We have the problem of a deteriorating infrastructure in the continental United States: worn out roads; bridges that are falling apart and are no longer stable; railroad tracks that are splitting and can no longer support trains, resulting in some trains derailing; subway systems, like in New York City, aging; and water pipes in Flint, Michigan, with the lead from these pipes poisoning the water supply.
There is also the electric grid, channeling electricity across the country, that is in need of an upgrade. There are plans to build a “smart grid,” to channel the electricity in the event of a regional blackout, from distant power plants in a alternate path to reach this region.
The nation’s entire infrastructure, everything comprising it, has aged beyond its expected lifetime, and everything, from shipping ports to airports, to small town roads and bridges, all are in need of repairs, upgrades, or a complete replacement.
The fact that all of this massive infrastructure system must be replaced is essential to the survival of the United States as a whole.
A top quality infrastructure is vital to commerce, and in turn, to the livelihood of the American people. Goods need to be transported on decent roads, or railways, to get the goods to their proper destinations on time, with minimal risk to accidents (such as a truck crashing or overturning, or a train derailing, which is happening more frequently) due to adverse road conditions. This also means transporting goods to and from factories and ports. Efficient transportation means money, and delayed transport, or the inability to transport goods to their proper destinations, mean a loss of business, adding up to literally billions of dollars in lost revenue.
Deteriorating bridges and tunnels, resulting in eventual collapse, means lives lost. This has already happened, on many different occasions.
Of course, aged water piping systems can result in poisoned water, and this is happening in Flint, Michigan at the present moment. Many residents are depending on bottled water, shipped from other places.
If we do nothing, it will only get worse. The quality of life in the U.S. will greatly decline, businesses will fail, due to a lack of access to other places, and the international markets doing business in the U.S. will go elsewhere.
There is the problem of paying for all this. The federal budget is already constrained, though President Donald Trump has promised $1 trillion of investments in fixing the infrastructure, much of it funded by private sources. (His proposal isn’t as simple as it appears. This will be explained shortly.)
Fixing the entire infrastructure will cost in the trillions of dollars.
According to the Federal Highway Administration, the FHWA, (McWhirter, Cameron and Shifflett, Shane; “Aging Infrastructure Mean More (Backups) Logjams at One of U.S.’s Worst Bottlenecks”; The Wall Street Journal (wsj.com); June 29, 2017), there are 84,000 bridges in the U.S. that are considered functionally obsolete, meaning they no longer serve their intended use, due to narrow lanes and/or no breakdown lanes. An additional 56,000 bridges are deemed structurally deficient.
Civil Engineers estimate that it cost $123 billion to repair all the nation’s bridges, one reason being that 40% of the U.S.’s 614,000 bridges are older than their designed life expectancy of 50 years.
The most costly section of the infrastructure that have to be covered in costs are the highways, be they state, U.S., or Interstate highways, along with long distance railroads. This can be a problem because fixing even a mile of some of these highways can amount to over a million dollars.
On a state by state basis, it is estimated by the FHWA that for the repairs and maintenance of highways and roads, the average need for each state is $844 million a year. This is average; the cost in each state varies. For the entire U.S., this means a total of $43.03 billion is needed annually, to repair, then maintain our badly damaged roads and highways.
Like anything else, the responsibility to maintain these highways and bridges, as with the rest of the infrastructure, falls with the local, state, and federal governments.
The cost will have to be left up to the taxpayer/government to raise the money, through higher gasoline taxes, for example. Other ways include cutting wasteful spending and through the traditional tax funding by the respective governments.
If we are to rebuild our infrastructure, we may have to raise the money ourselves. For some badly needed projects, this is going to be very hard to do.
Trump has promised to rebuild the infrastructure, but not in the way we would think. He hopes to privatize the rebuilding of it. This means a tax giveaway. Trump plans to lower taxes for the extremely wealthy and give the rich developers, i.e. construction companies, including those from foreign countries, tax credits to invest. Entities like Wall Street would be allowed to buy up roads, bridges, water systems, airports, electric grids, and make a huge profit by charging high tolls.
Here is the scheme; for every dollar to be invested in rebuilding the infrastructure, 18 cents would only be invested by the rich. The public, from their taxes, would pay the remaining 82 cents.
The roads and bridges would be turned over to private corporations and would then charge high tolls and earn big profits. These profits would go into these CEO’s pockets. They would NOT be put back into the infrastructure to either maintain nor expand it.
As a result, we would pay twice. Once out of our taxes, (that’s 82 cents for every dollar we invested) and again when we pay the high tolls.
Worst of all, we will not be getting the infrastructure we expected. We will have giant mega projects of super highways and big bridges serving our major cities, and they will only be designed to serve the very corporations that sponsored these projects.
Small projects, such as roads, bridges, or highways in rural areas, water treatment facilities located in small towns that are in need of repair, or clean energy plants would not get the attention of these investors because no money would be made from them.
Nevertheless, we desperately need to rebuild our entire infrastructure, everywhere, in every city and town and in remote areas. Our bridges need to be repaired or replaced. Roads need to be repaired. We need a new, national smart grid, to accommodate all forms of energy, old and new. We need flood control systems, channeling water from would-be flooded areas to drought prone areas like California. (This is a new proposal that will be discussed shortly.) We need upgrades in water and sewer systems (remember Flint, Michigan), and the list goes on.
Without these replacements, bridges would collapse, water will go bad from the corrosion of the pipes, there will be more power blackouts, our subway systems will continue to deteriorate, and disaster will result. This will result in a massive, nationwide, permanent crisis. We will also have economic collapse.
The fact remains that we must rebuild the entire infracture, in all its forms, and the money has to come from somewhere.
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, it would cost anywhere from $3.6 trillion to $4 trillion over a period of 10 years to repair the entire infrastructure. This estimates to be $400 billion a year, plus the costs of maintaining it. No one entity, including the U.S. government, can afford this.
Bernie Sanders stated in a speech that if we invest $1 trillion in rebuilding the entire infrastructure, it is estimated that it will produce 13 million good paying jobs. With the estimated cost of fixing the entire infrastructure to be $4 trillion, how many good paying jobs would that produce, if we were to attack this project head on, and try to fix everything at once, from beginning to end?
Where will we get the money? I have two sources. First, the federal, state, and local governments, budgeting what they can afford from their taxes. Raising gasoline taxes will raise more money, along with reducing the demand for gasoline, helping to lower oil imports from Middle Eastern countries, and steer to alternative energy. Other sources, however, will be needed to finance this mega-project.
Enter the new multi-billionaire philanthropists; Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Peterson, to name a few, making their fortunes from Silicon Valley, or inheriting it, or starting new companies that straddle the world, and all having literally hundreds of billions of dollars to give away. They are coming in to establish their own foundations, with goals such as to improve public schools, sustain colleges and universities, save the environment, fight climate change, support the arts, prevent wars from happening (yes), and fund medical research to find new cures, in lieu of the U.S. government.
Many of these mega-philanthropists are getting together and forming their own coalitions, one step above the foundation, in these fields of interests. These are philanthropic organizations consisting of a staff of multi-billionaires, literally having hundreds of billions, possibly trillions of dollars collectively, to create bigger projects for more people, thus having a huge impact.
I would like to refer to a recent book, published this year (2017), “The Givers - Wealth, Power, and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age,” by David Callahan.
The author describes what I have been discussing all along about mega-philanthropy, the immensely wealthy giving away massive amount of their wealth to badly needed projects in the U.S., and abroad.
What I found in my relations to my previous writings on this subject is that this is already a trend, and it is growing.
There are at present “new billionaires, earning their fortunes from high-tech fields, from starting Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg) to new computer systems (Bill Gates) to investment analysts, all generating billions of dollars in profits. All of these people are anxious to give their money away to causes that they hope will literally change the world for the better. They know that the worst thing they can do is have their children inherit it (although there are exceptions).
The government is cutting back on programs such as education, the environment, and medical research, including cures for deadly diseases such as AIDS. All of these are programs this country needs if we are to survive as a nation.
Regardless, as the government steps down, many of these new mega-philanthropists are stepping in to fill the void; and they are doing projects that otherwise would have taken years for the government to even begin doing. Public schools in many cities are being improved, and charter schools are being established for exceptional students. Parks are being built and/or renovated. Many run down areas of many cities are being gentrified (this could be both a good and bad thing, depending on whom you ask).
Additions to colleges and universities are being built for laboratory research into new forms of medicines to treat cancer, AIDS, and other previously incurable diseases. People are going abroad to help the destitute in places like Africa. Among the help is eradicating diseases before they spread into a pandemic.
As the government funding in public services shrink, influence from philanthropists continues to grow. It has to be that way. Otherwise, American society will deteriorate.
A new project I propose for these mega-billionaires, who want to use their money for a creative and useful project, for the entire continental United States, would be to repair, rebuild, and replace our entire infrastructure. That is the next major project that will need our attention, and not a moment too soon.
Financing the largest mega-project in our lifetime, rebuilding the infrastructure (and starting a new one) isn’t all that simple. One doesn’t just throw money at a problem thinking that it will solve itself, something the government may or may not have learned the hard way. Many foundations have failed in their causes, regardless of the intent, and this is one of the reasons why.
What they’ve learned is, before giving out any money, they need to formulate a plan on the cause. For example, if they want to reform a public school system in a city, find out what is wrong with the schools, why they are so bad at educating students, and form a plan to improve them: new buildings, workshops, laboratories, better teachers (with decent pay), new and more books, computers, and standard school supplies, new curriculums, and what to expect from the students.
Formulating a new plan applies to any and all fields of interests.
In rebuilding our infrastructure, ALL aspects must be covered, and to do the entire job, MANY mega-philanthropists, donating money totaling in the trillions of dollars, are needed, PLUS money from the federal budget. The case here is that the federal budget will not be as strained as it would be had the government had to cover all costs alone, but funding from the government is still needed.
The rebuilding of the infrastructure can be divided into individual projects for one, or a group of philanthropists to cover, according to their interests. Here is a rough outline:
- Cities: -Streets
-Subway Systems
-Railway systems
- Repair or replacement of any and all bridges, both street and rail
-Upgrading highways through these cities
-Rebuilding the waterfront
-Upgrading and replacing water and sewer systems
-Upgrading and replacing power plants and the electric grid
II. Towns
If one philanthropist comes from a small town, or if he or she just wants to contribute to that particular town, perhaps he or she can upgrade all streets, roads, bridges, electric and sewer water systems in that town, or whatever needs to be improved or replaced.
III. Rural
-Highways, roads, bridges, water, and electric systems.
Here, in the remote areas, with hundreds of miles of remote highways, one philanthropist alone cannot pay for the entire reparation of a remote highway. This will require a coalition of them, along with corporations that use that highway, PLUS the state and federal governments. Help from other private entities, such as corporations residing in these areas can also contribute.
IV. Nation wide projects
-Highways, including state, U.S., and Interstate.
-Railroads
-The Electric Grid; Build a new, smart grid and replace all coal
burning plants with clean energy plants. Here, major
energy companies need also to play a part.
The entire infrastructure can and will be rebuilt in a fairly short amount of time, say 10 years, although it could be a little more, but not much. Of course, quality is a big factor here, and we want the best. Inferior quality is not acceptable.
There has to be a business plan for the entire infrastructure; every city, every town, and all of the rural areas, no matter how remote, all covering every square mile of this country.
The entire infrastructure means checking, evaluating, and if necessary, repair or replace every:
-Interstate, U.S. and state highway
-Every street in every city and town
-Every bridge, big and small
-All railroads, including every railroad bridge. Many of these bridges are way past their usefulness and are on the verge of collapse. This has already occurred in cities like Minneapolis, resulting in loss of life.
-Every water and sewer system, meaning every pipe, every treatment plant, and every water filtration system.
-The entire electric grid. Install a smart grid, and protect it from any potential computer hacker.
-Phase out ALL coal burning plants. Coal has been proven to be a danger not only to climate change, but to people’s health and well-being. Coal ash is toxic and it is almost impossible to permanently dispose of it without harming the environment. One example is when coal ash was dumped next to the Cape Fear River in North Carolina, contaminating the water supply.
Each coal burning plant can be replaced with natural gas (a temporary but cleaner measure) or clean energy sources, such as solar, wind, biomass, hydropower, or a combination of the four. This will not be easy, but it can be done.
-Modernize and upgrade every subway system in the country, starting with New York City. This will be explained in further detail in this essay.
-Modernize and upgrade our airports and air traffic control. This is being done already.
-Upgrade our railroads, tracks, freight and passenger trains. Note: Railroad companies from China have offered to help rebuild much, possibly the entire railroad system in the U.S. I recommend that we take them up on their offer. In return, offer the CEOs incentives to set up their businesses here. This would produce more employment for the American people, and the economy.
If one lives in a small town in which the town’s infrastructure is need of repair, the local society in which one lives, such as building a new bridge to replace one that is falling apart, or help pave new roads, replace and upgrade a sewer system, a water distribution system (pipes, water filtration and purification plants), or the upgrading of a plant processing of solid wastes.
This also leads to individual states taking the leading in fixing the national infrastructure in that particular states, adding up like a jigsaw puzzle.
For a wealthy person living in a small town, it is suggested that he or she help the society in his own locality; i.e. Charity begins at home. That said, I feel that the prosperous individual, when his community is in great need of something and cannot be provided by the local, state, or federal government, that person should step in and help to provide that need with his excess wealth. Should he do so, like build a bridge, repair roads, repair and upgrade a water and sewer system, that person will be in good standing with his community.
In the process of building, a lot of jobs will be created, even if only on a temporary basis.
The local philanthropist could possibly invest more of his money in other municipal projects that the town badly needs, such as fixing the town’s streets, or upgrading the water distribution system, for examples.
His one problem would be his affordability on fixing the entire town, a burden he should not have to have if it requires on spending beyond his ability to pay. He should either have a big moneymaking venture, or make investments so that more money would be coming in, so as to be able to provide for the town’s needs. Obviously, his paying for the replacement of a new bridge and/or roads and water systems would be a temporary basis. From that point on, the town itself would have to maintain these systems.
A big city like New York is different. Here, as in any city, many wealthy any coalition based in that city will pool their resources, each individual or group of individuals deciding to choose on project. I put an example of railroad bridges, and there are railroad bridges that badly need to be replaced in the New York - New Jersey area, but this is just a fraction of what needs to be upgraded.
There are streets with potholes and other signs of deterioration, the subway systems, the sewer systems, the water supply, the electric grid (money can be made here), and just about everything else one can imagine in municipal systems.
If there are enough wealthy people in New York, and I’m sure there are, the needed projects can be listed with each individual choosing one for them to help upgrade. Divide the work, share the load, list all projects and choose one for each philanthropist, or foundation, with the total sum of all organizations equal to rebuilding the entire city. Jobs will be created, although only temporarily, but those hired without skills will have on the job training, acquiring experience for employment in similar jobs elsewhere.
The most expensive part are the highways, be they state, U.S., or Interstate, along with long distance railroads. This can be a problem because fixing even a mile of some of these highways can amount to over a million dollars.
On a state by state basis, it is estimated by the FHWA (Federal Highway Administration) that for the repairs and maintenance of highways and roads, the average need for each state is $844 million a year. This is average; each state varies in difference costs. For the entire U.S., this means a total of $43.03 billion is needed annually, to repair, then maintain our badly damaged roads and highways.
There is not enough private money available to complete fix our highways, even if every wealthy person contributed all their surplus money in order to accomplish this task.
Should we concentrate on one state at a time, there may be private money to fix the highways, bridges, and railways completely in some individual states. Like anything else, the responsibility to maintain these highways, as with the rest of the infrastructure, falls with the local, state, and federal governments.
In other states, private money can partially pay for the upgrading of this roads and highways. From here on, the remaining cost will have to be left up to the taxpayer/government to raise the money, through higher gasoline taxes, for example. Other ways include cutting wasteful spending and through the traditional tax funding by the respective governments.
The big catalyst here would be different philanthropists starting out in donating what money they can, starting with local roads, bridges and railways. Once that is initiated, governments can start to fill in, at a cost much lower than originally anticipated had it not been for the help of the contributing wealthy.
It is the philanthropists that can ignite the movement to repair our infrastructure, and create jobs for the millions of otherwise unemployed people.
The next three sections are three examples of projects to be attacked head on; two systems that desperately need to be fixed right away, and a proposal for a brand new project, a new infrastructure, being a flood control system to divert water from flood prone area of the country to drought stricken areas, all the way to California.
Upgrading and Modernizing the New York Subway System
The New York Times recently featured a front page article on New York’s subway system, known as the Metro Transit Authority (MTA). It needs to be updated in the worst way, especially the signal system that directs the subway traffic.
Other parts of the subway system also need to be replaced, such as worn out track and old subway cars replaced with new ones, with the capacity to carry more people. Debris needs to be cleared from the rails and platforms. Clogged drains need to be cleared. There must be a team of professionals within reach of any train and platform, ready to handle any emergency; medical, mechanical, or otherwise. This includes a team whose job is to prevent or put out fires, caused by electrical failures or accumulated garbage in one place catching fire. Track welding needs to be improved, countdown clocks (for the next train to arrive at a platform) must be available at all stations. When trouble arises, there must be communications between the passengers on any train and a control center, and management procedures must be streamlined. (The New York Times (nytimes.com/editorial), “A First Step, Finally, to Fix Subways, July 28, 2017).
In other words, the entire New York Subway System (MTA) needs a complete overhaul and upgrade, from top to bottom, every mile of track, every platform, every train, every piece of electronic equipment, especially its signal system. It also needs a thorough cleaning.
The New York subway is the largest in the world, as well as one of the busiest. It has 22 lines and 472 stations. It transports six million people per day, five days a week. Weekends are lighter.
The signal system is a major factor of the MTA, and is covered here in a little more detail.
Signals are used to direct traffic, controlling when trains can move down the track, where they are located, and how far apart one train is from another on the same line, thus, controlling the time between the trains and how long passengers will have to wait from one train to the next.
The problem here is the subway system still uses signals installed in the 1930s, technology that has been obsolete for decades. It is unreliable, meaning that exact locations of trains cannot be pinpointed, “requiring more room between them. When this fails, trains stop, delays pile up, and riders fume” (taken out of context).
A more modern, computerized signal network is needed, where trains are not only pinpointed at all times, but could run closer together, allowing more trains on the line, thereby accommodating more riders, alleviating crowds and delays. This will also accommodate a growing population, the subway system growing along with it. London is at present modernizing its system. New York has upgraded one line, the L Train, and that took a decade to complete. The No. 7 Line is presently being upgraded, and so far, it has taken seven years, and it is not yet completed. The Queens Boulevard Line is due to be upgraded next.
The transportation authority, has requested $3.2 billion for signal and communication work its latest five year proposal, 10 percent of its $32 billion budget request. About $400 million was cut from the plan last year (2016). (All information is taken from The New York Times article “6 Million Riders a Day, 1930s Technology; New York’s Straining Subway Struggles to Modernize Signals” by Emma G. Fitzsimmons, Monday, May 1, 2017, pp. A1, A19).
In other words, there are budget requests from the state government to fix the subway system, one line at a time, and as the cost increases, the government grants decrease, simply because the State of New York cannot afford to give the full grants. At this rate, it is estimated that it will take 50 years and $20 billion, in 2017 dollars, to modernize and upgrade the entire system. Meanwhile, trains are delayed, commuters get restless, less trains become available to accommodate everyone and so many will have to find alternative transportation.
On July 24, 2017, Joseph J. Lhota, chairman of the MTA, announced an $800 million emergency rescue plan, to include at least 30 separate measures in dealing with these problems plaguing the system.
Lhota also hopes to hire 2,700 new workers in implementing this plan.
The plan presently includes adding extra trains on the C-Line, accelerate repairs to 1,300 signals, install countdown clocks and overhaul more train cars, about 1,100 per year. There will also be a public dashboard to show more riders how the system is performing.
The improvements in this one plan alone is estimated to be $450 million in operating costs and $380 million in capital investment. (Fitzsimmons, Emma G., “800 million Subway Rescue Plan Adds Cars and Subtracts Seats, The New York Times (nytimes.com), N.Y./Region, July 25, 2017).
The State of New York runs the system, but amongst bitter feuding, both the city and state governments decided to split the costs.
It’s a start. It will help modernize a small fraction of the entire system, but what we want is to overhaul the whole thing, and it will take $20 billion, probably more.
Much of the wealthy lives in New York, and a good number of mega-philanthropic coalitions are there, simply because New York is the main location of American business, including Wall Street and other entities.
Let’s concentrate on the $20 billion price tag to upgrade the subway signal system. How many wealthy people are there in New York? How much money do they have total, including the offshore accounts? Is it possible that all of them could get together and pool their resources to upgrade the subways?
Depending on how much they have, each could contribute a fair amount totaling $20 billion. Each person here could pledge a certain amount out of their surplus savings, totaling up to a small amount from each person, and then consult with the department of transportation to commence on this major project. It would take five to ten years to upgrade the system, inconveniencing the passengers who use this system (they would have to take alternative routes), but in the end it would be worth it.
No doubt, New York’s massive project would be to fix the entire subway system at once, and it will affect the lives of people commuting to and from work every day. Alternative transportation would have to be planned, but the work has to be done.
With mega-philanthropists in New York, other infrastructures in need of repair (water and sewer systems; power plants; streets; highways and bridges; tunnels; the main railroad system) will draw the attention of other mega-philanthropic coalitions.
Flint, Michigan
One major event that has made national news is that the people of Flint, Michigan are suffering lead poisoning in their water supply system. Between six and 12 thousand children drank this contaminated water with these higher level of lead, causing health problems, both physically and mentally, especially mentally. Their development slows down, sometimes permanently and they also develop behavioral problems.
Today, the people of Flint are relying on bottled water, many donated from the outside, for all their needs, from cooking, to washing, to drinking. Even though it has faded from the news, the crisis has not ended.
How did this come to pass?
The entire piping system in Flint, both residential and industrial, was installed between 1901 and 1920. In those days, cast iron water pipe were used, and iron was the general element used. Lead pipes were used to pipe water into the home, because they were cheaper. I’m sure they knew that the leaching of lead would occur, but back then, it was considered acceptable. They knew little of the adverse effects of lead on the human body when taken internally.
In 1967, water treatment plants considered a certain amount of the leaching of leading into drinking water acceptable. Today, no amount is acceptable, because we now know what happens when even small amounts of lead is absorbed into the human body.
Before this present problem started, the water source for Flint was Lake Huron. The water was treated and able to flow through Flint’s present piping system uncontaminated. There was an idea in the city council for the City of Flint to save $5 million over two years, so it was decided to switch the water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River. So, in April, 2014, that is what the city did, with disastrous results.
The water from the Flint River was contaminated, and corrosive to metal pipes. Pipes, especially lead pipes, corroded, and more lead seeped into the drinking water, and the residents drank it, unwittingly poisoning themselves, and their children.
The city council knew about this early, but did nothing. They covered it up for two years. This news reached all the way to Governor Rick Snyder. Again, they did nothing.
When the news broke, all hell broke loose. The scandal made national news, the residents found out they were poisoned, and the whole city reverted to drinking bottled water. A lot of anger filled the air, and rightly so. Many of these residents are poor and are unable to leave the city for any amount of time.
There have been proposals to coat the lead pipes, and repair the old system, but the reality behind this is that the government doesn’t want to spend a huge amount of money to fix it.
The entire piping system in Flint, and the outskirts, has to be replaced, and it will cost billions of dollars. High quality water pipes must be installed, old pipes need to be removed. There is no other solution to this problem.
This is happening. In 2016, a group of foundations donated money to the city of Flint to address this problem, but more has to be done.
All pipes need to be replaced with stronger and safer pipes for water, and this includes pipes leading to private homes.
If this hasn’t already been done, the present group of foundations that donated money to Flint should recruit other philanthropists and, along with the City of Flint and the State of Michigan, draw up a plan to replace the entire piping system, along with covering the entire cost of the project.
This is a single project to do in itself. Compared to what money is available in one mega-philanthropic coalition, this could be an easy task, taking about two years to complete, more or less.
A New Proposal: Nationwide Flood Control Spillway Systems
This is an entirely new project that I propose. With the dual problems of floods and droughts, this is one new project that can deal with both problems simultaneously. This is one problem our country desperately needs to confront and solve.
We need a nationwide/continental (to include Canada, if necessary) flood control system, to protect cities and towns from being flooded, home being destroyed, and lives being lost. At the same time, with the same system, we must be able to alleviate areas across the country stricken by drought, especially in farming regions, all the way to California.
I propose that we build a nationwide spillway system, with a system of spillways or canals, originating from any creek, river, or lake having the potential (or history) to overflow from heavy rains, causing major flooding and damage to anyone living in these areas, and channel all the excess water across the country to drought stricken farms, eventually leading to California, where, if any excess water remains, it could flow under mountain through small, artificial tunnels, eventually leading to lake and reservoirs that are at a low level. This water would replenish these lakes.
There would be a system of these spillways, literally thousands of them, originating in cities and towns in the east, spreading out across the country like veins in a heart.
New Orleans has such a system. There are steel doors of the Mississippi River, where, should the river rise high enough would open, releasing all the excess water, saving New Orleans from a flood. (The flood in 2004 caused by Hurricane Katrina came from Lake Pontchartrain, not the Mississippi.)
Problem is, the spillway system is incomplete. Water flows uncontrollably into other town, flooding them. The people there suffer for it.
If we extend this particular spillway system across the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona, supplying some water in dry places there, with the surplus water flowing into the water supplies in Los Angeles.
This spillway system alone requires the support of many mega-philanthropists, requiring tens, more likely hundreds of billions of dollars.
Should a civil engineer draw up a plan for such a system, and prove its feasibility, perhaps it would attract many of these people that we need. Some potential candidates would be those who either lived through a flood or a drought, coming from flood or drought prone areas, or simply have an interest in solving a new problem.
Israel has a similar system, diverting water from abundant sources, in their case, nearby seas where it is desalinated and channeled to deserts converted to farmland, where the water is distributed to different crops. A lot less water is needed to support these food sources, and they are making use of waste water, and are avoiding using aquifer systems, where the water is depleted.
It would be to our benefit if we call in these Israeli engineers to not only plan out these spillway systems, but to use the excess flood water to benefit the entire west, from farms to drinking water supplies, especially in the event of a drought. On the side, since these engineers nearly perfected desalinization plants, we could invite them to build a few on the California coast to channel water to the San Joaquin (Silicon) Valley, where much of our food is grown.
These engineers could teach us a lot about using water from all sources, even sewage treatment plants. We need them to set up school in the U.S. (Hazony, David; “How Israel is Solving the Global Water Crisis,” The Tower Magazine, Issue 31, October, 2015.)
One spillway system from one flood prone area could be built and tested. It would have to be built in an area where one knows that would flood during the rainy season, or after a winer of heavy snow.
Should the experiment succeed, other spillways could then be built, until the entire plan is put into action, working on the entire spillway system at once.
Paying for it will require many mega-philanthropists, and they will have to show great interest. The federal government will no doubt have to contribute, and huge corporations, those located in these flood prone areas to protect their businesses from flooding will also need to contribute.
One side benefit is that building the system, as with the entire infrastructure, will produce massive employment. This would be those from the unemployed, literally coming from all over the country to literally dig ditches. Mechanical equipment will be used but there will be multitudes literally using a pick and shovel to dig, in addition to heavy machinery. Others will operate machinery, manage groups or gangs, and doing other chores.
People would come from all over the country, and abroad, as immigration to the U.S. continues, despite any strict laws we now employ.
Rebuilding the entire infrastructure, is a massive project, the biggest project of labor the U.S. will ever undertake in its entire history, even surpassing the building of the Panama Canal.
All of these projects, one massive project really, will require money from philanthropists from both the U.S. and abroad. Foreign philanthropists from places like China, Russia, Europe and the Middle East willing to take a chance on us, should be welcome to the U.S to help and we should let them make investments here.
Corporations, other private interests, and money from the federal government will also be needed. Money from any legitimate source, foreign and domestic, should be welcome for this project.
It will require massive labor, possible more than the U.S. has, without immigration. Here, the immigration laws can be relaxed, taking in refugees willing to work hard and begin a new life. As stated, we should also take in wealthy businessmen and CEOs, for they will contribute to the U.S. in a big way, with the U.S. reemerging as an economic powerhouse.
It will require the latest technologies, and protection from hostile foreign powers (computer hacking) as we employ the latest high-tech systems. New materials and resources will be required. Metal can be recycled, but other materials, including metals, will have to come from mines.
Whether it is the government, huge corporations, big businesses, foreign or domestic, wealthy CEOs, or mega-philanthropists, money is power.
Philanthropy and the U.S. government need to complement each other, not compete, or replace one another.
If we are willing to do all of the above, and take money from any and all legitimate sources, the United States will not only have a new infrastructure, but it will produce a multiplier effect. There will be incentives to fix other run down systems, such as schools, industries, urban areas, any other institution in American society that needs renovation, all for the benefit of our society.
As the world sees us modernize our system, many parts of it will follow our example.
The U.S. will once again become a major economic power, going upwards, commanding respect from the rest of the world and giving them a run for their money.
Alastair Browne
