Falls of the James Group

What if We Managed Homes Infrastructure
as our Counties, Cities and Nations Do?

By Diana Parker

When we purchased our older home, our House Masters inspector gave us a lecture on maintenance, upkeep and replacement of our basic HVAC, roof, water and septic systems, and most of all counseled us to begin a banking reserve for emergency and planned replacements for the future.

Recent outcries from Richmond and other major cities and even nations over failing infrastructure lead me to wonder who is doing the planning for our future. In Richmond failing sewer pipes made life miserable and unsafe for blocks when Gaston overworked the system. It would appear that prior City Manager Jamison had appealed to the City Council for contingency funds for managed replacements, but these funds were not set aside for reserve.

With global warming and reduced water supplies utilities and homeowners face the problem of shrinkswell soil that during drought affects the placement of pipes and settling of foundations. The shrink-swell potential is that quality of the soil that indicates the expected volume change with change in content of moisture. It is soil layers. In general, soils that have a high content of clay have high shrink-swell potential, and coarser textured soils that contain less clay have low shrink-swell potential. Much damage to building foundations, roads, and other structures is caused by the shrinking and swelling of soils as they become dry or wet.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates in its Solicitation for Research that utilities will need to invest more than $460 billion over the next two decades on repairs and improvements to drinking water systems. 2002 EPA Clean Water and Drinking Water Infrastructure Gap Analysis to identify whether a funding gap will develop between projected investment needs and projected spending covers a 20-year period from 2000 to 2019 and includes estimates of the funding gap for both capital and operations and maintenance. Our cities and our counties must be up to this challenge and participate in programs to identify our needs.

The EPA is soliciting bids for research of advanced technologies on EPA- SBIR, PR-NC-08-10259 including advanced technologies that address the following EPA topics: Innovation in Manufacturing, Nanotechnology, Green Buildings, Drinking Water and Water Monitoring, Water Infrastructure Rehabilitation, Monitoring and Control of Air Pollution, Biofuels and Vehicle Emissions Reduction, Waste Management and Monitoring and Homeland Security. The proposed research must directly pertain to EPA's environmental mission and must be responsive to EPA program interests included in the topic descriptions in this solicitation. The solicitation includes the following on Water Infrastructure.

E. Water Infrastructure Rehabilitation The aging condition of our cities and deterioration of infrastructure includes water distribution and sewerage systems. It has been estimated that as much as an additional $23 billion/year for the next 20 years are required to keep the U.S. water and wastewater infrastructure functional and in compliance with applicable water quality regulations. This infrastructure funding gap provides an important research area addressing economic and efficient repair and maintenance of the water and wastewater infrastructure. For more information on EPA’s water infrastructure program, visit http://www.epa.gov/waterinfrastructure/. Areas of needed research and interest include, but are not limited to:

More effective and less expensive technologies are needed to detect leaks, forecast structural failures, and repair/rehabilitate sewers and water distribution systems. Technologies for effective and economical detection, location, reporting, and analysis of critical defects, deterioration and failures in drinking water distribution and wastewater collection systems that are not adequately addressed by current approaches (e.g., closed-circuit TV, visual observation, and other in-line methods).

Technologies that significantly increase the life expectancy of wastewater treatment systems, collection or distribution systems or water monitoring equipment. New technologies to more effectively construct, maintain, and repair new and existing urban wastewater collection and water distribution infrastructure at an acceptable cost.

Technologies aimed at reducing energy requirements, better managing energy use and the cost-effective production and recovery of renewable energy (green power) by wastewater treatment facilities.

New non-leachable/inert pipe materials and relining techniques and innovative materials for water distribution systems that improve performance and life-cycle cost. Improved construction, cleaning, repair, rehabilitation, and replacement techniques and technologies to substantially reduce life cycle cost and failure rates of distribution and collection system pipes and other components (e.g., manholes).

Severe problems are also being seen in other localities. In upper New York a mile-long stream and marsh the size of a football field have mysteriously formed along a county road. The water is coming from a cracked 70-year-old tunnel hundreds of feet below ground which is leaking up to 36 million gallons a day as it carried drinking water from a reservoir to the city. In Chicago, an 80-year-old cast-iron water main broke earlier this year, spilling thousands of gallons and opening up a 25-foot hole in the street. In Denver, up to 4 million gallons of water gushed from a ruptured 30-year-old pipeline in February, gouging a sinkhole across three lanes of Interstate 25. The lanes were shut down for nearly two weeks. Cleveland has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure in the past 20 years but still must repair daily breaks. Last month, a break in a 2-foot-diameter water main turned a downtown square into a watery crater and knocked out other utilities.

The Senate Appropriations Committee 4/16 held a hearing for the testimony of Budget Director Nussel (former House Representative R-Iowa) on Bush’s Emergency Supplemental Iraq Budget totaling 108Billion, with Iraq infrastructure--at 30 Billion, 21B Iraq Police, 725M Iraq Roads/Bridges.

Repeatedly the Director was taken to task by Senators questioning the lack of budgeting for America’s infrastructure in the National Budget preparation while the GAO has reported Iraq has experienced over 18B stolen or misplaced. And Iraq has banked over 70B from oil sales, while America has made available 6B to rebuild Iraq’s energy sector and 300M to develop its government ministries over 45B overall for reconstruction in the 5 years, all in debt.

Senator Landrieu was especially bitter since it included not one page on Gulf recovery of ACOE Federal levy repair/replacement as was promised her. Nussel’s response was 5.8 B for emergency had been placed in the regular budget for emergencies–the entire budget–the estimated cost of levy repair. Senator Murray spoke to emergency infrastructure for roads/bridges due to floods in the West while Iraq was getting 725M for Roads in Iraq–none for home. The National Highway Budget Infrastructure dollars have been cut. Senator Feinstein spoke to debt increase by 68% for a 9 Trillion dollar debt load from the war–but no budget for America’s wildlife, firefighting, levies, bridges and transportation needs. Senator Dorgan was concerned that 500M was needed for emergency world food program of 30 nations.