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Flimsy-Lie-1471 t1_jbxln2l wrote

I was told years ago by an environmental engineer that the return on investment on water pipe replacement is about eight years. This is why I have such a hard time understanding why I always see that its not affordable to repair the lines. New water lines have a 50 year minimum life expectancy (in reality much longer with maintenance).

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terpin t1_jbxpw52 wrote

It's because the decision makers aren't engineers, they're bean counters looking to make a name for themselves as cost-cutters that'll be in and out long before the consequences of their decisions are made clear.

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Flimsy-Lie-1471 t1_jbxqf1g wrote

maybe, but having a failing system likely means they will be out sooner rather than later

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SheriffComey t1_jby7sx6 wrote

Having worked for state and local government your kind of thinking is NOT rewarded.

And often your concerns are ignored multiple times and you're told "Just do what we said".

Don't get me started on projects that require municipalities, the state, and the federal government to work together.

Also municipalities often use money in ways that has the shortest ROI. We, the state, told one that we'd be redesigning the medians in the next month so they need to hold off on planting their new landscaping plans. They did it anyway because they knew that not only could they get the state to reimburse them for that, but sue the state and get more money to do whatever they wanted as it was likely not earmarked.

Oh and that municipality blamed the state for everything and the city council members used it as reelection fodder.

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Flimsy-Lie-1471 t1_jby9a4v wrote

I guess that is the way where you live. Honestly about a dozen years ago several communities in my local area took on a multi year project updating all the underground utilities; water, sewer and gas lines. They even put some of the electric underground at the time. It was a pain in the ass for about three years, but it was done and everyone is happy with the result. I know part of the money was from the 2008 bailout, but the rest was financed.

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SheriffComey t1_jbybarl wrote

You're talking local and sure if you have enough people, money, and professions(i.e. lawyers) willing to put in the work and for years, sure you can get shit done. My community was able to stop a planned roadway expansion behind it but took 7 years and nearly every lawyer living there to help throw their weight in for many years.

But again, that's local and in small areas. Start trying to get cities, counties, and states to do that and consistently.

I worked with multiple State DOTs and my stories here in Florida DOT are the same in at least 30 other states.

Small municipalities (even business owners)can be a huge fuckin thorn in state projects, especially roadway widening but to do it across the board and constantly and definitely where infrastructure is concerned.... good luck without metric fuck ton of work and the need to have huge portions of the community and frankly most people are too busy working to even know what's going on .

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goldybear t1_jbyhba2 wrote

That’s a pretty flimsy lie 😏

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terpin t1_jbxqr3d wrote

Government service is a stepping stone to working in the private sector for a lot of people, a lot more lucrative that way sadly.

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sndream t1_jbycpkk wrote

You wish bean counter making the decision. It's up to the politician.

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ScientificSkepticism t1_jc4s718 wrote

Yeah, bean counters would look at an 8 year payback and go "eh... okay, borderline, lets find the budget for it."

Politicians run on 4 year election cycles. Depending where you are in the cycle, it might need results in as little as a year or they won't get any payoff.

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Xivvx t1_jbxrwbo wrote

The problem isn't usually replacing the physical line, it's all the steps you need to do before you replace the line. And then fix everything back up after.

Like dig up roadways, deal with other aging infrastructure, etc. Those costs are usually a lot more, depending on job ofc.

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Leviathant t1_jby0i76 wrote

Anecdote time! We did a gut-job renovation on what is now our home in Philadelphia.

Contractors jack-hammered the street and the sidewalk to run a new connection from the water main in the middle of the street. You need a permit to block the street for a day or two, a backhoe comes out to break up and move the hard stuff, a bunch of dudes with shovels worked through the dirt, put down new pipe, and put steel plates down on the street to cover the work temporarily. The bolts on the steel plate that are meant to keep it fastened to the street inevitably pop out of the street within days, so all day, all night, vehicles drive over the plates with a CLUNK CLUNK that shakes your entire house - especially dump trucks. Flatbed trucks make a sound like a traffic accident when they go over these plates.

New sidewalk is put down pretty quickly. Weeks(?) later, contractors come out to pour concrete over the new work in the street, and put a temporary asphalt patch on top of that. A few weeks later, the asphalt patch has compressed, and that has to be re-filled - which takes a month or two to actually happen. And then anywhere from six to eight months later, the Streets Department comes out, blocks the street for a day, scrapes out the patch job, and finishes the surface properly.

Oh, and we had to pay $200 for a new water meter, too.

Now, this was done as part of a comprehensive construction project. If I wasn't a crazy person, and just bought a regular home that mostly just worked, I could see the appeal of not giving a toss about what's going on between my home and the middle of the street. And as far as the city goes, Philadelphia doesn't even do street sweeping, there is absolutely no way they'd proactively take on an infrastructure upgrade project like this on their own. If the street consistently develops sinkholes, they'll fix it, but now you're looking at months without vehicular access to the street in question, and that kind of disruption can cause catastrophic damage to small businesses.

That said, Truth or Consquences infrastructure is barely a century old, and billionaires own significant tracts of nearby land, this does seem like a solvable problem.

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Flimsy-Lie-1471 t1_jby4eyl wrote

Fun fact. I live in PA. The city we were discussing was Philly with its wooden pipes that lose about 30% of their water.

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Leviathant t1_jby7qe8 wrote

Yup! I work in Old City, and have walked past work where they've pulled the wooden mains out for replacing with modern infrastructure. Blew my mind a little bit.

The pressure here on the third floor ain't great either.

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AdministrationNo9238 t1_jc1yzoh wrote

man, i bought a house in philly. previous owners had had the sewer line replaced, but didn’t bother to replace the lead pipe supply line while they had it open. WTF?

Best part? i live on a trolley line, so that complicates things.

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83-Edition t1_jbzcxf1 wrote

Being downtown during the big lead pipe replacement project was kind of a nightmare.

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IOnlyLurk t1_jby5giu wrote

Towns like this simply cannot afford modern services. They have a population density of 216 people per square mile and a median household income of $21,000. Too few taxpayers, paying taxes that are too low, spread out over an area that is too large.

Their current way of living simply isn't sustainable.

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Flimsy-Lie-1471 t1_jbzqjxq wrote

That makes more sense. I live in a much higher density area. We also have rain.

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SkiingAway t1_jc1zsar wrote

No, you've just chosen a bad metric.

The population of the town is not evenly distributed over the land area of the town.

A brief glance at a map indicates that pretty much the entire population of the town lives in a reasonably compact street grid between I-25 and the Rio Grande, while the municipal borders of the town include a vast area of empty desert to the north with near-zero development/infrastructure/population. Just as there aren't even roads there, there also aren't water pipes to maintain.

The US Census Demographic Data Map Viewer indicates that portion of town where anyone actually lives is around 1k people per square mile, and even that is probably understating the density of where the water pipes actually run, since the borders of those census tracts still include some big chunks of empty land.

That doesn't exactly make it a metropolis, but it is probably 5x+ the population density of the number you've come up with, and a much more reasonable density for having a municipal water system.

Edit: And beyond this, being somewhat of a tourist town, the need for services is substantially higher than raw population numbers would suggest. There's at least ~20 hotels/motels/RV parks within town limits.

The article notes: > "The city can attract more than 100,000 visitors during holiday weekends as people flock to the hot springs and the state's largest lake"

Those are obviously not all there at once, but the water system is clearly serving far more than the ~6k year round population, as well.

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edwinthowaway t1_jbyewms wrote

Civil engineer that works in the water field. That’s bullshit. Water mains now cost over $250 PER FOOT. Often a lot more. That’s $1.3M+ per mile.

Meanwhile, fixing a water main break is about $4000. So that mile of main would have to break hundreds of times before it is cheaper to replace.

We replace mains because all those breaks costs customers money. But for us, it is almost always cheaper to repair rather than replace.

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SkiingAway t1_jc220ec wrote

How much of that cost is actual cost of the pipe vs more variable costs?

I'd think in a small town with not a lot of other infrastructure underground and a relatively mild climate/shallower frost line, you'd be coming in towards the low end of things in terms of per foot costs.

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ScientificSkepticism t1_jc4se4h wrote

If we round the figures a little, about 0% of it is pipe cost.

Everything important is the cutting/digging/trenching costs.

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edwinthowaway t1_jc2igzn wrote

While utility conflicts can be a problem, it's not too crazy outside of downtown areas. Often, the main just goes back in the same trench as it was and we use a temporary above ground bypass during construction.

The cost of the pipe is only part of it. Opening the pavement, excavation, backfill materials, pavement restoration, and maintenance of traffic add up to a lot.

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Flimsy-Lie-1471 t1_jbyr6kb wrote

I can only tell you what the engineers told us when they were doing the project. I did look it up and it was 2011 and that is what they explained to us at the meeting. If you have an issue with it then take it up with them.

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Dunbaratu t1_jbyb1ah wrote

You sort of answered it yourself with this phrase:

"about 8 years".

Is there an elected position with a term that long? Probably not. Mayor, Alderman, etc - they all have shorter terms.

That means you are asking elected officials to invest in infrastructure that doesn't pay off until they're out of office and their successor gets to take the credit for it. A lot of political damage comes from the wrong politician being blamed/credited for things where the cause and effect occur more than 1 term apart on the timeline.

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calm_chowder t1_jc57d8v wrote

Because most of this infrastructure was built in the 50s and 60s when the government actually had money to spend due to a 75% corporate/millionaire tax rate and invested it in infrastructure and improving life for Americans. It's impossible to make this infrastructure indestructible and it was always meant to be maintained or failures are unavoidable.

Unfortunately Republicans (esp Reagan) gutted the government's income (by slashing corporate and the obscenely rich's tax rate to near zero), deregulated everything, ended infrastructure maintenance as "wasteful government spending" and basically sabotaged the future of our country. Things will only get worse as infrastructure is more and more stressed and out of date/neglected and the climate changes.

These accidents are becoming more and more common and that trend will continue, and as other countries keep pace with modernization the US will fall comparatively further and further behind until in many ways we're no longer a first world nation, at least in comparison to all others. It's inevitable with the path we're on, which shows no signs of or even avenues for changing. In fact in almost every single respect we're already dead last on every single metric of first world nations.

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mattyoclock t1_jcb16ao wrote

It’s bad politics to fix pipes. You won’t see any return during your term in office, and more importantly none of your voters want their yards and roads torn up for months and to have construction crews outside their homes.

It’s a real problem.

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Flimsy-Lie-1471 t1_jcc82zz wrote

My buddy has been a township supervisor for over 20 years. So are two other guys on the board. I’m sure there’s a payoff to them for it.

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mattyoclock t1_jcc8kxw wrote

Eh, you can't gaurantee you'll get re-elected, and the odds of that happening go way down when you dig up people's yards.

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Flimsy-Lie-1471 t1_jcc9mrt wrote

well he got over 80% of the vote the last two elections, and people like not having water mains breaking all the time.

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mattyoclock t1_jccb660 wrote

Good for him, and maybe that does give him that freedom, although it would depend on your state whether he would have that power or budget.

But that's not a solution for the whole country. Not every municipality is run by your friend.

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Flimsy-Lie-1471 t1_jccbw98 wrote

if you elect good people, you get good results. If you elect clowns, you get a circus.

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mattyoclock t1_jcccsno wrote

Right, and if you set up the system of elections in such a way that solving a problem makes it less likely you get elected, that problem won't get solved.

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