Water, Water, Everywhere


Time to replace the infrastructure:

The dangers of the nation’s aging plumbing are everywhere.

This year water main breaks have stranded drivers on washed-out roads around the nation, caused a mudslide in California and flooded school libraries in Minnesota and Texas. Last month, just after Gov. David A. Paterson attended the opening of a new subway station in Lower Manhattan, service to the subway line was suspended when a water main that was installed in 1870 burst, flooding the tracks. A break in Niagara Falls, N.Y., spewed some 11 million gallons of water...

"Everybody’s been looking the other way, and we have this ticking time bomb that’s ready to go off," [Warren, Michigan Mayor Jim] Fouts said, noting that many municipalities spend their scant resources on more visible needs, like street work, rather than on costly pipe repair and replacement. "Unfortunately, what lies beneath is as dangerous as what’s above."

If I remember right, one concern in the aftermath of the New Orleans Flood was the crumbling water system...hmmm...once again, New Orleans' fate is OUR fate.