Infrastructure Investment Deficit Dwarfed By Leadership Shortfall

Election season focus

Like an apple tree among the trees of the woods,
So is my beloved among the sons.
—Song of Solomon

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Andrew Herrmann of the American Society of Civil Engineers highlights some of the areas in which the nation presently faces potentially disastrous consequences as a result of its longstanding deficit in infrastructure investment...




The ASCE's 2009 Report Card for America's Infrastructure estimates a $2.2 trillion investment is needed over the next five years simply to upgrade existing infrastructure to a safe standard. This is investment needed just to stand still and does not account for infrastructure investment facilitating exponential economic growth — an objective requiring upward of a couple trillion dollars per year.

Take, for example, the area of water management identified by Herrmann as among the most critically deficient. The magnitude of investment needed (such as can produce a revolutionary effect) is made apparent in the following presentation detailing a project first proposed in 1964: the North American Water and Power Alliance...




Either projects like this will get done because there is political will to reap the many benefits, or we will continue remaining vulnerable to the consequences of our nation's dilapidated infrastructure whose neglect has accumulated over the course of decades. Obviously, too, infrastructure investment thus far made in this, an hour of increasing economic need, has been terribly pathetic. So, the question really is how many more men and women in what are powerful political positions must we endure while these choose a course essentially weakening their effectiveness as leaders? Why does one run for public office when one apparently possesses neither the knowledge nor the courage to do what must be done?

Check out the ASCE's 2009 Report Card for America's Infrastructure. Consider Atlanta, Georgia's "Sewer Mayor." She appears a fine example of political will exercised. This alone progress requires. Seek this in November.

—Tom Chechatka