The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) assigned the United States’ Hazardous Waste infrastructure a grade of “D” on their 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. Why? Too many sites, not enough attention to them, and reduced funding, to name a few.

Theodore (Ted) E. Scott is the Managing Member of Stormwater Maintenance, LLC, in Hunt Valley, Maryland. He has provided our audience some insights into the inspection, maintenance, and repair of storm water systems. There are three categories of these systems that we’ll investigate: surface basins, underground structures and drainage systems.

In most cases, property owners are required by regulation to maintain pond embankments and outfall works as related to structural integrity and dam safety. Proper maintenance also lessens the liability of pond and lake ownership by reducing the likelihood of failures that can impact downstream property. Owners or property managers may believe that proper maintenance is occurring only to later learn that they need expensive repairs. This situation illustrates that many contractors providing routine maintenance, such as landscapers, are not trained to properly identify issues that can be problematic or lead to increased cost of ownership.

As stated in Watts it Matter to You? Electricity Transmission, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) assigned the United States’ ENERGY infrastructure a grade of “D+” on their 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. “Electricity Distribution” explains the final step in the path of electricity from a power-generating facility to your home or business. It covers the electric utility business model, how the distribution infrastructure drives generation and transmission decisions, and metering electricity.

I just finished reading Stephen Flynn’s 2007 book "The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation." For those who’ve been interested enough in infrastructure topics to find their way to the Operations Channel, I’d highly recommend this book. Flynn is more of a security expert than he is a construction specialist, but it is exactly this objective perspective which makes his focus on our infrastructure so valuable. He includes infrastructure shortfalls along with Jihadists and pandemics as major threats to our society. He sees our aging infrastructure beyond the bricks and mortar, as reducing our national flexibility, as vulnerable terrorist targets, and as economic liabilities for future generations. These add up to make our declining infrastructure a tangible national security issue that he’s rightly concerned about.

As stated in Watts it Matter to You? Electricity Generation, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) assigned the United States’ ENERGY infrastructure a grade of “D+” on their 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. Electricity transmission, which is the second of three installments on energy, covers transmission lines and grid networks, “green” power transmission, and "smart" grids. Electricity distribution will be covered in installment three as we follow the path of electricity from a power generating facility to your home or business.

The Cost and Reliability of Electricity Service

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) assigned the United States’ ENERGY infrastructure a grade of “D+” on their 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. Electricity generation is the first of three installments on energy and covers nuclear, coal and natural gas, and hydro-electric power generating facilities. Electrical transmission and distribution will be covered in installments two and three as we follow the path of electricity from a power generating facility to your home or business. The goal is to provide an overview on how electrical power is delivered, including issues of current concern.

In President Obama’s State of the Union address on January 27^th, he mentioned Tampa’s upcoming high-speed rail (HSR) project and his subsequent trip there on January 28th. As was mentioned in his speech, Tampa’s new HSR line is not the only rail project addressed in the recent American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA). Several other states are slated to receive federal funding for rail line improvements, totaling $8 billion. The Florida project will receive $1.25 billion to connect Tampa to the Orlando International Airport. California will receive $2.25 billion to begin a HSR line between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

This is the fifth article in Buildipedia's series on U.S. Infrastructure, following the January 8, 2010 feature on dams, "It’s About Dam Time!"

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) assigned the United States’ DRINKING WATER infrastructure a grade of “D-” on their 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. Easy access to fresh water is a modern convenience that we might take for granted in our daily lives.

It's likely that most Americans got their first glimpse of Building Automation Systems in 1939, when the Wizard of Oz appeared from behind his black curtain, frantically pulling levers to remotely spread smoke, his green visage exposed to Dorothy and her pals.  Modern Building Automation Systems (BAS) are different than Oz’s in their focus, technology and desired outcomes, but similar in their concept of centralized remote monitoring and control of mechanical systems.

A plate-type heat exchanger is a device which transfers the heat stored in one fluid to another fluid at a different temperature by passing the different fluids by each other in plate-like chambers.  The flow of the fluids may be cross-flow, parallel-flow, or counter-flow (perpendicular), as defined by the directions from which the fluids are supplied to the exchanger.

This is the fourth article in the series on U.S. infrastructure, following our bridges article, “A Bridge to Everywhere." The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) assigned the United States’ DAMS infrastructure a grade of “D” on their 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure.

As discussed in the prior infrastructure article, the average age of a bridge in the United States is now 44 years. The average dam is an older sibling to the typical bridge, at 52 years old. Dams and bridges in the United States share many things in common. Being generous and assuming an average life span in parallel with human years, both these national systems are in the midst of a mid-life crisis.