Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes(nytimes.com)

61 points by ktamura 8 years ago | 65 comments

wmf 8 years ago |

More sobering is the fact that there probably will never be enough tax money to pay for new pipes anyway: https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/

Pyxl101 8 years ago | |

I read some of the articles on that site, such as the case study linked below. There are some interesting points and ideas there, but I'm not sure the methodology by which they argue that wealth is being destroyed is sound.

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2009/3/30/the-cost-of-de...

In particular, the analysis considers whether the cost of a road along some properties will be repaid by tax on those properties. However, this ignores the 'network effect' present in society, and various other taxes that residents contribute to.

Residences don't provide property tax revenue in isolation - the residents also generate tax revenue in a variety of other ways that depend on transportation. For example, residents commute to work, and work for corporations that pay a high amount of property tax. It's commonly understood that commercial districts contribute far more tax than residential districts do. That's often why cities want to zone for it. But the two zones depend on each other. Neither works without the other.

Residents consume from various other businesses in the area where they live, and those businesses pay tax and have employees, and so on. Residents also generate income and pay income tax and sales tax. Residents who are connected via top-notch infrastructure generate value in inter-state, national, and even internationale commerce through their consumption of mail-ordered goods and use of Internet, phone, and cable TV.

There are certainly some rural areas where infrastructure might be a loss. I'm not saying that's not possible. Just saying this rationale and analysis isn't convincing.

It's also not necessarily a problem if individual small areas run at a loss, as long as larger society is willing to subsidize or pay for them. For example, imagine a small dense city like San Francisco that generates incredible wealth. Some people might commute to that area from nearby cities. Those cities and the transportation in between might not earn enough in tax revenue from local residents to pay for the infrastructure at the local level, but it may be the case that higher-level structures above the city such as counties, states, or the federal government receive enough tax revenue from the region that they're willing to pay for the transit. Those larger political structures can look at the big picture, like how transportation within the region is impacting the regional economy.

For example, the federal government recently gave a multi-hundred-million dollar grant to develop rail infrastructure between Seattle and Portland. Is that worth it? I have no idea. That seems like a high price to me to transfer a few hundred people per train trip. But the point is that the model works as long as society is willing to pay for this infrastructure. The articles haven't made the case that people can't or won't pay for it; just that in some very narrow analysis, properties don't pay for streets along the property. But roads are never useful in isolation - it's the network that matters.

You could argue that infrastructure could be more efficiently designed if people lived closer together, and needed less infrastructure. That's probably true. But that's not saying wealth is being destroyed. It's saying that society is willing to pay the cost necessary for the quality of life people want. (Assuming that we do have the money for it - haven't seen the argument that we don't) You could argue that wealth is being destroyed every time people buy "organic foods" because they're so much more expensive and wasteful, for example. It's the same idea.

The fundamental premise of the articles seems to be that growth of suburbia is unsustainable because suburbia does not generate enough property tax to pay for itself. An accurate analysis needs to consider all of the ways that those residents contribute to the tax base, as employees and customers, and add the sum of the effects up, before argue that it's legitimately wealth-destroying. One needs to consider the effect of infrastructure on tourism and the ability of an area to attract residents and businesses. You can't evaluate the cost/benefit of infrastructure merely by looking at the property tax revenue of properties adjoining it.

pja 8 years ago | | |

Given that your counter-argument is a trivially obvious one, a little further thought would have led to the conclusion that the StrongTowns bloggers might have thought of it too.

Since you just read until you thought of an objection to their thesis & then stopped, you failed to find the articles where they do the lifetime cost analysis over a whole town (i.e., both "suburban" and "business" districts) and find that this pattern of development means that the profits from the high tax business districts fail to make up for the costs from exurban / US style suburban development.

Have a trawl through the Best-Of lists. In particular: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/12/8/the-real-reaso... stands out.

rocqua 8 years ago | | |

A large part of the argument behind the `suburban ponzi scheme' lies with the up-front profits made by municipalities when building these suburbs.

There are a few other things. Firstly, network effects could also be seen as requiring the `ponzi scheme' to keep growing. That is, in order for the suburb to pay for itself, it needs to attract other suburbs. Obviously, this does not immediately apply to network effects due to more business. It should be noted that commutes suck and that having large suburbs starts to require large commutes to get to work. Thus for sufficiently labor intensive business, there are inherent issues with the suburb network effects. It is hard to say where this threshold of `sufficently labor intensive' lies though.

Secondly, there is an issue of gradual density increases. In the suburbs, it is a lot harder to upgrade the house on a lot to say a three-story flat. Besides tough zoning laws, there are HOAs to content with. Even more troubling is parking. Because suburbs require a car, such flats require a lot of parking.

Finally, there is a simple argument that more gradual growth that works via a mix of density increases (i.e. building up, or just putting more houses on a lot) and a slower expansion of the city is plain better. This of-course no longer argues that suburbs are a `ponzi scheme' but if this model is more sustainable than suburbs, it is kind of a moot point whether suburbs are sustainbable.

The argument that this model is better than suburbia is more difficult, for it is inherently comparative. Notably though, this makes the argument `suburbs cost more than they bring in locally' relevant presuming that suburubs have the same network effects as the proposed model of growth. To a first approximation, this depends on the quality of life, and the ability to grow to match demand.

rayiner 8 years ago |

Of course the NYT would find a way to make a disaster caused by bad public governance all about evil “deep-pocketed” companies. The American Society of Civil Engineers rates our water infrastructure a “D.” That’s due to chronic underfunding, which in turn is caused by municipal governments setting water and sewer rates far too low to maintain and improve the existing infrastructure. Water infrastructure is a case study in how poor political discipline can result in disastrous utility regulation, with disasterous results.

Shivetya 8 years ago | |

Politicians prefer to cut ribbons than reinvest in existing infrastructure. Ribbon cutting gets face time and worse they prefer the bigger and more glitzy type of projects which in themselves tend to incur even further maintenance debts. So next time your local politicians want new office complexes, heavy rail solutions, or such, push them to reveal how current infrastructure maintenance is being done and what the outstanding costs are.

With regards to water pipes. I don't care how my water is delivered. What I care about is that it is proven safe, durable, and the least expensive solution meeting those requirements is used. There is no reason that the Federal Government or a coalition of states and cities cannot formulate a set or rules governing the use of each type.

While there are concerns about poisons leaking into some types of pipes more attention needs to be focused on getting those poisons out of the ground or routing around them. So perhaps using plastic where its known safe to keep costs down and resorting to more expensive solutions when clean up options fail or are exorbitant in costs

rgbrenner 8 years ago | |

Can't both these things be true?

Do you really believe the government is going to spend $300b, and no company is going to fight over the allocation of funds?

nate_meurer 8 years ago | |

I think you're injecting a false dichotomy here. The article doesn't address whether government or private enterprise is responsible for the problem, nor which one is better suited to fix it.

To your point though, have you seen any evidence that private companies are better or more cost effective at providing or maintaining water and sewage infrastructure?

amelius 8 years ago |

While we're at it, can we put some extra fiber optic cables in the ground, and this time let the government own all of it?

justinph 8 years ago | |

Doesn't make a lot of practical sense.

* Sewer & water can be done in a piecemeal fashion, whereas fiber requires complicated & precise connections to make work. Not to mention, needs connection to the electrical grid.

* Sewer & water pipes are typically much deeper underground, not necessary for fiber which doesn't freeze.

* Running fiber along a pipe would be difficult, at best. Typically an underground pneumatic pipe trenching tool pulls flexible copper pipe behind it, for water or gas. Pulling fiber along with it on the outside gets complicated or requires some new type of pipe.

bjarnsson 8 years ago | |

Exactly. All that is required is that they lay the fiber and set up the cabinets, and let a regulated free market of ISPs do all the OSI layers above. It doesn’t have to be a government run ISP.

Even just laying conduit (layer 0?) would be an amazing public service.

wernercd 8 years ago | |

Because the government should be trusted with that infrastructure/information and they won't become a bloated, red-tape laden mess?

I think the majority of people agrees there needs to be changes in things... but putting "government" in charge of the backbone of the internet? Would definitely not a change for the better.

Personally... I think there should be one of two rules: Companies can't own content AND infrastructure (IE: Comcast)... or a higher cost (taxes? fees?) for companies that do and/or don't have reasonable competition.

chrisper 8 years ago | | |

Here in Switzerland the fiber is owned by the regional utility company (power company for example). I think by law they have to allow every ISP to use it.

Now everyone (or almost everyone) in Switzerland can have fiber internet with gbit up and down.

stephengillie 8 years ago | | |

Why do arguments like this continue to be made, despite many cities already having municipal broadband?

This anti-governmental prejudice is tiring. Governments are made of people - what makes you trust those people less than other people?

baldfat 8 years ago | | |

Government does many things well.

Protecting citizens freedoms, roads, airports and ports, education for all, social safety net (medicaid and social security), supplying fuel, CDC, protecting the environment, 911, policing, science and research funding.

nlperguiy 8 years ago |

There are limits to growth. The infrastructure bubble is cracking.

No one was there to think through the long term investment in infrastructure.

The prices have skyrocketed due to regulation and now the government can't pay for all that regulated work.

Similar thing will happen in EU. Pipes are failing all across the western world.

tomohawk 8 years ago |

If a local government wants to do this responsibly this time around, they should require the contractor to put up an escrow to cover any issues for 30 years. These are long term projects, and this will force the cut and run type companies to look elsewhere for work. The contract may then share the risk by requiring the pipe suppliers to also chip in and be on the hook.

fencepost 8 years ago |

It's interesting but not surprising that this competition exists. I'm not sure the concern about what leaches from the plastic pipe is legitimate, since it seems like a lot of ductile iron (which replaced cast iron) is also plastic lined though with a different plastic. Iron may have a structural strength advantage, but how important is that most of the time? Finally, plastic pipe may have the advantage in some locations due to the nature of the soil - there are some places where the soil is more likely to cause corrosion in the iron, and for those it seems reasonable to use plastic rather than simply coating the iron in it.

Overall I think the big advantage is going to come from actually getting the aged pipes replace more than from the choice of which new material to use.

nayuki 8 years ago |

The two NSF logos, National Sanitation Foundation ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSF_International ) and National Science Foundation, sure look similar.

maxerickson 8 years ago | |

It's just "NSF International", the name is a tip of the hat to the old name rather than an acronym.

Spooky23 8 years ago |

Many of these stories are ginned up a bit, as they are PR for civil engineer societies.

My wife worked for a water utility in an old city. Outside her bosses office was a lined wooden pipe that had been in place since 1680 or so, and was removed during a construction project.

Unless the pipes are riveted, they have a surprisingly long service life, and techniques exist to spot at risk pipes and even make some repairs without digging.

twobyfour 8 years ago | |

Tell that to the kids in Flint, Michigan who got sick because the city's water pipes were too old (and the city wasn't willing to pay for appropriate water treatment to account for that). Or the ones in NYC who have been drinking from lead-laced school fountains.

And those 500 year old wood pipes may still work, but they probably leak like sieves. NYC, for instance, loses billions of gallons a year to leaks in the pair of hundred year old water tunnels it can't afford to shut down for repair, and more from leaks in iron water mains all over the city.

The US northeast arguably can afford to waste that much water. Many parts of the world can't.

Spooky23 8 years ago | | |

Flint had nothing to do with old pipes. It was about bad management and bad engineers whose incompetence resulted in poisoned water.

Those individuals were held criminally responsible. Unfortunately, society and the citizens of Flint bear the cost and consequence of their misbehavior.