Lies in Wise Government Planning
and Spending
Almost every urban American city and county
has a backlog of infrastructure repair/replace needs that tally into the tens
to hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars.
In coastal cities, even
if a wand could be waived to make that crushing liability disappear, a whole
new laundry list of high costs has popped up like an ominous storm cloud on the
horizon.
In those places — along the Eastern Seaboard, around to the Gulf of
Mexico and far beyond — the cost of adaptation to climate change is a punch to
the gut.
Solutions include enormous flood gates; artificial barriers offshore;
massive stormwater pump systems; replacing septic/sewage systems; raising
roads, sidewalks and buildings; and buying out/relocating currently inhabited
properties that are in areas too low to save from flooding.
Most places dealing
with massive resiliency infrastructure issues are facing a one-two punch of
climate change-driven disasters: the daily infiltration of ever-rising seas and
the catastrophic wallop of storm surge during increasingly frequent major storm
events.
No comments:
Post a Comment