US Water Pipelines Are Breaking

[phantom power]

Happy days are here again...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Two hours north of New York City, a mile-long stream and a marsh the size of a football field have mysteriously formed along a country road. They are such a marvel that people come from miles around to drink the crystal-clear water, believing it is bubbling up from a hidden natural spring.

The truth is far less romantic: The water is coming from a cracked 70-year-old tunnel hundreds of feet below ground, scientists say.

The tunnel is leaking up to 36 million gallons a day as it carries drinking water from a reservoir to the big city. It is a powerful warning sign of a larger problem around the country: The infrastructure that delivers water to the nation's cities is badly aging and in need of repairs.

The Environmental Protection Agency says utilities will need to invest more than $277 billion over the next two decades on repairs and improvements to drinking water systems. Water industry engineers put the figure drastically higher, at about $480 billion.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Deteriorating-Water-Pipes.html

[orleans]

1. it's not cracked tunnels--it's the fountain of youth!

my god.

wouldn't it be great to invest in OUR COUNTRY for a change?

[notesdev]

4. I know, seriously

We hear all the time about this infrastructure program in Iraq or that one... what about us?

Don't we pay taxes so that OUR bridges will stay up and OUR roads get repaired? How come they can't build a major road in the US anymore without having to pay a toll to use it?

Why are we dumping our GDP wholesale into a country that was never particularly important to us in the first place? And where exactly is all this money spent in excess of revenues coming from - who is going to be holding our leash when the bill comes due?

[OKIsItJustMe]

17. I'm afraid at this point, we have a moral responsibility

Let’s face it. We were instrumental in sanctions. We invaded the place. We destroyed some of the infrastructure ourselves, and caused the social conditions that led to the destruction of more of it.

We broke it. It's our responsibility to fix it.

[notesdev]

19. Prioritize

We have a lot of moral responsibilities.

Do we put the Iraqis ahead of Social Security? Ahead of Medicare? Both programs are headed towards collapse.

Do we put the Iraqis ahead of the future generations, who have to pay for what we must borrow to be able to spend on Iraq?

We're spending ridiculous amounts of money on them already - at some point they have to be responsible for their own destiny. They've managed to stick $60 billion in the bank while we are borrowing from posterity. They have plenty of oil and can fund their own development - and they can do it a lot better than most countries can. It's five years since Saddam Hussein was ousted, it's time to wean them off of dependence and put them back in charge of their own affairs.

And we need to pay attention to affairs domestically that have been ignored for far too long.

[OKIsItJustMe]

21. We invaded their country. We are responsible for our actions.

We cannot say, "Gosh! We're sorry about all the chaos and stuff. But we gotta go now. (Sorry! Bye!)"

I'm certainly not suggesting that we can ignore our own country's problems. The failing of our safety nets will be hardest on our poor, and (once again) we are responsible for our own actions (or lack thereof.)

Just because I was against this war before it began, doesn't make me think that if I were suddenly to become President that I could wash my hands and walk away from the mess my predecessor had caused.


I think that the origins of Hitler and the Nazi party can be traced to a failure on the part of the allies of WWI to help rebuild post-war Germany.

I believe that the origins of al Qaeda can be traced to our failure to rebuild post-war Afghanistan. We fought a nice cheap proxy war there against the Soviets and then walked away.

This much I agree with the Republicans on. If we walk away from Iraq now, it will only cause us more trouble in the near future.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. romantic?

can anyone imagine life in the bugged Apple with NO FRESH WATER?

we are talking a major league disaster in the making here.

damn bush.
Hey, how can we afford new pipelines here, when we are spending 12 billion a month on new pipelines in Iraq?

[phantom power]

3. brace yourself for The Stupid...

because as our infrastructure neglect comes home to roost, we're going to start seeing all kinds of people outraged that their government has let this happen. Many of these same people will be republicans, who gleefully voted for every politician promising to fight all those nasty, evil government taxes.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

5. all too true. and sad.

water's nothing.

our Electrical infrastructure is truly a disaster in the making. At or near capacity, with not concerted effort at conservation. brown outs and blackouts will only get worse. and little or no investment in improving it, making it more secure, redundant and robust.

you want a ghost town? Cut the power to NYC. just for a day.
you want disease, destruction, looting, lawlessness, domestic terror and total upheaval? Cut the power AND the water for one day.

[lostnfound]

14. Good thing we've got that nice Clinton surplus to count on..

Oops, where did that go?

Current election set aside for a moment, the squandering of the 'Clinton surplus' by shrub and his horrid band of thieves is just so depressing.

[notesdev]

15. Actually NYC did OK

during the last blackout. I was there, it was pretty calm actually. You'd be surprised how much people helped each other out.

Extend that to a week or so, though, and it would be a completely different story, I'm sure.

[OKIsItJustMe]

20. NYC was not OK during the 1977 blackout though

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_blackout_of_1977


On the other hand, NYC did just fine during the 1965 blackout.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_1965

So, the question is, what was different about 1977?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_blackout_of_1977#Effects

...

The blackout came at a low point in the city's history, with New York facing a severe financial crisis, the nation as a whole suffering from a protracted economic downturn as well as a serial killer, and commentators have contrasted the event with the good-natured Where were you when the lights went out? atmosphere of 1965. Some pointed to the financial crisis as a root cause of the disorder, others noted the hot July weather. Still others noted that the 1977 blackout came after businesses had closed and their owners went home, while in 1965 the blackout occurred during the day and owners stayed to protect their property.

Looting and vandalism were widespread especially in the African American and Puerto Rican communities, hitting thirty-one neighborhoods, including every poor neighborhood in the city. Among the hardest hit were Crown Heights where seventy-five stores on a five-block stretch were looted, and Bushwick where arson was rampant with some 25 fires still burning the next morning. At one point two blocks of Broadway, which separates Bushwick from Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, were on fire. Thirty-five blocks of Broadway were destroyed: 134 stores looted, 45 of them set ablaze.

Because of the power failure, LaGuardia and Kennedy airports were closed down for about eight hours, automobile tunnels were closed because of lack of ventilation, and 4,000 people had to be evacuated from the subway system. Con Ed called the shutdown an "act of God," enraging Mayor Abraham Beame, who charged that the utility was guilty of "gross negligence." In many neighborhoods, veterans of the 1965 blackout headed to the streets at the first sign of darkness. But many of them did not find the same spirit. In poor neighborhoods across the city, looting and arson erupted. On streets like Brooklyn's Broadway the rumble of iron store gates being forced up and the shattering of glass preceded scenes of couches, televisions, and heaps of clothing being paraded through the streets by looters at once defiant, furtive and gleeful. "The looters were looting other looters, and the fists and the knives were coming out," Carl St. Martin, a neurologist in Forest Hills, Queens, recalled years later. A third-year medical student living in Bushwick when the blackout hit, he spent the night suturing a succession of angry wounds at Wyckoff Heights Hospital. Before the lights came back on, even Brooks Brothers on Madison Avenue was looted. On the first Sunday after the blackout, a priest named Gabriel Santacruz looked out at the congregation in St. Barbara's Church in Bushwick and bleakly told it, "We are without God now."

In all, 1,616 stores were damaged in looting and rioting. 1,037 fires were responded to, including 14 multiple-alarm fires. In the largest mass arrest in city history, 3,776 people were arrested. Many had to be stuffed into overcrowded cells, precinct basements and other makeshift holding pens. A Congressional study estimated that the cost of damages amounted to a little over US$300 million.

...

[NNadir]

11. Man, have you got that right!

[elehhhhna]

6. we're biulding them over THERE so we don't have to build them over HERE, duh.

[PDJane]

7. Uh, I hate to mention this,

But you're not building them over there either. The money poured into Iraq is being poured into contractor pockets, and neither the US nor Iraq is receiving anything for the money.

[Kolesar]

8. I recall that we deleted the infrastructure projects in Iraq a few years ago.

[elehhhhna]

10. well, duh! See, if they tried to fake building it HERE, we'd SEE it ain't happening and

we might ask questions.

[Nihil]

16. Just be grateful that they are doing it over THERE ...

... or have you forgotten about their "phase 1" operation that they ran
a few years ago? (i.e., blowing up power stations, water-processing plants,
bridges and other civilian infrastructure)

Some people call them war-crimes but Halliburton calls them an "upturn
in both revenue & profit".

[One_Life_To_Give]

9. IIRC 1/2 of Bostons water never makes it

I have heard that some 50% of the water that leaves the Quabbin Reservoir on it's way to Boston never arrives.

[superkia]

12. The city I live in here in Maryland had a write up in the local paper...

about pipes installed from the 1920's and they are planning to start replacing them all block by block. I hope they work fast because they have allot of area to work on and the traffic is overcrowded as it is without any construction going on.

[Exodus 3-14]

13. Soil Science

I'm no Soil Scientist, but I think there's something much more going on than just infrastructure.

I imagine something with 'PH'/Acidity, etc.

[OKIsItJustMe]

18. Leaking aqueduct swamping homes

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080326/NEWS/803260332

Leaking aqueduct swamping homes

NYC water tunnel runs under part of Wawarsing

By Paul Brooks
Times Herald-Record
March 26, 2008

WAWARSING — Water spits from the cracks in the concrete basement floor of Wayde and Julianne Lennon's house on Route 209. The pumps hum.

Up the road, water erupts in spasms from a 3-inch black, plastic hose. It runs from the pump in David Lorenzo's basement and into the ditch along the road. He has four pumps and rotates them to keep up.

Dave Sickles just moved into his house in the little hamlet. When the power went out last Friday night, the water in his basement rose 4 inches in 45 minutes, he said. For a newcomer, he caught on quick: The pump in his basement is permanent now. He points to a cluster of houses across the road where a friend lives. It's the same with the water there, he said. Wawarsing Supervisor Ed Jennings lives in the area. His basement is flooded, too, he said.

...

New York City has known about the leaks since the late 1980s, but has done little to fix them, according to critics. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli rapped the lack of progress on the leaks in an audit released last August. Two environmental groups, Riverkeeper and the Delaware River Conservancy, have also criticized the state on the issue.

...