Our Failing Infrastructure

I’m blogging today from the World Environmental and Water Resources Congress  sponsored by the Environmental and Water Resources Institute of ASCE in Kansas City, Missouri. Over 800 engineers from around the world have gathered to share the latest advances in their field and to network with peers.

As part of the program, ASCE is presenting the findings of the 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. We’re showing engineers how they can use the Report Card to educate the public and lawmakers about the state the nation’s infrastructure and what they can do to improve it. In a keynote address to the entire conference group, ASCE 2008-2009 President D. Wayne Klotz, P.E., D.WRE, F.ASCE, gave an overview of the Report Card’s water and environment categories and made a special request to the attendees to use their professional expertise to advocate for the infrastructure  improvement this country so desperately needs.

A “water guy” himself, Klotz reminded the group that as environmental engineers, they don’t just design and operate drinking and wastewater systems, they provide clean that is essential to public health. In so many parts of the world, he said, people don’t have access to safe drinking water and sanitation services – which leads to disease and inhibits economic development.

Luckily, engineers at the conference –and anyone reading from home- can take immediate action on water issues. The Senate is currently considering legislation, the Water Infrastructure Financing Act (S.1005) that would authorize about $39 billion in drinking, waste, and stormwater investments. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved the bill last week and now it moves to the full Senate for consideration. The full House already passed similar legislation (H.R. 1272) by a vote of 317-101 on March 12 that only included clean water initiatives - the differences in the bills will be worked out later in a conference committee.   You can send an email to your Senator and ask them to support final passage of the bill by visiting ASCE’s Click and Connect with Congress advocacy website.

As engineers talk with friends and colleagues, it’s important to use your expert technical background to educate others about the state of the nation’s infrastructure. Studies show that the public views engineers as authoritative sources for information: now you just need to get out there and prove them right! 

the National Journal has a great new feature, the Transportation Expert’s Blog, that brings together experts in the transportation policy field to discuss a wide range of topics and issues relating to transportation. This week’s topic questions the future of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) given the recent collapse of a deal to privatize Midway Airport in Chicago.

As an expert on the blog, ASCE’s Executive Director Patrick J. Natale, P.E., F.ASCE had this to say about the future of PPPs:

“Public private partnerships (PPPs) make the public nervous, particularly as they relate to the nation’s critical infrastructure systems. If PPPs are going to become well-established options for infrastructure financing—and they must given the staggering costs of addressing current and future needs—we need to acknowledge that fact and address it head on. “

You can read the rest of this post on the blog.

In other news…

The Michigan Section of ASCE just released their own state Report Card that grades the state’s infrastructure at a D. Civil Engineers in Michigan believe that improving infrastructure is essential in a state that has in recent years seen major economic decline, “Michigan’s infrastructure is in dire condition. Reversing the decay of our most valuable assets is essential to reviving Michigan’s fortunes.” said the authors of the report.

Yesterday afternoon, ASCE participated in a Congressional briefing on the Homeland Security aspects of the 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. The briefing was part of a series hosted by the Security for a New Century Coalition that brings together Hill staffers and experts in a bi-partisan forum to discuss new challenges to national security.

Two members of the Advisory Council that developed the Report Card, David Gehr, M.ASCE, and Paul F. Mlakar, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE briefed the group. Gehr gave the attendees an overview of the Report Card and explained the overall condition of the nation’s infrastructure, while Mlakar, a former chairman of ASCE’s Committee on Critical Infrastructure explained the concept of resilience and made recommendations for how infrastructure should be planned and designed to make it more resistant to hazards – both natural and man-made.

One of the Report Card’s 5 Key Solutions is to promote sustainability and resilience, and so ASCE jumped at the chance to share this important message with the security community. Resilience refers to the capability to prevent or protect against significant multihazard threats and incidents (either man-made or natural) and to recover expeditiously and reconstitute critical services with minimum damage to public safety and health, the economy, and national security. The nation’s infrastructure systems face challenges everyday whether it be guarding against potential terrorist attacks or withstanding strong storms. The public may not pay much attention to their water service on a daily basis – but certainly do when it is disrupted. Part of improving the nation’s infrastructure is building in ways to resist these problems or make it easy to get everything back to normal as soon as possible.

An easy way to remember the concept of resilience and how it should be applied to infrastructure is through the “4 R’s”:

• Robustness – simply build things to be stronger, so they can’t be destroyed (or make it really tough!)
• Redundancy – if something fails, do you have a back-up? Currently, most bridges are built in multiple spans, so if one collapses, traffic can still flow.
• Rapidity – can you get something back to working order quickly? Many times, it becomes too difficult or expensive to build systems to be really robust, so sometimes it’s better to build something that can be easily fixed and just allow it to fail in certain cases.
• Resourcefulness – can you think of a new and creative way to solve a problem?

We can already predict some of the challenges America’s infrastructure will face in the future: increased demand, dwindling funds, decay from lack of maintenance. But there are some things we can’t predict that well: like how individuals or mother nature may behave, but we make ourselves ready to deal with them. Infrastructure is meant to protect public safety. A sure way to do that is by building resilient systems.