Look around at your own community and tell me what systems are held together with baling wire and duct tape. Chances are your MSW system is relatively free of such make-do fixes, and even if things turn to worms, you can probably find the means for getting the trash off the curb and out of sight without declaring an all-out emergency. But can you say the same about your water conveyance systems? Your electrical grid? Your streets, roads, and highways…systems that have evolved over generations and will take generations to repair? How would you like to be on the hook for a sewerage system that was built 80 years ago, designed to handle a tenth the load it has today? Make your heart miss a beat or two? Maybe you get the feeling you’re not so bad off by comparison? If you do, don’t get complacent.
If you look at what’s being done to deal with deteriorating or inadequate infrastructure in the face of ever increasing demands of urbanization—or more to the point, suburbanization—you may begin to suspect that not only is the task faced by many of our communities a daunting one, but that a patch-paint-and pray approach may be leading us into a dead-end situation.
Why Bother Me with Someone Else’s Problems?
Unless you control the printing press that doles out the money it takes to run your department, it is your problem, because you’re up against the needs of your peers, who more than likely are up to their eyeballs in infrastructure woes. To make matters worse for you, MSW is a stealth business, partly because you do a good job in keeping it out of the public eye, but also because its major expenditures are for operations rather than for capital items. In fact, about the only times you come to the public’s notice is when you get hit by a strike, want to build or expand a facility, or (wash my mouth out with lye soap) ask for a rate increase.
After all, what’s the value of all of your good work when one of community’s critical services—electric, gas, transportation, water, sewer—goes belly up? Do you think that when there’s raw sewage coursing through your storm drains your citizenry is going to worry about recycling programs or whether you can save millions of dollars over the next decade by upgrading your current refuse fleet? I doubt it.
Over the last half-century we have undergone a transition from a rural to an urban society, a trend that is accelerating, taxing our ability to provide new services, and overwhelming many of those already in existence. I’ve listened to estimates for the repair, replacement, and upgrade of our existing water infrastructure between now and mid-century range from $15 trillion to $30 trillion…figures, mind you, predicated on fighting a rear-guard action. Road repairs, right-of-way demands, and new highway construction could add another 50% to the total. It’s one thing to ask where such amounts of money might come from, but quite another to question our society’s ability to actually mobilize itself to utilize such an investment. In short, even if we could find the funds, could we actually deploy them in a meaningful way? Here again I think not, but perhaps that might be a good place to begin our search for solutions.
If we’re willing to recognize that the finger-in-the-dike approach to upkeep will not hold our overdue infrastructure needs in check, much less solve them, we’ve taken the first step in freeing ourselves from the kind of institutional thinking that has allowed us to reach our present pass.
Now is the time for us to forge alliances with our peers in order to make sure that our essential programs aren’t overwhelmed by crises in someone else’s bailiwick. But even that falls short of the real point. What is needed is the determination to rise above politics in order to provide our elected officials with the strategies and courage to address the real rather than “correct” issues of our times. This will take all the character and leadership we can muster if, for those who follow, we are to leave a standard of living at least as good as the one we inherited. Who better to point the way than we?
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FORESTER UNIVERSITY - UPCOMING CLASSES
Watershed Restoration Analysis and Integration with Urban Planning
Presenter:
Paul Crabtree, P.E., CNU-A
President, Crabtree Group Inc.
HydroDynamics Incorporated
Thurs., Dec. 6th @ 2 p.m. EST / 11 a.m. PST
Don’t assume … assess! Optimize your urban planning efforts by studying the watershed first! Join Paul Crabtree, P.E., CNU-A, to explore the importance of conducting a watershed restoration analysis prior to planning, as well as how to design, implement, and assess this analysis to identify comprehensive and effective strategies and solutions for integrating rainwater practice with capital improvement plans and urban planning.
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Determining Performance Goals and Assessing the Effectiveness of S&EC Plans
Module 6 of the Sediment & Erosion Control Master Class
Presenters:
Jerald S. Fifield, Ph.D., CISEC, CPESC
Tina R. Evans, PE, CISEC
HydroDynamics Incorporated
Wed., Dec. 12th @ 2 p.m. EST / 11 a.m. PST
Are you meeting your performance goals? Join Jerald S. Fifield Ph.D., PH, CISEC, CPESC and Tina R. Evans, PE, CISEC for the sixth and final installment of our advanced Sediment and Erosion Control Master Class Series and the second part of our Effective S&EC Plans 2-part mini-series, Determining Performance Goals and Assessing the Effectiveness of S&EC Plans, exploring the calculation of performance goals (PG) at major discharge points using the results of RUSLE2, as well how to calculate effectiveness (EFF) of sediment and erosion control plans before implementation.
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Getting Started in Green Infrastructure—Ten Keys to Jumpstart Your Green Infrastructure Program
Presenter:
Andy Reese, P.E., LEED AP
Vice President,
AMEC Environment & Infrastructure
Tues., Dec. 18th @ 2 p.m. EST / 11 a.m. PST
Jumpstart your green infrastructure program! Join Andy Reese as he draws from his experience assisting some of the leading practitioners of Green Infrastructure and his 35 years as a leading consultant in municipal Stormwater management to explore key technical and institutional aspects of successful programs, ultimately building a framework and roadmap for the local municipality looking to step into Green Infrastructure.
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FREE WEBINAR!
Smart Hydraulic Solutions—
Gain a Competitive Advantage with Your Refuse Collection Equipment
Presenters:
Phil Dybing, Program Manager
Eaton Corporation
Scott Kanne, Executive Vice President
Wayne Engineering
Thurs., Jan. 24th @ 2 p.m. EST / 11 a.m. PST
Stop leaving money at the curb! Join Phil Dybing and Scott Kanne to explore how to drastically reduce your fleet’s fuel consumption and related CO2 emissions, run quieter, increase productivity, and improve truck up-time. In this webinar Dybing and Kanne will discuss the challenges in refuse collection equipment, the opportunities available in smart hydraulic solutions, and how to implement these in your fleet. This session will also include a real-world case study of the country’s fastest growing refuse body OEM, illustrating the positive impact these solutions can have in today’s competitive environment.
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