Our Infrastructure Mess

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"

Benjamin Franklin

For the first time since we have lived in our house, our main circuit breaker failed. It is an important part of the house infrastructure and it failed. When it went, there went the power. Nothing worked. No TV, no internet, no water pressure, no toilet, no furnace. Nothing. We had to call an emergency electrician and after spending almost $1,000, we were up and running once again. Sitting in the darkness all morning, with the house growing steadily colder, I started thinking about our electrical grid. Our poor old patchwork grid, which is only one part of our aging infrastructure, that desperately needs to be updated.

Infrastructure is a big, big topic with a big, big price tag. It covers roads, bridges, pipelines, electric grid, water and sewer. Those are just the heavy hitters - there are others. Most infrastructure items are in need of upgrading, repair, or replacement. It will be costly, very costly. The American Society of Civil Engineers puts the price tag of upgrading America's infrastructure at $2.2T over five years. Wow! That is a boat load of money, especially for a country knee deep in debt.

First the cheap fix. When we lost power, and if it was not isolated to just our house, it could have been something much more serious than the failure of a circuit breaker. For years now, we have known that our power grid is nothing more than an aging patchwork of wires, transmission centers and relay stations. It is vulnerable to all kinds of trouble - aging, man made mayhem or nature's fury. For only around $300M, we could update our grid and make it robust enough to handle many issues, including EMP. If we had a man made or natural EMP burst tomorrow, many people would die. Depending on the severity of the damage, it could take months to get our grid up and running. By that time, many would have died from exposure, thirst or hunger. It would be a catastrophe which never needed to happen. The fix is so cheap, it is almost silly. These days, $300M is a rounding error in Washington. Upgrading our grid is something we should have done years ago.

What we saw in Minneapolis and Duluth this winter as well as other Northern cities in past years, is a failure of our ancient water mains. When I say ancient, I mean it. The main that broke in Minneapolis was laid when the city was young - in the late 1800's. All these old pipes need to be dug up and replaced with modern, robust mains. Millions of gallons of water are lost every year due to leaks from these old mains. Potable water is not only becoming scarce, but it is also expensive. The money to do this could be paid for by user fees. No federal money would be needed. The damage to Minneapolis from the 14 million gallons of water spilled from the broken main is still being tallied. Nothing lasts forever - especially items that were installed in 1890.

Our nations bridges are yet another item of infrastructure which needs attention. In 2011, 11% of our bridges, crossed by almost 300 million vehicles daily, were graded as "structurally deficient" by the Federal Highway Administration. We all remember what happened in Minneapolis when we lost a major interstate bridge over the Mississippi River. It was nothing short of a miracle that more people were not killed. Just on maintenance alone, we are not spending enough money to extend the life of most bridges. The American Society of Civil Engineers has recommended that the United States spend an additional $7 billion a year on bridge maintenance alone.  And this does not include major repair or replacement costs. The money needed to do the repair and replacement is almost beyond comprehension. This is a huge problem with very little money to address it.

The country also has a pipeline issue. Currently we have 2.3 million miles of pipelines that carry natural gas and hazardous liquids, some underneath neighborhoods. Many of these are in need of repair or replacement. We have seen as recently as 2010 what happens when one of these pipelines gives way in a urban setting. In 2010 it was determined that defective seam welds ruptured in the natural-gas explosion in California, in which eight people died, as well as a 2007 propane blast in Carmichael, Miss., that killed two people.

Lets just for a minute assume the estimate is correct that the price tag to update and upgrade our infrastructure is $2.2T over five years. My uneducated guess is this number might be low for what needs to be done. However, assuming it is correct, where would the money come from? The "stimulus bill" of 2009, which was close to $1T, would have been a good place to start. This would have made more sense than studies on how shrimp reproduce as well as other "vital" programs the stimulus funded. If we do NOTHING else to start, please, please, find the money to update the grid. We can find $300M in the cushions of the sofas in Washington.

I am a deficit and fiscal hawk. Always have been, always will be. However, I believe our infrastructure is a vital part of our national security. Like anything else, it needs care and feeding. Just like in a house, we need to keep the infrastructure maintained so there is not a catastrophic failure like I had with my power box. We need to make up for years and years of neglect. We need to be creative and cleaver by finding a way to get this done without blowing a hole in our debt fix or killing the economy. I don't know the answer, just the problem. I do know this - doing nothing is not the answer.