BEN FRANKLIN HAD IT RIGHT; WHERE ARE THE NEXT BENS?
BY TRENT J. WARNER, PE
We are in a time where municipal budgets are as lean as ever and the monies that are being divided are mostly going aboveground. Now is the time for our leaders to understand two quotes from Benjamin Franklin. Though we may not know that it came from Benjamin Franklin, most of us know the saying that "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Studying his quotes, there's another that should also be at the forefront of our thoughts, "When the well's dry, we know the worth of water.”
According to a New York Times Article, "Toxic Water”, by Charles Duhigg, "State and federal studies indicate that thousands of water and sewer systems may be too old to function properly. For decades, these systems - some built around the time of the Civil War - have been ignored by politicians and residents accustomed to paying almost nothing for water delivery and sewage removal. And so each year, hundreds of thousands of ruptures damage streets and homes and cause dangerous pollutants to seep into drinking water supplies.”
As an engineer, I think my colleagues have done an outstanding job of letting America know that there is a problem with our infrastructure. I bet if you spoke to most Americans, they would tell you that there is a problem and that these water and sewer lines need to be fixed. However, our political leaders don’t spend time and effort trying to put capital towards the things we don’t see. It won't be until there is no water served or until we have a mass outbreak of water borne diseases from our dilapidated sewers that money will move in the direction it needs to go.
I am hoping that someone with a leadership position will read this article and inquire with their municipalities and authorities within their state to see if they have an ongoing tv inspection program for their sewer lines. It is the industry that I am in and it is amazing to me to find how many municipalities do not have a maintenance program to even know what their current sewer conditions are. Unless mandated by a federal authority, most are only trying to fix a break that is called in by a concerned citizen. Most of these lines run along creeks and streams with no community surroundings, so unless it's a chance observation, the break is never discovered.
I would propose that new "Benjamin Franklins” need to be found. We need leaders that have the understanding that if you build it, you cannot keep it unless it's maintained. We have been made aware that a society that has substandard building codes will have deathly impacts. Without federal building codes, our buildings would have been built by the cheapest of materials because the next building would have been built that way too. It is now a "norm” for us as a society to know that you cannot get a "certificate of occupancy” to have the public enter a building without having had a local trained building official approve the construction.
We need the same type of system with our sewer lines. Never should a municipality accept a sewer line without having a tv camera through it. The lowest bid sometimes means the lowest work ethic. We have found that contractors and plumbers build with a different workmanship when they know the camera is going to follow them. A pressure test and smoke test do not tell you that you have gravel, construction debris and pipe parts in a line. This material will make it to the pump stations downstream and cause expensive damage. Often the authority doesn't know where it came from because there are multiple users of the system upstream.
The contractors who embrace good workmanship, will embrace this tv inspection idea. It gives them a date stamp of what their lines looked like when they left. It is imperative that the authorities require that the contractor have their lines inspected prior to acceptance. The inspector should be as trained as your local building official is. NASSCO is the source for such training and should be part of any required inspection.
Let's find leaders that will make maintenance and inspection a routine policy or the days that engineers are promising are going to be more prevalent. Benjamin Franklin would tell you that water is worth a lot when you're thirsty.
