tunnel, you use an aspect of the nation's infrastructure. Though it is used every day, critics say America's infrastructure has been neglected. In "State of Repair," NBR Senior Correspondent Jeff Yastine explains how aging highways, locks, pipes, and dams could hinder the nation's growth....

MORE at http://www.pbs.org/nbr/site/features/special/070615_state_of_repair/

Read the report and follow the links. You've got to read/see this. Of course these are the kinds of reports you won't see from the major media outlets until there's a catastrophe and they can create a ratings circus, suddenly reporting on the issue as if the state of America's crumbling infrastructure is breaking news!

[malaise]

1. PBS is the only stations that has been discussing

the state of infrastructure. A pox on the rest of them.
K & R.

[theHandpuppet]

2. Which, of course, is why BushCo & the neocons....

.... would love for PBS to be eradicated from the airwaves.

[malaise]

4. Bingo n/t

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. This has been happening for years

Ever since Reagan, I think.

[theHandpuppet]

5. Just think what the trillions spent on war could have done...

... to rebuild our cities and infrastructure. The good jobs that could have been created right here at home, rebuilding and improving the nations' bridges, rail system and highways. Call me crazy, but I think one of the reasons America's infrastructure has gone to hell in a handbasket was part of a long-range goal to destroy America's labor unions and the American middle class.

[AndyA]

7. DING! DING!! DING!!! WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!

That's exactly right. They want to destroy the government, do away with it, and take charge of everything. A dictatorship. And chimpy thinks he's just the guy for the top job.

Thankfully, we have a wimpy Democratic Congress who will let him get away with it. Pelosi and Reid need to go, we need people with spines, values, and ethics in those positions.

[theHandpuppet]

8. When private and foreign interests buy our roads, ports, rails and bridges...

.... the profitmongers won't have to worry about things like hiring skilled American labor to maintain our infrastructure. Paying decent wages and providing benefits for skilled workers cuts in to their profit margins.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to change. I've been waiting for decades now and nothing has changed. Just a continuing game of political "musical chairs".

[Elspeth]

41. This is EXACTLY what I am afraid of

America will be sold piecemeal to monied friends of the monied here.

[bleedingheart]

16. those trillions have gone into the hands of the war profiteers

[gratuitous]

18. Oh, don't be so alarmist

It's not like there are bridges collapsing right under peop--er, not like folks are dying left and ri--uhm, nobody could have predicted that decades of neglect--I mean, Clinton did it, too!

Yeah, we bought this shiny new war four years ago, and now we don't have the money to do diddly-squat for ourselves. But you should see the size of the bonus Dick Cheney got from Halliburton! And didja see the nearly $40 billion profit ExxonMobil posted last year? Whoo-wee!

[yy4me]

6. I'm sure things are even worse than we are told. We can see how bad the

bad the roads and bridges are. What lurks that we cannot see? One trip over the Tobin Bridge in Boston is enough to scare the heck out of you. Old or new, the infrastructure is a mess. An example of a "new" disaster waiting to happen is the "Big Dig" in Boston. The two ton steel ceiling panels were glued up. Disaster 1, several fell and killed a woman. Disaster 2, the tunnel complex leaks like a sieve. Pumping far greater than was expected just to keep up with the water seeping in from Boston Harbor. Cracks, potholes, you can imagine why people are reluctant to use the complex. All this; 14 Billion to build and a forever maintenance program just to keep it reasonably safe. Lawsuits abound now but that will not cure this poorly built road. Sometimes I wonder if the skills required are just gone or is the bottom line only the money, not pride in a job well done.

[annabanana]

9. It's like tooth decay.. the longer you ignore it

the worse it gets.

When are the grown-ups going to take back the government?

[theHandpuppet]

10. Some excerpts from the transcripts...

http://www.pbs.org/nbr/site/onair/transcripts/070618d/index.html

From Part 1:
"State of Repair"-Highway Headaches
YASTINE: By some estimates, spending by local, state and Federal governments would have to nearly double to more than $100 billion to adequately improve our existing highway networks. The condition of the nation's nearly 600,000 bridges is also in doubt. A 2003 survey found that a third of all bridges in major urban areas were considered structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. The cost to fix? Nearly $200 billion over the next 20 years.

The struggle to maintain or expand existing bridge and highway systems has led to a newer phenomenon, privatization. In recent years, toll roads in Chicago, Indiana, Texas and Virginia, have been sold to private investor groups. Pennsylvania and New Jersey are among states weighing similar efforts. Proponents like Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation say it's one of the few choices left to cash-strapped state governments unwilling or unable to properly maintain existing highway infrastructure....

200 billion over 20 years is a mere drop in the bucket compared to what we have spent after five years in Iraq!

From Part II:
"State of Repair" -Blocked Locks
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
SUSIE GHARIB: Call them the nation's water highways. The Mississippi River, the Ohio River and a dozen other major tributaries run across the nation's industrial midsection. But moving cargoes of grain, coal and other commodities to the booming global export market is harder these days. As we continue our series, "State of Repair," Jeff Yastine shows us how crumbling infrastructure is hurting business.

JEFF YASTINE, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: They are a fixture of life on the nation's busiest waterways. River captains and their towboats spending their days pushing long lines of barges, filled with bulk commodities -- coal and corn, grains, chemicals, concrete. For 70 years, those barges have been pushed through structures like this one, the Emsworth (ph) lock on the Ohio River near Pittsburgh. The lock's 600- foot long chambers are filled and emptied each time boats and barges pass through. They play a key role in river commerce, letting boat traffic safely traverse the rapids that would otherwise block navigation here. But the locks, built more than 70 years ago, are showing their age. The chambers are obsolete, only half the size of modern locks. Concrete is cracking off in some areas. The miter gates which open and close for boat traffic are rusting and some of the internal piston valves, which control the flow of water in the lock, are worn and cracked.

From Part III:
"Sate of Repair": Leaky Pipes
YASTINE: Federal grants for communities to improve their wastewater treatment infrastructure has dried to a trickle over recent decades. Yet communities are compelled by the Clean Water Act, signed into law in 1972, to treat and purify wastewater. Many cities have turned to using their bonding authority or hiking user fees to raise money for sewer system improvements. But industry advocates like Kirk say even that isn't enough.

KIRK: Today, the Federal government is basically telling folks that it's their responsibility and they want to get out of the wastewater business. They want to wash their hands of it. That can't happen unless we're willing to face the consequences of reduced levels of clean water. It's just simply not going to happen without the Federal government stepping up to the plate.

From Part IV:
"State of Repair," -Dam Repair Costs
YASTINE: Of the 79,000 dams in the United States, more than 10,000 are considered by the American Society of Civil Engineers to have a high-hazard risk of failure. Most of the dams in that group are privately owned and not operated by Federal agencies. But Larry Roth of the engineers group, says funding for dam maintenance is always a problem, regardless of ownership.

LARRY ROTH, DEPUTY EXEC. DIR., AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS: Like many of our infrastructure systems, money that is required just to keep systems maintained is often diverted for other things. So for example, just in the last four or five years, maintenance money has been diverted to pay for improved security and this has been true at a lot of our nation's Federal dam sites. So if we're in fact diverting funds that should be used for maintenance, then our infrastructure systems, including hydroelectric dams, are going to suffer.

[Supersedeas]

30. thanks for that link

[ksilvas]

11. The Great Privatization

This is all part of an over all plan.
Since the 80's all forms of public infrastructure and institutions have
been allowed to fall into disrepair. When the public
becomes angry and screams, "something must be done!",
the answer is always the same, "Sure" but at a price.
Some builder comes along gets palm greased by the politician
that he helped put in office and presto new building, at 10 times
the cost, if the structure would have just been maintained.
The process of privatizing all public infrastructure and institutions has
been underway for along time.
Soon, all interstates will be toll roads, as well as major bridges,
public schools, etc.
Onward to complete capitalist slavery.
Freedom is on the March!

[theHandpuppet]

13. I agree -- this is a case of an orchestrated, deliberate neglect

And I don't think it's likely to change.

[CrispyQ]

26. Recently I read a story about a small section of toll road

that had been purchased by a Portugal company. As development continued in the area the road became congested. The city wanted to put in a new road to take pressure off the toll road but the original agreement said that they couldn't. IIRC, before a new road could be built, the population had to be of a certain number, so even though the toll road was congested, the population hadn't increased enough to 'justify' the new road, so the citizens be damned. Corporate profits are all that matter & there's a truckload of cash to be made privatizing our Commons.

I don't know if you caught this Common Dreams article. I thought it was good.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/30/865/

Anti-Capitalism in Five Minutes or Less
by Robert Jensen

snip...

We know that capitalism is not just the most sensible way to organize an economy but is now the only possible way to organize an economy. We know that dissenters to this conventional wisdom can, and should, be ignored. There’s no longer even any need to persecute such heretics; they are obviously irrelevant.

How do we know all this? Because we are told so, relentlessly — typically by those who have the most to gain from such a claim, most notably those in the business world and their functionaries and apologists in the schools, universities, mass media, and mainstream politics. Capitalism is not a choice, but rather simply is, like a state of nature. Maybe not like a state of nature, but the state of nature. To contest capitalism these days is like arguing against the air that we breathe. Arguing against capitalism, we’re told, is simply crazy.

===
more at link

[AwakeAtLast]

12. 5th K & R for you!

Reading up, thanks for posting! :hi:

[theHandpuppet]

14. You're welcome...

Just sorry to be the bearer of such rotten news, but perhaps what happened in Minneapolis will be the wake-up call.

[theHandpuppet]

15. 600 million (estimated) for an embassy in Baghdad

Yet no money to repair our bridges, dams, roads and rails here at home? Another 200 million for Ted Stevens' "bridge to nowhere" yet no monies to repair crumbling bridges spanning the Mississippi?

Who do they think they're foolin'?

Tha American public, I guess. And it seems to have been working.

[Hubert Flottz]

17. K&R

[Summer93]

19. Kick and Recommend

[lonestarnot]

20. Breaking news.... 10 billion a month in Iraq and no one is stopping them.

[theHandpuppet]

22. Yep... a month's expenditures in Iraq and we could have rebuilt New Orleans

The ability of the American psyche to defy and deny logic never ceases to amaze me. We don't need to worry about terrorists attacking our infrastructure -- it's falling apart all on its own.

[bleedingheart]

21. The American Civil Engineering Society gave Pennsylvania a D

in rating its infrastructure.

D for Wastewater
D for Roads
D for WaterWays

This was from a report about a year ago...it was all over our news...and guess what...nothing happened with it.

[theHandpuppet]

24. You know, some Dems need to go on the airwaves...

... on a state-by-state basis and with charts showing the good people of this country just how many of their roads, bridges and highways could be repaired if just one month's worth of expenditures in Iraq were diverted to repairing their state's infrastructure. Explain to them how many schools could be built and/or improved with the 600 millions being spent on the embassy in Baghdad. Truly, if someone would lay it out for people in the most elementary of ways perhaps they'd finally "get" what a sham and a bloody boondoggle this war has been. The thousands of young men and women whose lives have been forever lost could have been home helping to rebuild our country. They shouldn't be volunteering as cannon fodder just to make money for college when there are good paying jobs that could have been created for them right here at home.

THINK, America!~!!! THINK, DAMMIT!

[bleedingheart]

27. Oh I totally agree...I would like for someone to just tally it up

and show it to the people of this country....just put it all into perspective...

[theHandpuppet]

28. Yep, I know you're on the side of sanity, my friend

I'm just wondering why the cost of this war hasn't been explained to the American public in such an elementary way. We have some candidates who need to stop playing games of semantics with their fellow policy wonks, get down in the trenches and tell America what this war is really costing them -- as if the loss of life isn't enough.

[theHandpuppet]

29. They should also include the number of new jobs that could be created...

... if the monies for Iraq were being spent not only to repair our existing infrastructure but to expand and improve the nation's rail system.

[Rydz777]

23. There is an old joke that the only two professions that bury

their mistakes are surgeons and civil engineers.

This was a relatively new bridge so maybe it had to do with the engineering. However, the other thing buried in this country is a lot of aging and deteriorating infrastructure. It is very easy for politicians to ignore this problem and spend the tax money on other preferences - such as disastrous wars.

[theHandpuppet]

25. Is Minnesota sitting on any vast oil reserves?

If not, forget it. No profit to be had.

[malaise]

32. This is too sad

closing bridges for major repair or building new bridges is disruptive according to one so called expert on MSNBC. No biggie is citizens die while money is wasted on stadia, Iraq, bridges to nowhere, a white elephant embassy in Iraq, etc. :sarcasm:

[theHandpuppet]

33. Yep, too bad the war in Iraq doesn't disrupt rush-hour traffic

The American people would have demanded its end a long time ago.

[The Stranger]

31. That ONE TRILLION spent in the Iraq war crime could be used for U.S. infrastructure.

[LWolf]

34. I'm glad to see this make it into the national conversation.

I wish we didn't have to wait for horrific disasters to force the attention on domestic infrastructure. :(

Of course, some people have been talking about infrastructure for years, to deaf ears. Kucinich, for one.

<snip>

Ironically, at the same time so many Americans can't find work, there is so much work to do. The crisis of our decaying infrastructure is something we see every day when we sit in traffic bound by orange barrels that line our highways. It is something that school children experience at their desks, crowded together under leaking roofs. In cities, municipal sewer systems overflow into rivers, streams, and estuaries. These events occur with increasing regularity as systems age. Infrastructure problems threaten our productivity, our economy, our environment, and our health.

It is time to put America back to work. It is time to address the twin crises by putting unemployed Americans to work rebuilding America's neglected infrastructure. The Kucinich plan will make that happen.

http://www2.kucinich.us/issues/jobs.php

[Summer93]

35. M$M

Last night when I turned to Keith Olbermann show and found him talking about the bridge collapse and saying that it happened at 6:05 pm I thought this is strange I didn't see anything about this on the 6 o'clock national news.
Why? Had they already taped the news segment and just didn't want to interrupt it? Was a major bridge collapse not significant news?

[YOY]

36. Amazing we have money for defense contractors but none for this.

For the life of me I can't figure out why these "paragon's of our economy" can't do massive infrastructure improvement contracts instead of making weapons to defeat AK wielding insurgents...

[glitch]

37. We had the money to repair the infrastructure in 2000. Bushcult stole that money. Period. nt

[mzmolly]

38. Bookmarked.

Thank you.

[Chico Man]

39. Not to mention the crappy tunnel in Boston

I understand the new tunnel is leaking quite a bit.. and killed a woman recently with falling ceiling parts.

[yy4me]

40. I live in the area and find it necessary to use the new tunnel.

I am scared to death to drive through. Several ceiling panels, with their anchor bolts GLUED in, fell and one hit a car driving through, killing the wife of the driver. The tunnel complex leaks like a sieve, requiring pumping a huge amount of water out each day. I read that a certain amount of seepage is standard but not millions of gallons. Fourteen billion was spent of this Big Big fiasco, it already looks old. Tar surfaces are already patched and lumpy.

Funny, with all this money spent, traffic in Boston is still awful. This complex will never make it to old age, the engineers have already said that it will need constant repair and monitoring.
What ever happened to the skilled engineers who could design and build the older bridges and the newer ones are in such horrible shape.

Is there a road or bridge anywhere that has not been neglected?

[antigop]

42. And look who may profit from all of this...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1497394

[theHandpuppet]

43. I'm wondering why with 29 recommendations...

... this thread isn't on the "greatest" list. This article need to be circulated and read by as many folks as possible.