
Infrastructure Week takes place May 16–23. Its purpose is to make more people aware of the need to maintain and upgrade the nation’s infrastructure and of the role it plays in just about everything we do. As Infrastructure Week’s website puts it, “Roads, bridges, rails, ports, airports, pipes, the power grid, broadband…infrastructure matters to the goods we ship and the companies that make and sell them; it matters to our daily commutes and our summer vacations, to drinking water from our faucets, to the lights in our homes, and ultimately to every aspect of our daily lives.”
Here at Forester Media we publish six magazines, all related in various ways to aspects of the nation’s infrastructure: Stormwater, Erosion Control, Business Energy, Water Efficiency, Grading & Excavation Contractor, and MSW Management. As our contribution to Infrastructure Week, the editors of all six collaborated to put together a list of questions that we then sent out to various experts in all of these fields. We’ll be posting many of their responses in the weeks before May 16, sharing the experts’ perspectives.
Up first from Stormwater magazine is Brant Keller, PhD., director of public works and utilities for the city of Griffin, GA. He was instrumental in launching the first stormwater utility in the state of Georgia. Our questions and his answers appear below.
Stormwater (SW): Which infrastructure projects should be given priority? Roads and bridges? Dams and levees? Water supply? Electrical grid?
Brant Keller (BK): Water supply is the flavor of the month. The changes are creating havoc with several regions in the US and other parts of the world. Water supply and how we manage it is critical for sustainability and the way we do business in the future. Roads and bridges come in a close second, and the main issue is funding. Everyone knows we have a problem when they travel the road, streets, and bridges daily.
SW: Is there a solution to long-term infrastructure funding?
BK: The solution is more complex than the everyday citizen really wants to address. Locally it is hard to fund all the needs of cities and counties. I personally believe a realistic approach is for Congress to evaluate the needs of our country at home. Make the hard decisions and reallocate funds to the infrastructure at home and not abroad. I know that is a tough nut to crack, but…it is reality. Communities can cost-share at a certain point to monies allocated but not raise taxes as they already have to attempt to address infrastructure. If you do not have the funds to pay back low-interest loans to start with, why create funding solutions that require further indebtedness?
SW: What kind of harm is the current state of our infrastructure doing to the economy and the community?
BK: If water supply is not adequate and transportation infrastructure is not in place to support economic controlled growth, businesses and companies do not even look to locate in your community. Fortunately we have provided these for the most part, but it came at a cost. Traffic congestion removal, water supply, and wastewater treatment have taken a heavy toll on debt service, and we are at the limits. We are close to $50 million needed for stormwater improvements, $100 million for roads, and $200 million plus for repair, rehab, or replacement of water and wastewater infrastructure. Doing nothing is not an option.
SW: What can various government entities—from local to federal—do to attract private sector support and investment?
BK: Attracting the private sector has been embraced in specific areas and has worked successfully. There are nationwide doubts due to failure of privatizing aspects of critical infrastructure, as the failure of the water system in the city of Atlanta. Personally I think you should inspect what you expect and write better contracts. Local government has a difficult time transitioning to public-private partnerships or privatization. It is hard to get outside the box. We have several successful programs that allow for growth and development where we developed regional stormwater facilities and the developer contributed 50% of capital cost and an annual maintenance fee. We privatized our golf course but unfortunately 2.5 years later got it back and in poorer shape then when we arranged the deal. We have privatized meter reading and that has worked out well. In infrastructure investment it is a matter of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s and having a sound plan that aids the community as well as private enterprise.
More Responses
Here are links to a few other answers from industry professionals:
From Business Energy magazine, Barry Worthington, executive director of the United States Energy Association
From MSW Management magazine, Jim Walsh, P.E., BCEE, president and CEO of SCS Engineers
From Grading & Excavation Contractor magazine, Dan Donovan, director of road demolition sales for Volvo Construction Equipment North America, and Dennis Slater, president of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers
We invite you to share your perspectives in the comments section below or join our Twitter Chat (#InfrastructureMatters) on May 18 from 11 am to 12 pm PDT.
Janice Kaspersen
Janice Kaspersen is the former editor of Erosion Control and Stormwater magazines.