Watermains
Money down the drain? Think tank says municipalities can save billions
 | - News on the Net Wednesday, May 2, 2012 | Print friendly | Email Us |
Everyone wants to know - how on earth do we pay for the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. A think tank in the USA, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, says the answer comes down to how municipalities buy their goods and services.
Download the full study here.
Most common cause of watermain breaks identified
The image is one we all want to avoid. Whether it’s a flooded house, a boil water advisory, or a sinkhole capturing a fire truck, watermain breaks cost municipalities millions of dollars. (The picture was taken in Van Nuys, California, in 2009 - no one was injured.)
Utah State University has just finished a comprehensive study on broken watermains across Canada and the USA, and says the primary reason water mains break is corrosion. And the best way to avoid a corroded water main? Use non-corrosive materials - like PVC.
Download the full study here.
Co-Founder of Greenpeace: We got it wrong
The co-founder of Greenpeace, Dr Patrick Moore, was recently interviewed on the Sun News network. He had some fascinating points…
- Why do some cities prefer old-fashioned water pipes? According to him, look to the unions.
- Vinyl is a superior product, but because it contains chlorine, the environmental groups want it banned.
- “Greenpeace is against about half the elements on the periodic table.”
You can watch the interview here.
Just how bad is it?
According to the Water Main Break Clock, we’re approaching $500 BILLION in corrosion costs across North America since Y2K.
To put that in perspective, that stack of loonies would completely circle the earth 25 times. If you filled dump trucks with the loonies instead of stacking them, you’d need 125,000 dump trucks, creating a traffic jam over 1,500 km long. It’s that bad.