Aging Bridges, Water Systems Put the Public at Risk

One in four bridges in the United States is either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). In its report card, the ASCE gave roads a “D minus.” The report said that poor roads result directly in the deaths of 14,000 Americans yearly. Hundreds of thousands of commuters drive on unsafe bridges every day.

In 2007, the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge collapsed in Minnesota, killing 13 and injuring 145.

A lot of the nation’s bridges are 35 or more years old. Many were built in the 1950s and ’60s and are coming of age. Most bridges are designed to last about 50 years. Many are becoming dangerous, and the prospect of more bridge failures is real, even likely.

“I hope not, but I’m concerned,” said William Ibbs, civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “We’re not spending as much to maintain the systems, and there are more systems in place, more government buildings, more schools, more bridges than ever. So resources aren’t keeping up with the needs, and the needs are expanding. It’s very likely you’re going to see more problems in the future, regrettably.”

“I think we’re going to see more knee-jerk-type responses to problems,” Ibbs said. “Whenever there is a catastrophe, like the Minneapolis bridge, there’s a sudden emphasis on the infrastructure, but after about two months the interest dies down and people go on to something else. What you see is a very short-term reactive response to infrastructure needs rather than a long-term commitment to proactively maintaining the infrastructure.”

Water Vulnerability

In March 2010, heavy rains overwhelmed Washington, D.C.’s water system, causing raw sewage to flow into the Potomac and Anacostia rivers, according to a New York Times article.

In Washington, D.C., a pipe breaks every day on average, contributing to the 7 billion gallons of water lost per day nationally because of leaky pipes, according to a report by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Aging sewer systems spill more than a trillion gallons of untreated sewage every year in the country, and the decaying systems are vulnerable to natural disasters or even a terrorist attack. The drinking water and wastewater sector is vulnerable to various attacks, including contamination with deadly agents, and physical and cyberattacks, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Denial of water service could cripple services, such as firefighting, health care, energy, transportation, and food and agriculture.

Much of this infrastructure is decades old, and there are hundreds of thousands of ruptures each year that damage water supplies. Some jurisdictions are raising water rates to pay for the decrepit infrastructure, but it will take decades to replace everything.

A 2009 Environmental Protection Agency study concluded that it would take $335 billion to maintain the nation’s tap water systems in coming decades and that in New York, for example, $36 billion is needed in just the next 20 years to maintain municipal wastewater systems.