Last month the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report on four programs that fund rural water and wastewater projects. Over the last three fiscal years (2004-2006), they collectively provide about $49 billion in grants and loans. The vast majority of this was through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) ($42 billion). Other agencies reviewed include the Economic Development Administration (EDA), Bureau of Reclamation and Corp of Engineers.
USDA and EDA have established nationwide programs and eligibility criteria. EDA funds water, wastewater and other public works projects in areas considered economically depressed under the agency’s criteria. These projects must result in creating or preserving jobs. USDA programs are for rural areas (cities of 10,000 or less and unincorporated rural areas) without economic criteria or eligibility.
The Corp and Reclamation have not traditionally operated general programs. They have undertaken projects under specific Congressional mandates, mostly pilot projects for the Corp. In 2006, new legislation directed Reclamation to develop a general water and wastewater grants program, though this would be regional rather than nationwide like USDA and EDA.
The report did not include programs administered through the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Housing and Urban Development. These programs are largely operated by state agencies that receive grants from the federal agencies responsible for overseeing the programs.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Congressional Budget Office Presents Testimony on Transportation Spending
Earlier this month, Mr. Robert A. Sunshine, Deputy Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) presented testimony on federal spending on surface transportation infrastructure. This report was prompted by events anticipate for 2007: the expiration of SAFETEA-LU and spending form the Highway Trust Fund outpacing revenues.
Most government spending on surface transportation infrastructure is by state and local governments (about three-fourths). The great majority of federal spending is on capital (92 percent). The majority of state and local spending is on operations and maintenance (64 percent).
The CBO points out that Congress will need to find ways to decrease spending (or at least the growth in spending), increase revenues, or some combination of these. Fully funding the projected spending by raising fuel taxes could result in an increase of 5 cents per gallon.
The CBO suggested alternatives to fuel taxes.
-Mileage fees. Fees based on the number of miles traveled by a vehicle. This would include tolls.
-Weight-distance fees. Annual fees based on the mileage and type of vehicle.
-Congestion fees. Fees based on road choice and travel timing.
State and local governments are using or have experimented with these alternatives. They are advantageous and more economically efficient in that they link particular infrastructure resources to their users and type of use. The present fuel tax system is advantageous in that it is relatively inexpensive to administer and hard to evade.
Most government spending on surface transportation infrastructure is by state and local governments (about three-fourths). The great majority of federal spending is on capital (92 percent). The majority of state and local spending is on operations and maintenance (64 percent).
The CBO points out that Congress will need to find ways to decrease spending (or at least the growth in spending), increase revenues, or some combination of these. Fully funding the projected spending by raising fuel taxes could result in an increase of 5 cents per gallon.
The CBO suggested alternatives to fuel taxes.
-Mileage fees. Fees based on the number of miles traveled by a vehicle. This would include tolls.
-Weight-distance fees. Annual fees based on the mileage and type of vehicle.
-Congestion fees. Fees based on road choice and travel timing.
State and local governments are using or have experimented with these alternatives. They are advantageous and more economically efficient in that they link particular infrastructure resources to their users and type of use. The present fuel tax system is advantageous in that it is relatively inexpensive to administer and hard to evade.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Book Review: The Great Stink by Clare Clark
(Normally we post reveiws of nonfiction. Because this book is set during a great engineering undertaking, we thought in might be of interest. Besides, we like to pepper our reading with a good novel now and then.)
The Book: Clark, Clare. The Great Stink. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2005.
William May, the fictional protagonist, is a surveyor for the real Metropolitan Board of Works. From 1856 to 1870, the board led by its chief engineer Joseph Bazalgette who plays a minor part in the novel, built 80 miles of sewers under London. This massive infrastructure transformed the city and the Thames that runs through it.
May spends a lot of time in the crumbling old sewer that are soon to be joined and transformed by the board. The filth of London is the least of the horrors of Victorian England that he must overcome. He faces the Crimean War, a military hospital ship, corruption in politics and business, an insane asylum, prison, an indifferent justice system and his own misunderstood mental illness.
Though the novel is set in the midst of an enormous engineering project and the main character has such a breadth of experience, the story focuses on a few people coping with a changing (modernizing) world. Their stories are brought together by petty murder committed by a greedy man.
May, who except for his misfortune might be considered middle-class by 19th century standards, is contrasted to Long Arm Tom. Tom is a tosher; he makes his living recovering copper and other valuable material from the sewage and waste of the city. Many of London’s poorest lived by extracting meager value from waste. The great sewer project was brining and end to Tom’s profession.
May and Tom are witnesses to a murder. May almost hangs for it; it is luck, including the good fortune of having a conscientious lawyer assigned to his case, that rescues him. Tom becomes an accessory to the murder, and later uncovers it to get revenge.
Class was a huge part of English life, and it clearly comes through, but Clark resists taking a romantic view of it. Tom is not virtuous because or in spite of his poverty. He is a wily and unscrupulous denizen of a corrupt world. May is a professional who ostensibly has the most to gain from the social changes occurring, but deeply damaged and almost destroyed by the highs and lows of a society in flux. His lawyer, Sydney Rose, is the scion of an impoverished peerage. He is motivated by his hopes to move up in society as much as by any sense of noblesse oblige. His victory is due as much to luck and determination.
The pace of the book is slow compared to other thrillers of mysteries. The book is as much about May and Tom coping with a changing world as it is about murder mystery. It tempo picks up in the final chapters as Rose begins to put together a defense for May.
Overall, it is an enjoyable book. It works in its combination of history, mainstream fiction, mystery and picturing of a world that is rapidly changing through new technology.
(This review originally appeared on the Infra Consulting LC blog. If you are interested in Bazalgette or the history of the great London sewer project, see this review of Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury.)
The Book: Clark, Clare. The Great Stink. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2005.
William May, the fictional protagonist, is a surveyor for the real Metropolitan Board of Works. From 1856 to 1870, the board led by its chief engineer Joseph Bazalgette who plays a minor part in the novel, built 80 miles of sewers under London. This massive infrastructure transformed the city and the Thames that runs through it.
May spends a lot of time in the crumbling old sewer that are soon to be joined and transformed by the board. The filth of London is the least of the horrors of Victorian England that he must overcome. He faces the Crimean War, a military hospital ship, corruption in politics and business, an insane asylum, prison, an indifferent justice system and his own misunderstood mental illness.
Though the novel is set in the midst of an enormous engineering project and the main character has such a breadth of experience, the story focuses on a few people coping with a changing (modernizing) world. Their stories are brought together by petty murder committed by a greedy man.
May, who except for his misfortune might be considered middle-class by 19th century standards, is contrasted to Long Arm Tom. Tom is a tosher; he makes his living recovering copper and other valuable material from the sewage and waste of the city. Many of London’s poorest lived by extracting meager value from waste. The great sewer project was brining and end to Tom’s profession.
May and Tom are witnesses to a murder. May almost hangs for it; it is luck, including the good fortune of having a conscientious lawyer assigned to his case, that rescues him. Tom becomes an accessory to the murder, and later uncovers it to get revenge.
Class was a huge part of English life, and it clearly comes through, but Clark resists taking a romantic view of it. Tom is not virtuous because or in spite of his poverty. He is a wily and unscrupulous denizen of a corrupt world. May is a professional who ostensibly has the most to gain from the social changes occurring, but deeply damaged and almost destroyed by the highs and lows of a society in flux. His lawyer, Sydney Rose, is the scion of an impoverished peerage. He is motivated by his hopes to move up in society as much as by any sense of noblesse oblige. His victory is due as much to luck and determination.
The pace of the book is slow compared to other thrillers of mysteries. The book is as much about May and Tom coping with a changing world as it is about murder mystery. It tempo picks up in the final chapters as Rose begins to put together a defense for May.
Overall, it is an enjoyable book. It works in its combination of history, mainstream fiction, mystery and picturing of a world that is rapidly changing through new technology.
(This review originally appeared on the Infra Consulting LC blog. If you are interested in Bazalgette or the history of the great London sewer project, see this review of Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury.)
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
American Water Works Association Releases State of the Industry Report
In the October issue of Journal AWWA, the American Water Works Association published its annual State of the Industry Report. One of the major issues identified . America’s drinking water infrastructure is aging and much of it is need of replacement, major repair or upgrades. The report anticipates and 19 percent increase in capital spending in the next year. About 39 percent of capital spending will be for replacement. The replacement and upgrade of drinking water infrastructure is a very expensive undertaking and the industry is concerned about how it will pay for it.
For more on the report and challenges it identifies, see this post at Infra Consulting LC.
For more on the report and challenges it identifies, see this post at Infra Consulting LC.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Book Review: The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
THE BOOK: Johnson, Steven. The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World. New York: Riverhead Books, 2006.
Steven Johnson presents the London cholera epidemic of 1854, and the work of Dr. John Snow and Rev. Henry Whitehead to link cholera to a water source, as multiple conflicts. It is a conflict between two species, Vibrio cholerae and Homo sapiens. It is a conflict of ideas between tradition and evidence. It is also a conflict between the problems arising from the high density living of cities and the human capacity to solve those problems.
In the first case, a colony of V. cholerae arguably won the bout in 1854. The outbreak was one of the most intense in London’s history, especially considering how rapidly it spread and killed. That it ended when it did may be due as much to happenstance and desperation to act as to a winning argument from evidence. In the immediate wake of the outbreak, the view that cholera was a waterborne illness was not widely accepted.
In the second case, the reasoned case from evidence eventually won over tradition. This led to a victory over cholera in London also. Though cholera is still a problem in parts of the world, the answers implemented in London (better sanitation and clean drinking water) will work anywhere.
Johnson is not too hard on the opponents of Snow. It was widely accepted that disease was caused by miasma, or bad air. It was hard for even intelligent people of the time to accept that disease could be caused by something that could not be detected by the senses (though an Italian scientist had viewed V. cholera under the microscope, it was not widely known). In fact, Snow hadn’t found the cause of cholera, only how it was transmitted.
In the last case, Johnson happily reports that human innovation has triumphed over the problems of cities so far. In many ways, cities are very advantages ways for people to live.
The last chapter launches from Snow’s study of the cholera epidemic, and the map he used to illustrate his findings, to how smarter maps and other innovations are creating a bright future for cities. Snow, Whitehead and science eventually are victorious in the aftermath of the 1854 epidemic, but it is cities that are the big winners.
Johnson brings up a number of vulnerabilities of cities in the next several decades. He is confident that the ingenuity show by the likes of Snow and Whitehead, and modern technology they couldn’t imagine, will overcome most of these problems. Even the problems that can’t be overcome don’t seem to be enough to end the urbanizing trend around the globe.
This review originally appeared at the Infra Consulting LC blog.
Steven Johnson presents the London cholera epidemic of 1854, and the work of Dr. John Snow and Rev. Henry Whitehead to link cholera to a water source, as multiple conflicts. It is a conflict between two species, Vibrio cholerae and Homo sapiens. It is a conflict of ideas between tradition and evidence. It is also a conflict between the problems arising from the high density living of cities and the human capacity to solve those problems.
In the first case, a colony of V. cholerae arguably won the bout in 1854. The outbreak was one of the most intense in London’s history, especially considering how rapidly it spread and killed. That it ended when it did may be due as much to happenstance and desperation to act as to a winning argument from evidence. In the immediate wake of the outbreak, the view that cholera was a waterborne illness was not widely accepted.
In the second case, the reasoned case from evidence eventually won over tradition. This led to a victory over cholera in London also. Though cholera is still a problem in parts of the world, the answers implemented in London (better sanitation and clean drinking water) will work anywhere.
Johnson is not too hard on the opponents of Snow. It was widely accepted that disease was caused by miasma, or bad air. It was hard for even intelligent people of the time to accept that disease could be caused by something that could not be detected by the senses (though an Italian scientist had viewed V. cholera under the microscope, it was not widely known). In fact, Snow hadn’t found the cause of cholera, only how it was transmitted.
In the last case, Johnson happily reports that human innovation has triumphed over the problems of cities so far. In many ways, cities are very advantages ways for people to live.
The last chapter launches from Snow’s study of the cholera epidemic, and the map he used to illustrate his findings, to how smarter maps and other innovations are creating a bright future for cities. Snow, Whitehead and science eventually are victorious in the aftermath of the 1854 epidemic, but it is cities that are the big winners.
Johnson brings up a number of vulnerabilities of cities in the next several decades. He is confident that the ingenuity show by the likes of Snow and Whitehead, and modern technology they couldn’t imagine, will overcome most of these problems. Even the problems that can’t be overcome don’t seem to be enough to end the urbanizing trend around the globe.
This review originally appeared at the Infra Consulting LC blog.
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