Michelle Breidenbach of The Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) mined state financial documents to show the abuse of New York State’s Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund. It’s not “dedicated” at all. Years of raiding and borrowing have left just 22 percent of the fund to fix the state roads.
Archive for the ‘Infrastructure’ Category
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Cost of Bay Area bridge project unprecedented
December 11th, 2009 
Beth Patricia Decker and Robert Porterfield have found the construction project on the east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge will be the most expensive project ever done in the state of California.
Hundreds of fires sparked by Washington railroads
November 10th, 2009 Beth A lawsuit filed this summer in federal court in Seattle prompted KING-Seattle to examine the railroads that traverse thousands of miles of Washington State.
Aging water pipes a problem in Houston
August 13th, 2009 Beth KHOU-Houston found that a few of the city’s older neighborhoods suffer more water-pipe breaks than other areas.
Canal safety issues were raised prior to fatal mudslide
July 15th, 2009 Beth An investigation by Matthew D. LaPlante and Nate Carlisle of The Salt Lake Tribune found that “Logan City received repeated warnings that a privately owned canal that runs along the base of a steep bluff posed a danger to those living below, but the city failed to act on that safety issue, or even to warn residents who might be affected.“
City cannot account for one quarter of its water supply
June 17th, 2009 Beth “Of the 2.1 billion gallons of water that flowed through city water mains in fiscal year 2007-2008, 26 percent went unbilled – or unaccounted – for,” according analysis of utility records by The News Herald (Panama City, Fla.). Based on the retail rate of water in Panama City, the lost revenue from the unbilled water could be as much as $1.3 million.
Power Hungry series looks at nation’s electrical grid
May 1st, 2009 Beth In its 10-part series, “Power Hungry“, NPR looks at the “the costs, the politics and other challenges of upgrading the country’s electricity grid.”
Cities and county failed to inspect fire hydrants
April 27th, 2009 Beth An investigation by Matt Dixon of The Villages Daily Sun (The Villages, Fla.) revealed that fire hydrants in Sumter County have not been regularly inspected. A request for maintenance records by the paper revealed that none existed. Municipalities county-wide had been under the impression that the county was responsible for the maintenance of fire hydrants.
Streetlight outages plague Detroit
April 17th, 2009 Beth The Detroit Free Press looked into the on-going problem of streetlight outages in the city. “The Free Press spent three nights in March driving more than 200 miles of city streets examining the state of some of Detroit’s 88,000 lights, at least 9,000 of which are out.” Response to reports of outages are met with months-long delays or no response at all.
Coal ash dam in Tennessee had previous leaks
January 9th, 2009 Beth “The chief executive of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates the coal-burning power plant responsible for an enormous flood of coal ash in East Tennessee late last month, acknowledged Thursday that the plant’s containment ponds had leaked two other times in the last five years but had not been adequately repaired,” according to a report by John M. Broder of The New York Times.
