Thousands of obsolete dams and thousands of miles of abandoned roads in America’s aging and crumbling infrastructure could still be valuable – to the environment, according to a policy forum paper in this week’s Science…
With the baby boomer generation also came a vast increase of infrastructure – roads, bridges and dams. With this infrastructure came substantial environmental changes: dams and levees cut off fish migration; roads fragmented forests and facilitated the spread of invasive plant species; oil and gas platforms discharged waste and released atmospheric pollution.
Many of these structures are now badly in need of repair, at a price tag of more than $1.6 trillion. But a substantial number are abandoned or are no longer used for their original purpose, and government policies on decommissioning, if they exist, are often vague.
“Removing aging infrastructure can be a significant opportunity for ecosystem restoration, and can also remove a safety liability, as well as reduce long-term economic costs of constant repairs,” said Martin Doyle.
Among the country’s inventory of infrastructure listed in the paper are: 3,500 dams that have been rated unsafe; more than 15,000 miles of levees, many with unknown structural integrity; 1,300 offshore oil and gas platforms sitting idle; and a maintenance backlog of over 42,000 miles for U.S. Forest Service roads.
Sensible recycling of infrastructure. Wonder what the odds are of getting it implemented?
“Many of these structures are now badly in need of repair, at a price tag of more than $1.6 trillion.”
Hell, that’s going to make a dent on our budget for Iraq and Afghanistan…can’t have that…
Cheers
Dismantling the USA. Really sounds like a great opportunity to create jobs to replace the jobs that’s been exported… dismantle the stuff that the previous generation built. It’s a little bit like how the Soviet Union did away with unemployment… one crew dug a ditch, the second crew filled in the ditch.
$1.6 trillion… a lot of cash that – like TIHZ_HO already mentioned – could be spent on other things, such as a new war or cutting the taxes. How about outsourcing it to India? It would cost 1/5 and be done twice as fast.
The Egyptian Pyramids were made from a kind of primitive concrete (search engine “pyramids concrete”) and have more or less lasted 5,000 years. Are installations made of ferroconcrete really toast after a mere 50 years? I’d take a second look before spending the 1.6 trills.
You’re not going to reverse species invasion by removing old roads. These projects sound like they would cause the pool of immigrant labor to increase.
I have to take issue that the “Boomer” generation is the creator of the infrastructure in this country. The vast majority was constructed or started during the Eisenhower era and left to the boomers as our heritage. That’s not to say it wasn’t added to by the boomers who have been fed the line that you can spend your way out of poverty for so long we can’t stop borrowing to buy things we really don’t need. Fear not though, we have evolved into spending on things we can’t even reuse, bombs, bullets, and dead soldiers.
Scamp,
I hate to tell you, but you can re-use bombs, bullets, and dead soldiers.
Used but not detonated bombs can be re-used by our enemy to use the core components in dirty bombs.
Spent brass from used bullets can be used to make even more bullets, and dead soldiers not only make excellent fertilizer but also are handy to keep on hand as propaganda to encourage more people to take up arms against the people who didn’t start the war in the first place.
I wonder if one could buy an unused oil platform in the Gulf??
What a cool place to live, though it might be a bit hairy during hurricane season. Bet you don’t get any Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking at your door. 🙂
In the very rural area of Ohio where my Mom’s family lives, they have taken up the tracks of hundreds of miles of old, abandoned rail lines and turned most of it into hiking and biking trails. They are really popular and heavily used. And they are turning old coal mine lands into wildlife areas. My Uncle said there is wild turkey and pheseant returning to the woods for the first time in almost 40 years.
For a President that has an “MBA,” Bush sure is a fool about economics.
Even though I am a fiscal conservative, I agree that deficit spending can have it’s place during economic downturns.
However, just injecting massive cash (creating massive debt) is just plain stupid. It’s like crystal meth for the economy — it gives a short term jolt but with horrible long term consequences.
WISE deficit spending is spending on infrastructure that has long-term benefits for American productivity. Eventually, spending on infrastructure can be recouped through tax revenues.
Transportation, of course is a good one. So is higher education. Communications, too.
Considering the I35 bridge collapse, it seems like deficit spending on roads and bridges is appropriate.
I also think that getting fiber optics into every home is another good one. Of course, sustainable energy is a great one too. College grants and loans are another fantastic idea.
But just borrowing money and dumping the cash on people? Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.