This comes as no surprise to many engineers, but those interested in infrastructure are feeling quite a bit underwhelmed about the amount of stimulus money that has been allocated to the cause, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Private Equity Beat. The article mentions that $30 billion was allocated for infrastructure in the stimulus package, which certainly seems like a significant amount of money, but the need is calculated to be in the trillions of dollars in order to meet standards set by competing developed nations. In fact, from what I have experienced and heard, the stimulus money is being used in large part to make up for budget shortfalls in state and local governments. It seems clear that, in order to address our infrastructure issues, some other measure will have to be taken. Perhaps this is where the National Infrastructure Bank comes in?
Tags: ASCE, civil engineering, infrastructure, Wall Street Journal
The story linked here details the costs (at least $29 million) and delays (at least 20 months) imposed upon a major highway and toll road project in Dallas, Texas by the levee that is to protect it. It seems to have been taken for granted that the levee along the Trinity River would be able to protect this major new piece of infrastructure that is to be placed behind it. However, the city has been instructed by the Army Corps of Engineers to verify the structural integrity of the levee before potentially risking the lives of thousands of drivers, especially in light of new and more stringent regulations in place after Hurricane Katrina. This appears to be a failure in planning, but it also calls to mind similar issues caused by levees.
FEMA requires that a levee have at least 3 feet of freeboard in order to remove the land behind it from the regulatory floodplain. The levee may have met this standard at the time of construction, but a new study may revise the floodplain elevation upward so that the levee no longer has the required freeboard. At this point, FEMA would have the Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) changed so that the land once considered protected behind the floodplain is now in the regulatory floodplain. The effect of this is that mortgaged properties in this area will likely be required to obtain flood insurance. This may be costly and would likely both inhibit development and depress property values. The alternative is to upgrade the levee so that it, once again, has the freeboard required by FEMA.
The unfortunate part of the above situation is that FEMA has an all or nothing policy that does not recognize that the levee, assuming it is structurally sound, does still offer protection from events lesser than the regulatory 100-year flood. It assumes that the land behind this de-listed levee has the same flood risk as if the levee did not exist. A number of communities, many of which sit behind such levees that predate FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), have become quite vocal about this policy and have pressured their Congressional representatives to change it.
The last thing I will mention here is the implications of a properly designed and maintained levee. There are costs here that are completely ignored. Specifically, though the event may be rare, a lot of damage will occur the moment the levee is breached. If the levee is 20 feet tall, it is likely that structures behind the levee would be flooded by at least 20 feet, which causes a lot of damage. Risk here is damage multiplied by frequency and results in the annual expected loss in dollars. The large amount of damage may offset the low frequency to result in a significant risk. Failure to account for this, along with the failure to account for structural deficiencies and maintenance issues, has contributed to the insolvency of the NFIP. Witness New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Tags: Army Corps of Engineers, civil engineering, Dallas Morning News, FEMA, floodplain, infrastructure, levees
The New York Times has posted an opinion piece advocating for some important legislation regarding our nation’s infrastructure that has been lost in light of carbon trading, Supreme Court nominations, etc. This legislation would establish a national infrastructure development bank. The bank would use its own permanent fund to issue long-term, low-rate loans and bonds for the purposes of building road, public transit, drainage, water supply, flood-control, environmental mitigation, waste treatment and disposal, power, communications, and other projects. In short, it would make it easier to create and maintain all those things, seen and unseen, that keep our world going. This would be a great thing as the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) rates almost all of these categories as a C- or lower in its annual report card due to a lack of investment. The ASCE doesn’t mention internet access, however, which is also much faster, cheaper, and more generally available in other developed countries. We have some catching up to do and this seems a good way to get there.
Tags: ASCE, civil engineering, infrastructure, New York Times
Construction workers used saws to remove the broken pipe alongside Bethesda's River Road in December. The 66-inch-diameter pipe had been placed directly against jagged rock instead of in the required bed of gravel. (Image By Sarah L. Voisin -- The Washington Post)
ASCE alerted me to this story in their latest news brief. It was a reminder as to why we do the things we do as engineers as well as the problems that we face with aging infrastructure. This 66-inch water pipe exploded under pressure. It is thought that installation next to jagged rock put undue stress on the pipe much as one would experience by having a knee pressed into one’s back. The pipe should have been over-excavated and placed on a bed of gravel. The wonder is that it took 44 years for this mishap to occur. I expect more such ticking time-bombs will come to our attention as they cannot escape the clock and our infrastructure isn’t getting any younger.
Tags: civil engineering, failure, infrastructure, Washington Post
0