Friday, December 21, 2012

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

This is probably my last post of 2012.  Thanks to everyone who read and followed this blog. I hope I can make it better in 2013.

You can help me make it better with you relevant comments on my posts.  The comments of people work work in the environment and infrastructure, coming from a variety of fields, can enrich the sharing of knowledge.  Questions are welcome, too.  Post your questions in the comments section of the post and I'll try to answer it.

I'd like to include more photos next year, maybe even videos.  Let me know what you think.

Don’t Fear the Nexus


Our infrastructure for water, energy, transportation, and food is all interconnected.  Changes to one has consequences in the others.  Below are links to several articles that explore these interconnections.

Energy & Water





Food & Water



Other

Fluoridation Comes to California City


I previously mentioned that I was once an ostensible state fluoridation engineer.  Because of this, stories related to fluoridation still catch my eye.

This week the Santa Clara Valley Water District, which supplies drinking water to the San Jose, California, approved a plan to fluoridate water.  This won’t be an immediate change.  It will take the Santa Clara Valley Water District two years to upgrade its three water treatment plants.  In addition, several wells operated by the San Jose Water Company will need to be upgraded for fluoride addition.

Fluoride is added to drinking water to prevent tooth decay.  Fluoridation can reduce tooth decay in children up to 40 percent.  An estimated $38 dollars in dental treatment costs is saved for every $1 spent on fluoridation.  Water fluoridation in the U.S. has been common since the 1960s.

Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revised recommendations for optimal fluoride doses in drinking water.  You can find more about water fluoridation at the CDC Web→ site or Environmental Protection Agency Web site→.

For this post, I drew heavily on an article by Julia Prodis Sulek on the Mercury News Web site→.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Going Subterranean in Paris


Writing for Intelligent Life, Will Hunt describes a trip from one side of Paris to the other that was almost entirely underground in his article, “Going Souterrain.”  Modern cities have huge underground infrastructure, and some are large enough to permit men to travel through, though this is dangerous and almost uniformly illegal.  In a city as that also ancient, like Paris which has areas that were populated back in Roman times, that goes double.

There are two things in Hunt’s article that I find particularly interesting.  First, underground portions of Paris are tourist attractions and have been for a long time.  I would be such a tourist, but I realize I’m in a minority.  Second, Paris has as subculture of cataphiles, people who enjoy spending time in the catacombs and other underground structures of that city.  They hang out in popular places, party, and sometime explore.

I do not advocate that unprepared amateurs should trespass on private property or enter underground utility tunnels or sewers.  As I mentioned, it is dangerous.  I do recommend reading “Going Soutterain."

Barge Traffic Threatened on Missouri & Mississippi Rivers


Levels on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers continue to drop.  One of the consequences of low river levels is the dangers it poses to navigation, especially to barge traffic.  Low levels have exposed rocks and sand bars on both rivers.

Barges on these rivers transport a lot of goods, especially commodities.  This is a significant part of the economy of states along these rivers, especially those on the lower Mississippi River.  For instance, in Missouri the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center estimated that nearly $3 billion in Missouri commodities, mostly agricultural products, are shipped on water.  Water freight generates an estimated $388 million annually in gross state product (GSP) in Missouri.

To some degree, flow in these rivers is controlled by dams operated by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers.  Officials and businesses along the Mississippi River have asked the Corp to release more water.  The Corp agreed, and on December 15 began releasing water Carlyle Lake (a little more than 50 miles east of St. Louis) on the Kaskaskia River, which flows into the Mississippi River a few a few miles downstream of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri.

The Corp has tried to tame these rivers for more than a century, managing them for navigation, flood control, and other purposes.  It may not get any easier.  Many are predicting that climate change will result in more droughts and flooding along with more frequent extreme high and low levels of water in the rivers.

A couple of days ago, IW was quick to draw knives on a proposal to pump water from the Missouri River to the Colorado River through a pipeline that would run from Leavenworth, Kansas, to Denver, Colorado.  Recently Interior Secretary Ken Salazar admitted that this was not a practicable plan and that western states need to seek solutions elsewhere.

Related articles and posts

DOT Inspector General Gets Extension to Spend Stimulus Funds


The American Recovery and Investment Act (ARRA) provided funds for inspectors general at agencies receiving supplementary appropriations through the act to conduct investigations related to the spending of the funds, oversight of projects, and compliance with special requirements.  A subsequent act directed act (the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act) required the return to the Treasury of unobligated ARRA funds after December 31, 2012, unless the president found it was not in the national interest to do so.  At the request of several inspectors general, including the one at the Department of Transportation, President Barack Obama waived the recession of ARRA funds for the inspectors general so they could continue long-term investigations and oversight.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Book Review: #STEM Books for #DeSTEMber

I’ve reviewed 39 STEM-related books (and counting).  STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  As you may have seen in the news, there is a push to improve STEM education, interest students in STEM fields, and grow the number of workers in these fields.  The idea is that these will be the skills needed by workers of the future.  If you’re a STEM educator or a student considering a career in STEM fields, you might like to take a look at some of these books.

I’ll confess that I’m not an educator, but I think most of these books will be accessible to high school and college students, and a few to middle school students.  The list is also a reflection of my career and interests in engineering, public health, policy, and history.  Even with these biases, I think it is a good list for someone looking for STEM-related books.

How to Build an Android: The True Story of Philip K. Dick’s Robotic Resurrection by David F. Dufty

I was fascinated by robots as a kid.  I enjoyed reading Isaac Asimov’s robot stories.  I longed for the Omnibot 2000 in the Sears Wishbook.

Robots have come a long way.  In How to Build an Android, David F. Dufty describes the short strange life of a very complex robot made to look and talk like science fiction author Philip K. Dick.  The robot had a very sophisticated and lifelike head and complex artificial intelligence.  As with most complex things, it was the work of many people who had to solve a lot of problems.

If you’re interested in robotics, this is an interesting nontechnical book.  In addition, you’ll get introduced to some freaky sci-fi.  You may even get as (somewhat) legitimate reason to use the word “Dickhead” (capitalized, it refers to a fan of PKD, so don’t go using it on anyone).

 

The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways by Earl Swift

The Interstate highway system in the United States is one of the most enormous structures built.  Some of the prospective STEM students who read this may actually be younger than the Intestate system, though in some sense it is never complete because it needs constant repair and maintenance.  The Interstates were completed in the 1990s, but the Federal-Aid Highways go back to 1916.

 

Earl Swift wrote an accessible history of the Interstates in The Big Roads.  If you interested in automobiles or transportation, it’s a good read.


 

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

Deborah Cadbury describes seven wonders of engineering in Dreams of Iron and Steel.  It covers almost a century of history, but many of the events are concentrated in the Victorian Era.  That was a time of great technological innovation.

 

Though the book is history, many of the structures still stand.  Railways, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Suez and Panama Canals, and Hoover Dam stand testament to an age of big engineering.


 

The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios

Though the memory of Professor Wragg’s sneer prompts me to not make this confession, part of my interest in science and technology came from comic booksIron Man was cool.  Spider-Man’s web shooters were very cool.  Superhero comics are full of fantasy, admittedly, but the strange, unrealistic science and technology they depict have inspired many to study STEM in reality.

 

Physicist John Kakalios uses examples from comic books to explore real physics in The Physics of Supeheroes.  Sometimes comics get there science right.  Even when they get it wrong, it can be instructive.  If you know what people are talking about when they refer to the “New 52,” you may find this book to be a great introduction to physics.


 

1089 and All That: A Journey into Mathematics by David Acheson

Here is another confession: I’m not especially interested in math.  I endured a lot of math classes to study engineering.  Reading David Acheson’s 1089 and All That did not require such endurance.  For one reason, it is a short book.  For another, Acheson doesn’t expect his readers to be mathematicians; it is enough to follow the outline of the math he discusses.

 

I recommend this book because so many people have a fear of math.  1089 can be followed by many high school students and older folks with math phobias.  Just take a deep breath, relax, and follow along as well as you can.  You’ll see that math can be interesting, useful, and even beautiful in a way.


 

The Brooklyn Bridge: They Said it Couldn’t be Built by Judith St. George

Judith St. George’s The Brooklyn Bridge is a short history of and iconic bridge.  Written for the bridge’s 100th anniversary, it is also the story of the engineers who sacrificed life and health to see it completed: John Roebling and his son Washington.  John Roebling was a German immigrant who built many suspension bridges and owed a wire-making business.  He gave his son and extraordinary education in bridge engineering for the time, and before beginning work on the Brooklyn Bridge he served as an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War.

 

Why should a cutting-edge STEM student read about a bridge that is almost 130 years old?  It’s because we still use and rely on very successful, centuries old technologies.  Improving and rebuilding our infrastructure will be an important part of our economy.  As recently as 2010, New York City and the federal government committed $500 million to repair and repaint the Brooklyn Bridge.


 

The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems by Henry Petroski

STEM lumps together science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  Is there a difference between science and engineering?  Is it important?

 

Henry Petroski, a professor of civil engineering and history and author of The Essential Engineer, believes there is an important difference.  At heart, science is about increasing knowledge.  Engineering is about invention.  Of course, new knowledge makes new invention possible.  Just as often, though, engineering runs ahead of science.  Sometimes science didn’t advance until someone invented the instruments to conduct new observations and experiments.  The invention of the microscope made possible the science of microbiologySteam engines were built and greatly improved before we had a modern scientific understanding of thermodynamics.  In fact, thermodynamics was to a large extent born out of desire to understand steam engines. In this sense, it is an engineering science (study of manmade things) as much as a natural science (study of natural things) or branch of physics.

 

Petroski’s focus in the book is the importance of engineering to policymaking, where it is often overshadowed by science.  Policy, science, and engineering play off of each other a lot.  Most of my career as an engineer has been related to government, policy, and regulatory compliance.


 

The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson

The Ghost Map by science writer Steven Johnson is the story of the birth of epidemiology.  Epidemiology is a medical science that uses statistics to help us understand how diseases operate in a population.  Using various statistical and geographic tools, long before we had computers and GIS, physician John Snow demonstrated that cholera, once a recurring plague that wiped out hundreds of thousands of people in some outbreaks, was a waterborne disease.  This understanding, initially met with much skepticism, allowed officials to intervene to prevent the spread of the disease.  For those who say of their math classes, “I’ll never us this,” here is a case where math (and science and policy) were used to make a great difference.


 

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose

It is not much publicized today that the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804 to 1806 had a partly scientific mission.  Captains Lewis and Clark were charges with bringing back samples of the flora, fauna, and culture of the western territories.  It was also hoped that they would find a water passage to the Pacific Ocean.  In Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose writes about the scientific mission as well as the policy, diplomacy, and commercial hopes the expedition carried.

 

Of course, what attracts most people to the Lewis and Clark expedition is that it was a great adventure.  There is a place in STEM fields for thoughtful adventurers and explorers. 


 

Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear by Jan Bondeson

A list like this deserves something strange, creepy, and more fun than you care to admit.  Right now, thousands of very young future STEM workers are catching bugs and snakes, breaking their toys to see what is inside, or staring into space with a weird expression of vacancy and concentration.

 

Jan Bondeson’s Buried Alive is not a morbid book.  It is sometimes humorous, especially in consideration of topic.  From a STEM point of view, Bondeson shows how knowledge accumulates over time.  The fears and activities of our forefathers may seem strange to us, but they sometimes made sense in light of what they knew.  Buried Alive doesn’t simply play off our fascination with the grotesque and death, though the book might not have been written if we lacked that fascination, I think it reminds us to approach our ancestors with a touch of grace and humility.  Maybe our progeny will show us the same courtesy.


 

If you’re looking for something for a younger student, check out this post→ from Joanne Loves Science or these recommendations→ from STEM Friday.  By the way, I also write about engineering, infrastructure and the environment at Infrastructure Watch.

 

This review of STEM books appears courtesy of Keenan’s Book Reviews.

Will the Missouri River be the Next Colorado River?


The Bureau of Reclamation and the seven states that are part of the Colorado River Compact (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming) announced a proposal for a pipeline to carry water from the Missouri River to the western states.  The very preliminary proposal suggests a pipeline beginning near Leavenworth, Kansas, to Denver, Colorado.  It would take 30 year to build at a price of more than $11 billion, not to mention the energy bills for pumping the water and the constant operational and maintenance costs.

Infrastructure Watch does not abound with opinions as much as do some other blogs, but since we are based in Missouri, you would be right to guess we have an opinion on this.  The states and communities along the Missouri River have enough water resources problems of their own.  They’ve already been battling over use of the river, and the aquifers that have made the Midwest a great producer of grain are already showing signs of overuse.  If we’re teetering on the edge of a water crisis, we don’t have the resources to bail out the West.  Because the lower Mississippi River gets a significant amount of flow from the Missouri River, those states may have a few things to say about it, too.

We don’t mind seeing the west grow.  We just don’t want to be the Owens Valley to their Los Angeles.  If the Bureau of Reclamation has the vision to imagine a spectacular pipeline, maybe they should envision the problems it will cause and its eventual failure.  We need to get real about the water we have, when and where we have it, wherever we are.

Related posts and articles

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

111th Congress Wrapping Up

Congress Wants Noisier Hybrids
Congress has passed the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2010 (S. 841). The bill requires the Secretary of Transportation to issue rules that would require hybrid and electric cars to create enough noise to alert blind pedestrians of their presence. The bill must be signed by the president to become law.

Bill Introduced to Extend Hours of Service Rules to Yardmaster Employees
Outgoing Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James Oberstar introduced the Railroad Hours of Service Act of 2010 (H.R. 6519). The act would extend hours of service rules for railroad employees to yardmaster employees.

House Votes to Reauthorize Transportation Program for One Year
Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution that would authorize continued spending on transportation programs at the current level through the end of the fiscal year. It will be up to the incoming Congress to work out a new transportation bill.

Related posts and articles
Bill Watch—111th Congress

Micah to Step Down from T&I Chair


Rep. John Micah (FL) will be stepping down from the chairmanship of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee due to term limits set by House rules.  He has proposed that Rep. Bill Shuster (PA) should succeed him.

Related post and articles

Recovery Act Review


Economic Impacts of ARRA 

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports quarterly on the estimated economic impact of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (ARRA).  In its report for the third quarter of 2012, it estimated that ARRA funded more than 135, 000 jobs (full-time equivalents, or FTEs).  It expects 90 percent of ARRA’s budget impacts will be realized by the end of the year.  It projects that ARRA will increase they budget deficit by $833 billion by 2019, up from its original estimate of $787 billion.

Cleanup Projects

 The Department of Energy (DOE) received $6 billion from ARRA for the cleanup of DOE-managed sites that produced nuclear material.  According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, ARRA-funded jobs peaked in the fourth quarter of 2010 at about 11,000 FTEs.  They reduced the footprint of managed sites by 70 percent; that is they cleaned up more than 650 square miles.

Beginning with ARRA, DOE implemented a project management approach that broke down projects into more manageable pieces.  GAO found that this practice may have allowed the agency to classify projects in a way that may have allowed them to avoid certain review processes.  In addition, inconsistencies in developing project scope, schedules and targets, along with variability in documentation, makes it difficult to accurately assess and compare project and program performance.

State and Local Management of ARRA

State and local governments had significant responsibilities in managing ARRA funds as recipients.  GAO reported findings related to their review of state and local management.  Some of those findings include:

-The emphasis on obligating ARRA funds resulted in delayed obligation of other funds.
-Recipient expertise effected the management of ARRA funds.  Particularly, state agencies tended to have more success in managing their ARRA projects that local agencies because of greater familiarity with federal requirements.
-Unclear guidance caused problems for various projects.
-Internal controls of some recipients were not adequate, at least at the start, for monitoring compliance with ARRA requirements.

Related posts and articles

American Reinvestment and Recovery Act News

$1 of Highway Spending Creates $2 of Economic Activity (Infrastructure Watch, Dec. 4, 2012)





EPA Blog Features Missouri


EPA Region 7’s Big Blue Thread blog feature information about the environment in Missouri, the home of this blogOne post covers abandoned coal mines and the other aquatic conservation.

$1 of Highway Spending Creates $2 of Economic Activity


Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco studied the effects of unexpected grants to states for Federal-Aid Highways affected gross state product (GSP, or the gross domestic product (GDP) of a state).  They found that an unexpected $1 increase in federal highway grants to a state resulted in a $2 increase in GSP.  The economic effect was double the amount of the grant.  In the short term, effects on GSP were even greater.

You can read the unpublished paper here→ or read a summary here→.  Additional posts and articles related to the impact of infrastructure investment include:

Skywalk Memorial Close to Fundraising Goal, Construction of New Design Anticipated


When I was an undergraduate engineering student about 20 years ago, one of the events covered in the engineering ethics class I took was the 1981 collapse of the skywalk at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Missouri.  Even 31 years after the collapse, the 114 people who were killed are remembered.

A nonprofit foundation was formed to create a memorial to the victims of the collapse.  It is now only $150,000 from having enough to start construction of the memorial.  It has also chosen a design.


Related posts and articles