Technical Debts: Neglected dams across the US

[Mister Imperceptible]

https://apnews.com/f5f09a300d394900a1a88362238dbf77

https://interactives.ap.org/dams-legacy-of-neglect/

Examples of Technical Debt such as the failing utilities in California.

[jacob]

Fortunately, it's Infrastructure Week in Washington this week and forward thinking politicians, who have been elected by people who would rather pay more taxes now than risk other people's life in the future, are working hard to resolve it

Seriously though, this is a long-standing problem. I saw a similar article back in 2010ish. There are some 85000 damns in the US and 4000 are in a bad shape. Similar problems with bridges, railways, ... some airports, ... for the same reasons.

We're currently paying a lot just to maintain all these in an operational state. It's easier to kick the can down the road than actually rebuild them. One might say we're extracting maximum value from the particular piece of infrastructure. Of course in doing so we're completely discounting any collateral damage a failure would cause.

This is exemplary of so much human behavior that I don't even know where to begin. It explains a lot though. The system is set up to encourage it... but it's also compatible with how humans behave in general.

In practice, try to avoid living downstream of a dam ... or behind a levee(*) for that matter. Also, humans have been known to sabotage such things to protect themselves even if it meant destroying someone else. Oh those humans ...

(*) Note that rivers in flood plains naturally make their own levees. It's important to check that one does not live below the water level.

[rube]

It's important to check that one does not live below the water level.

Is that advise also applicable for the Netherlands

[jacob]

The Netherlands are a prime example. Consider how many lives have been lost to a high tide storm surge happening roughly every ten years or so. Casualties have gone down since the Delta works, but building those cost 20% of GDP and was apparently largely funded by one-off oil&gas discoveries; and they have to be built higher and higher to compensate for the continuous rise in sea levels. Call it a sea-level debt (with interest as the sea keeps rising); essentially the ongoing price of living in a bowl that gets deeper and deeper. If an area/community can not pay it will eventually be lost.

[unemployable]

Not sure how robust that data is as virtually none of the larger dams in Colorado are on it, nor are many of the dams I'm familiar with back East.

[7Wannabe5]

The dams in Northern Michigan are in areas that have relatively low human populations. It's hard for me to visualize who would likely be killed by failure besides maybe the workers at the dam and a few unlucky recreational fisher folk.

[Riggerjack]

This comes down to our methods of designing and funding infrastructure.

Consider that maintenance costs of infrastructure are estimated at 4%. (That's some interesting and parallel math, isn't it?) That's a design estimate. What actually happens is up to the owners.

So in practical terms, whatever our infrastructure budget is, we can maintain approximately 25x what we build, if we stop building. If our current infrastructure is worth 25x our budget, there is only deficit spending left to build with.

At this point in history, we are at the midlife crisis of American society. We have been buying toys, and filling up the garage, as fast as we could finance them. Now we have debt, and toys with depreciating value, rusting away. Some people want to maintain the toys we have. Some people want to buy shiney new toys. And mostly, anyone who has an opinion, either has a hand in one pie, or the other, or is influenced by one of those interests.

Consider the golden gate bridge. Currently, there is an entire division of Caltrans servicing it. Over 200 full time workers. And they aren't doing repairs, that's just the painters, toll booth operators, engineering, and support staff. They contract out repairs. At this point, we have way more man-hours in maintaining the bridge, than building it, without factoring in repairs.

I don't bring this up because I care how much we spend on maintenance. I bring it up, to sketch out the problem in a more complete framework.

Because to me, the only solution that actually works, is to build more durable (longer lasting) and cheaper (less lifetime maintenance) infrastructure.

There is very little effort going in this direction.

Publicly funded (by government) infrastructure is not concerned about lifetime costs. It is concerned about installation costs. Thus we build to a price point, with all the problems that entails.

I see no way to fix this, using same level of thinking that created the problem. There is no political solution.

That doesn't mean there is no solution, just that a different approach is necessary.

[chenda]

@Riggerjack - What do you recommend ?

[Riggerjack]

Building better. Specifically building for durability. Think in terms of hundreds to thousands of years for a building lifetime, not decades.

I have some practical ideas, that's my retirement project. I'm currently clearing land for a prototype, with a demonstration model scheduled to start around 2024. I'll post progress when there is some.

[tonyedgecombe]

Building better. Specifically building for durability. Think in terms of hundreds to thousands of years for a building lifetime, not decades.

I have some practical ideas, that's my retirement project. I'm currently clearing land for a prototype, with a demonstration model scheduled to start around 2024. I'll post progress when there is some.

You will need a different model of home ownership then, nobody is going to pay the cost of a building that is going to last hundreds of years longer than they will.

[jacob]

For example, the Roman aqueducts kept supplying running water for hundreds of years after the empire functionally collapsed. It's also evident that some of the major buildings are still standing 2000 years later. Other smaller buildings were cannibalized for parts. We can be pretty sure that the future rubble of our collapsed buildings will be a relatively rich source of ore compared to what we will have left in natural ores. Just think of all the rebar. They will, however, not remain standing because they weren't intended to.

I read somewhere that in the US it was standard code for buildings to be designed to last 300 years, but now the expected lifetime is 75 years and so the requirements have been reduced accordingly. I assume this is under the presumption that future humans would want to replace them anyway... and also under the presumption that they have the resources to afford it even as present humans clearly can't.

Financing long-standing buildings is not a problem. Bonds can be issued for 100+ years (some governments do) or even for perpetuity. What the bond essentially buys is the cash stream, something that's in short supply these days. Functionally, if a house was financed like that, one would technically own it, but pay interest to the bank forever. In Switzerland, many houses are close to being financed like that---principal is never paid off/down. You essentially have a triple net lease from the bank in a way.

[Riggerjack]

@ Tony,

Yeah, don't I know it.

This hasn't been tried, simply because it's too expensive to even imagine. My prototype will not be an exception.

But lifetime costs become more relevant as growth tapers... EROEI is one way to look at the problem. When we have cheap oil, energy use is strongly discounted. This changes when energy prices do. How much one is willing to spend today is strongly correlated to discount rate. Discount rate is based on future expectations. Expectations are subject to change.

[chenda]

@jacob exactly, plenty of people living well in homes which are centuries old.

Mediaeval bridges lasted for centuries with a perpetual income from tolls and rent from the houses along the sides.

[Mister Imperceptible]

I was about to say, do as the Romans did. Or the Egyptians. The hope of course is that as a society we can change our thinking to make this possible. Which requires cultural change first, not political. For that type of paradigm shift, we would need a collapse of ephemeral financial wealth that does not completely destroy society first.

I get more and more interested in Riggerjack’s project all the time.

[Riggerjack]

Which requires cultural change first, not political. For that type of paradigm shift, we would need a collapse of ephemeral financial wealth that does not completely destroy society first.

Funny, the cultural shift required to get where we are didn't. I see no reason the next will. What we do, we improve. We just need to get started, and keep it up.

I think a good enough design will get us started... But then, I am crazy.

[7Wannabe5]

I lived in a house that was 125 years old, and although made with solid, virtually irreplaceable in today's market*, materials, it was a financial nightmare to maintain. I also had to get a special home-owner's insurance policy, because replacement cost would have been far higher than current market value.

I would also note that similar tragedies may befall intellectual property once the last of the paper books are burned, recycled or become subject to rot and the energy flow to the servers where electronic versions are stored is interrupted.

*For instance, solid hand-hewn beams.

@Riggerjack:

In addition to EROEI, you also have to factor in cost/availability of skilled manual labor vs. energy costs to power machines. For instance, hiring a horticulturist to appraise value of trees prior to taking bulldozer action.

[chenda]

@7 I'm guessing it wasn't of masonry construction ?

[7Wannabe5]

@chenda:

No, it was wooden construction, like most houses of that era in my region. I never measured it, but the main hand-hewn beam running through my main attic was more than 2 feet by 2 feet. Roofing and rendering the utilities safe were the largest maintenance expenses. Keeping it heated in the winter was also hugely expensive. I finally resorted to keeping the thermostat set just above "pipes might freeze" level and using electric space heaters in the areas we most frequently occupied.

[Kylinne]

Publicly funded (by government) infrastructure is not concerned about lifetime costs. It is concerned about installation costs. Thus we build to a price point, with all the problems that entails.
I see no way to fix this, using same level of thinking that created the problem. There is no political solution.
That doesn't mean there is no solution, just that a different approach is necessary.

A political solution is definitely possible. In general, government bidding requirements are lowest cost; require the definition of lowest cost to include estimated maintenance costs as well as estimated initial build costs, and be fixed-price contracts. I wouldn't be surprised if most modern construction contracts already do this (haven't looked at a construction contract for 20 years since my civil internships).
There are definitely government contracts that already include maintenance costs; the latest military ships, aircraft, etc., generally include sustaining costs in their bidding, not just the initial design and build costs (though these are generally limited contract periods that are then renewed for a year or a few years at a time, and may be awarded to different firms later on, or sometimes are moved to the armed services entirely - great way to keep service members working).
Of course, the government choosing to build fewer ships or planes to lower build and maintenance costs, such as only building 3 Zumwalt class destroyers instead of the original 32 that were planned (or ~10% of original planned maintenance costs), is easily doable when you have a discrete product that is completely unnecessary as opposed to, say, not maintaining 90%, or 1520, of the 1688 failing dams across the country, which if breached could kill from 5-171,000 people (depending if we're talking northern Michigan or Henan, China - current largest known dam breach in the world).

I lived in a house that was 125 years old, and although made with solid, virtually irreplaceable in today's market*, materials, it was a financial nightmare to maintain.

My house is only ~70 years old and the maintenance costs are a pain. Especially given the previous owner being a flipper that didn't do a very good job of it, and the owner before that being a landlord for 40 years that deferred a lot of maintenance. Roofing and sewer have been the main repairs, but also fixing water damage to the floor and subflooring.

@7 I'm guessing it wasn't of masonry construction ?

Mine definitely isn't, either, because masonry in earthquake country is generally a really bad idea (tm). See the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, for one.

[Riggerjack]

In addition to EROEI, you also have to factor in cost/availability of skilled manual labor vs. energy costs to power machines. For instance, hiring a horticulturist to appraise value of trees prior to taking bulldozer action.

Well, I could, but it doesn't mean I have to. Too many limitations severely limit solutions. For instance, my crazy ideas do not scale to 10B people on this one little planet.

Does this mean I shouldn't pursue it? I don't think so. It will scale as far as it will scale, and people who are stuck using our existing systems because they lack the resources to do better are no worse off because wealthy people chose to invest for their own futures...

As to the state of the environment, I am confident that my solution works far better than the current approaches, but is again, ridiculously expensive.

More options are just more options. People will still choose how to allocate their resources however they choose. That a better option is more expensive is just how the world works. To some extent, it will be cheaper as time goes on, but as it does, land will become more expensive. And we aren't making much more land...

Maybe the solution is to not try to support 10B people, but that's another topic.