`Infrastructure’. It’s as basic as the ground you walk on.
Canada’s infrastructure is rotting beneath our feet, and it’s been happening for decades.
In the wee hours of the morning of Aug. 12, a broken water main in Montreal released a gush of water so powerful when it broke, it cracked the street surface. More than 200 sleepy residents were forced to leave their homes.
Gaetan Larvicre, the fire department’s chief of operations, said the main break sent a geyser of water five metres into the air along Pie-IX Boulevard in the northern borough of Saint-Leonard.
Firefighters in hip waders cradled infants as they helped with the overnight evacuation.
That’s in La Belle Province.
On the early morning of Aug. 6, a local City of Toronto councillor noticed that a traffic snarl on his way to the office was caused by a watermain emergency at busy Bloor and Islington.
Upon arrival at his city hall office, he had an assistant check with city authorities for an update on the broken water main.
Joe Cirillo, Manager, Operations and Maintenance District 2, Water and Wastewater Operations, reported back that his staff were already out on the job.
"Staff have one lane north and south on Islington for the duration of the watermain break," said Cirillo. "We are down to the watermain and have found that the mineral lead joint on the pipe has failed, We will be removing two section (sic) of watermain that will remove three mineral lead joints. We anticipate having the water turned back on later on this afternoon. The road will be backfilled this evening. That way we can (repair) the asphalt first thing in the morning and traffic should be back to normal before the evening rush hour."
Wait a minute. "We will remove three mineral lead joints?"
Hey, Joe, we thought the use of lead was banned 30 years ago. Where are the environmentalists when you really need them?
Problem is, our watermains, like the proverbial month of June, keep busting out all over.
Unfortunately, watermains don’t tell time, and they show no respect for tired workers heading home during evening rush hour.
Now that the Liberal government in Ottawa is slugging it out in a nasty leadership fight, funds for our crumbling roads and byways are about to be significantly boosted.
Provided that they fit into five categories the government has identified as key to improving quality of life in the regions, the federal government is offering to pay a larger share of ambitious infrastructure improvements across the country.
Down-home visitors to the province of New Brunswick this summer say the feds can start there first.
Federal Industry Minister Allan Rock, who oversees a $2.6-billion fund for infrastructure--including $600-million earmarked specifically for border crossings--is the federal minister sitting on the infrastructure piggybank.
Rock is moving away from the traditional funding method, which previously saw federal, provincial and municipal governments each kicking in one third of the costs.
Ottawa now says it will pony up 50 per cent funding and will no longer require all three levels to share. In addition, Rock and company want to move beyond the local projects, which were features of previous spending programs.
The priority will be six border-crossing points in Canada-- four of them in Ontario-- because 70 per cent of cross border truck traffic goes there. Specifically, the Ontario crossings to be improved by the feds include Windsor, Sarnia, Niagara Falls and Fort Erie. The other two are the crossing south of Vancouver at Douglas, B.C., and at Lacolle, Que.
Even though it’s now Rock doing all the talking about major infrastructure improvements, much of it comes to a highway near you courtesy of the Yanks, specifically Homeland Security czar Tom Ridge.
Ridge and deputy Prime Minister John Manley largely worked out Smart Borders Plan in a comprehensive plan, which tries to balance security concerns with the free flow of goods across the Canadian-American border.
How did Rock get in on the act?
The Prime Minister.
Rock took over the $2.6-billion infrastructure fund from Manley in a shift of responsibilities announced earlier by Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
If anyone still remembers, infrastructure money was earmarked in the last federal budget brought down by former finance minister Paul Martin before the Toronto Coun. Jack Layton-led Canadian Federation of Municipalities (CFM) promptly took credit for it.
There is a lot of politics involved in the repairing of Canada’s crumbling infrastructure. By simply scanning Rock’s identified five areas for infrastructure spending, one can see politics is still a big part of the overall picture.
Number two on his list is: "Local transportation infrastructure improvements--particularly those, which can be shown to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere."
In order to get an unbiased, unpolitical picture of Canada’s crumbling infrastructure, one has to look to the Ottawa-based National Research Council of Canada, and its Institute for Research in Construction (RC), which is the national technology centre for the construction industry.
In a recent NRC study, PVC pipe exhibited the lowest failure rate of pipe installed today.
Writing on the report Robert Walker pointed out that "Canadian municipalities lose $650-million of water every year, mostly from broken watermains. An additional $82-million is spent yearly on repairs."
"From the data, it can be concluded that selecting the right water main pipe can significantly reduce repair costs," Walker wrote.
""Canada was selected for the NRC study because it included many expertly staffed and well managed municipal water utilities. In addition, a survey of Canadian municipalities provided a broad yet representative mix of pipe materials, geological conditions and pipe ages.
"The survey was commissioned to document the frequency of watermain breaks in 21 municipalities across Canada. It analyzed the performance of watermain pipes from different materials, including cast iron (CI) and asbestos cement (AC) pipes which are still in service but no longer installed today.
"The NCR survey also tracked the performance of cast ductile iron (DI) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipes. The number of breaks occurring for each pipe material during the two-year period of 1992 and 1993 was documented according to the total length of each pipe material in service. This enabled the NCR to compare performance on the basis of number of breaks per 100 kilometers (km) of each pipe in service.
The results should be enlightening to any government paying for infrastructure from the public purse.
"Cast iron pipes yielded the highest failure rate of 35.9 breaks per 100 km of cast iron pipe in service per year.
"Newer cast ductile iron pipes did considerably better, posting an average failure rate of 9.5 breaks per 100 km of DI pipe in service per year. DI’s failure rate was, however, higher than that for AC or PVC pipes. Since most breaks were due to corrosion, there is particular concern that as these DI pipes become older, their thinner pipe walls will cause the failure rate to climb above that of CI pipe. For example, a 300 mm CI pipe manufactured just 20 years ago was more than 30 per cent thicker than today’s DI pipe of the same diameter; and 40 years ago that same CI pipe was more than twice as thick as its current 300 mm DI pipe counterpart.
"Both CI and DI pipe materials have been shown to corrode at nearly the same rate. Consequently, it is logical to anticipate that DI failure rates will increase, possibly dramatically as they age. DI water pipes were first introduced into Canada in the early 1960s.
AC pipes, while no longer installed, posted the second lowest failure rate. Their yearly break rate was 5.8 breaks per 100 km of AC pipe in service. Their lower failure rate may be due to their inherent noncorroding nature.
"The total length of in-service PVC mains in the NRC survey was 1818 km. Like DI pipe, PVC water pipes were introduced to Canada in the early 1960s. But unlike DI, PVC is noncorroding and failure rates are not expected to increase as PVC pipes age. (Several other studies have shown that PVC pipe failure rates do decline with age).
"These significant NRC survey findings should be a tremendous aid to water utilities seeking to enhance their operating efficiency. Pipe failures are costly. It is estimated that each pipe failure costs customers an average of $2,500 in repair costs alone.
"Using NRC failure data, PVC pipes offer the best value, requiring an average of $1,750 per 100 km in repair costs--about 14 times less than is now the case with DI pipes."
Meanwhile, Canadians should be worthy of new infrastructure because of public safety and not because a Liberal leadership is in the offing.
So the next time you’re on the road, headed home and are held up by another broken water main, remember you’re paying for it.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of Canada Free Press. Content is Copyright 1997-2024 the individual authors. Site Copyright 1997-2024 Canada Free Press.Com Privacy Statement