Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
(OP)
I do not live in the US, but this article was interesting:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrast...
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrast...





RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
But this is something that someone can make a profit on. So it's not really a big government issue to fix.
Unless you like government trash service (over priced, not very efficient, and does not compete well with for profit companies).
And maybe that's the key on some of the issues, make them a profit motive for companies to fix.
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
For profit companies simply nickel and dime you to death. Just look at what the airlines have stopped offering for "free" and now, there are certain airlines where they charge you to carry the clothes you need to wear at your destination. Utilities are doing that sort of thing as well; their "responsibility" ends at the far end of their meters, and anything else will cost you. They still provide pilot light servicing for free, but I can't imagine that staying that way.
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RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
On an historic note - the electric light bulb was invented to counter gas explosions in cities. If the gas pressure dropped, the gas lamps would stop burning and if no one was home or noticed, when the pressure came back the dwelling had a good chance of going boom! I think this was before ethyl mercaptan was introduced, so gas leaks were in no conventional way detectable.
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
Actually there are safety requirements for gas utilities, which is why they light pilots. IT's REQUIRED, by law. And that cost is added to your gas bill, in a round about way.
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
Well, that was a fun fact, but I'm scratching my head wondering what counts as a dam. Wikipedia lists only 24 reservoirs in Kansas. I know of a handful of other named dams/lakes, and I'm sure there are... maybe a few hundred I've never heard of? Even that sounds like a stretch. We don't have enough dam-worthy creeks and rivers to support 6,087 dams. They must be counting every homemade pasture dam and large road ditch to get to that number!
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
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RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
Reaction to change doesn't stop it
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
But to call them dams is a...well jump... to say the least, because many of them have small culverts in them, as to limit water flow exiting the small valleys.
These are by no means lake type of dams, like I suspect you are thinking. They are flood control dams, so they normally hold no water.
Most watering ponds are owned by ranchers, who take care of them, not the state. But if they pay a fee the state will put fish in them.
But the types of dams in Kansas could be a lesson in flood control that other places could learn from.
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
This does show that Kansas has in excess of 5000 dams based on the above criteria:
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhitMeXP0fA
Lake Delton was (is?) the center of a major tourist attraction in southern Wisconsin, the Tommy Bartlett water ski/sky/whatever show. Also many not-so-modest vacation homes with varying degrees of seaworthiness.
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
This shows the dam nearing completion (taken with a Minolta SR-1)
And this photo shows the Eau Galle River and what was to become the Eau Galle Reservoir (AKA Lake George), which can be seen in the image below, taken from Google, showing what the area looks like today:
Note the size of the dam compared the town of Spring Valley (pop approx 1,400) just below it.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
Reaction to change doesn't stop it
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
The optimist states everything is fine. The pessimist states everything is broken.
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
Kinda strange,,, to an outsider, the "dam belt" of MO, KS, OK, TX. Makes me wonder about federal money, timing, etc.. It's possible (likely?) that many of them were constructed to satisfy a spec to acquire "dam" status and government assistance, since the natural elevation changes and terrain may have made that easy in that area. I'll guarantee that not one 24' dam has been constructed since that 25' definition came into place, unless NOT being a "dam" made money for a developer or other politically connected individual.
.
(Me,,,wrong? ...aw, just fine-tuning my sarcasm!)
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
Define the 'need' level, and everything will meet that level.
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
"Why would there be federal dam assistance?"
Here's the need!
Reaction to change doesn't stop it
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
Only when the states decide suddenly it's a federal problem, while all the while prior to this, they were complaining about the US Army Corps of Engineers as a meddlesome PITA that's forcing the states to spend money where it isn't needed.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
.
(Me,,,wrong? ...aw, just fine-tuning my sarcasm!)
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
Reaction to change doesn't stop it
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
In fact, some drainage ditches on the sides of highways are navigable. Even when they are dry.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeleef/2015/02/06/...
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
Reaction to change doesn't stop it
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
For the curious, here's a current set of guidance. It appears they've rolled this back slightly from the original language:
https://www.epa.gov/cwa-404/guidance-identify-wate...
(I still think it's overreaching by the EPA/ACOE, but that's not the dam subject)
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
Ironically, "pro-life" apparently does not demand environmental protection to the fullest extent.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
The issue of dams and dam safety is about to get a whole lot more attention soon.
But what about the other issues?
So many of these are private or local concerns that should not require Federal monies. Local roads, bridges, power lines, railroads, to name a few.
Many of the dams are to protect local communities.
The one thing I saw that is Federal, is the locks.
RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
No doubt, but they're only human and make mistakes. By that argument, given the Millenium Tower fiasco in SF, private industry invariably has additional motivations from doing the right thing, they can't be put into positions of responsibility either.
State and local jurisdictions tend not to have sufficient resources to properly manage and oversee things like this. Alabama just recently revealed that they've been completely ignoring their federal AND state mandates for high school education and have simply been graduating woefully undereducated high school seniors in order to goose the state's graduation rates and now these students are failing in college in huge numbers. For something where there were ostensibly binary decision points about graduation eligibility, they failed miserably to manage the outcome.
This is probably why the USACE was given the charter to manage inland waterways in at least a supposedly systematic and uniform manner.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now
The General Survey Act of 1824 authorized the use of Army engineers to survey road and canal routes. That same year Congress passed an "Act to Improve the Navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers" and to remove sand bars on the Ohio and "planters, sawyers, or snags" (trees fixed in the riverbed) on the Mississippi, for which the Corps of Engineers was the responsible agency.
Responsibilities are far greater today,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_C...
Reaction to change doesn't stop it