Obsolete U.S. infrastructure is an opportunity
I hope...
Thousands of obsolete dams and thousands of miles of abandoned roads in America’s aging and crumbling infrastructure could still be valuable – to the environment, according to a policy forum paper in this week’s Science…
With the baby boomer generation also came a vast increase of infrastructure – roads, bridges and dams. With this infrastructure came substantial environmental changes: dams and levees cut off fish migration; roads fragmented forests and facilitated the spread of invasive plant species; oil and gas platforms discharged waste and released atmospheric pollution.
Many of these structures are now badly in need of repair, at a price tag of more than $1.6 trillion. But a substantial number are abandoned or are no longer used for their original purpose, and government policies on decommissioning, if they exist, are often vague.
“Removing aging infrastructure can be a significant opportunity for ecosystem restoration, and can also remove a safety liability, as well as reduce long-term economic costs of constant repairs,” said Martin Doyle.
Among the country’s inventory of infrastructure listed in the paper are: 3,500 dams that have been rated unsafe; more than 15,000 miles of levees, many with unknown structural integrity; 1,300 offshore oil and gas platforms sitting idle; and a maintenance backlog of over 42,000 miles for U.S. Forest Service roads.
Sensible recycling of infrastructure. Wonder what the odds are of getting it implemented?
Posted: Sat - January 19, 2008 at 10:28 AM