Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.
TRIP, a transportation research group headquartered in Washington, D.C., recently compiled a report on North Carolina transportation. The group says the state is facing a $65 billion funding shortfall in transportation funding. The NCDOT reportedly is not one bit surprised. They already knew that.
Perhaps if we didn't waste so much money when we design our construction projects; in particular, our bridges we wouldn't have such a shortfall..
The photo accompanying this
Rte 99 bridge across Pantego Creek at Belhaven
column documents what at least some might consider to be an egregious example of wasted transportation money. What you are looking at is the side of the new Rte 99 bridge across Pantego Creek at Belhaven. Visible is a black conduit (15" or so in diameter) with a number of vertical white conduits extending from the bridge surface into cutouts in the top of the larger conduit. Initially (before the vertical white pipes were installed), it looked as though the large black conduit might be a pressure main for transporting sewage from the other side of the creek to the Belhaven sewage treatment plant. After the white conduits were installed, it was painfully clear that we did not have a pressure main but rather a drainage conduit into which contaminants from the bridge deck will wash during rainstorms to be collected and carried away. (So much for transporting sewage across the creek.) The large pipe goes down into the ground at the end of the bridge so there is no telling just what happens to all the "polluted" runoff from the bridge deck. What is one to do besides stopping at the NCDOT construction office to ask the folks there just where the pipe goes after it disappears into the ground. The answer is truly enlightening. In the words of one of the State DOT employees, the runoff is collected so it can be treated. When questioned about the type of treatment, it turned out that the treatment consists of dumping the runoff into a wetlands (swamp) ditch where it will be (somewhat) filtered naturally. Of course a "gully washer" as is so frequently experienced at Belhaven ends the "filtering" and washes all (or most of) the contaminants into the creek.
The original "justification" I was given for collecting the runoff from the deck of the bridge is to reduce the chances of hydroplaning when the deck gets wet. That argument dissolved when the question as to whether the road surface on the bridge had any "crown" or not. It does, which means that rain water falling on the bridge will flow to the edges of the bridge just as it flows to the side of a roadway when it rains. Of course longitudinally the bridge rises from the shore to the center of the bridge where it then slopes back to the shore at the other side of the bridge (i.e. the bridge surface takes the form of an arc across the creek). So what we have without any further ado (and absent the "sophisticated" collection system) is rain water running off the crown to the edge of the bridge and then running along the bridge back to the shore line where it will find its way back into the creek. Apparently that isn't good enough for our tree hugging friends. They apparently want to collect up all the water off the bridge and send it back into the swamp at some other location. There are a lot of folks who would suggest that if the rain water was allowed to run off the sides of the bridge back into the creek, it would actually end up in the same place as it does after we spend all the extra money on the collection system shown in the picture. Pollution would be no greater than experienced when rain water runs off our roadways and directly into the swamp (wetlands).
Another factor to consider is how much it adds to the cost of the bridge when we shut down construction on bridge projects while the anadromous fish go by on their way upstream to their spawning grounds. I was told that the construction is not brought to a standstill; only work associated with driving piles and the like. (I would have sworn that the Rte. 17 bypass bridge construction came to a screeching halt to allow the fish to pass. I certainly wish I could believe that the project costs were not higher or the completion times extended because of this insane requirement. What makes the entire issue so maddening is that the decisions to stop work are apparently not based on any scientific studies. (For the record; I have tried to obtain a copy of any studies supporting the policy and have not even generated a reply from the NCDENR. It seems that all that is required is for some unknown government employee of the tree hugger persuasion to say that the migration would be harmed. They lay the "don't disturb the migrating fish" requirement on the DOT and suddenly the cost of building bridges goes up. It is interesting that reportedly this same argument arose years ago when the "old" Rte 17 bridge was being constructed. That time the people won. The work went on. And guess what, the fish seem to have survived.. We can only wonder why the NCDENR isn't asked to pay the extra costs their often inane requirements add to construction projects instead of laying those costs on project sponsors.. That would mean that they would have to justify those extra funding requirements during the annual appropriations process, which would likely be the beginning of a very interesting conversation about the costs of unbounded and seemingly completely unconstrained environmental protection.
The long and short of it is that it is little wonder that the NC DOT is short of money. They either never heard the old adage about "Waste not, want not", or if they did, they didn't believe it. It sounds as though the NCDENR is free to lay whatever requirements they can think of on the DOT. No cost/benefit analysis; no nothing. Just do it.
In the meantime, we should increase the amount of taxes that motorists pay. Maybe we should go ahead with tolls for the ferries or more toll toads or higher gas tax. Surely our elected representatives can figure out some way to get their hands deeper into our pockets. Of course they can. If they are good at anything, that would be it.
D'ya think??
