Low Income Areas in the United States – Not Worth Saving?

  

If you help businesses and homeowners rebuild where a devastating natural disaster has struck, perhaps more than once, but where is a high risk of comparable or greater future harm – with insurance, state risk pool money, FEMA support – aren’t we supporting a losing battle? Wasting money? Sure, it’s great to have property on waterways with gorgeous vistas, sunlit beaches and life-affirming breezes. But at a time when it is obvious to virtually the entire relevant scientific community that some properties are unsustainable within a foreseeable future, why are we subsidizing an inevitable loss of any replacement structures we build? Does the metric change when the horrible results from drying forests as communities expand to the edge of woodlands likely to explode in raging fires?

As forestland is destined to produce more super-fires in the coming years, as oceans rise to claim coastline, from Malibu beaches and the Florida Keys to North Carolina’s Outer Banks and Alaska’s rapidly contracting shores, what exactly are our priorities? As arable land becomes too dry to sustain agriculture, what should we be doing? If we are not sufficiently addressing the big question – climate change itself – what “little adjustments” can we afford to make? What about regions within the United States where cities and towns can be protected merely with upgrading the relevant infrastructure? California is a prime example of a state that is dramatically dependent on antiquated water control systems, mostly dams and levees, that were constructed mostly in the 1890s.

The recent torrential rains – a which were preceded by a massive drying out of lakes, reservoirs and the soil in and around them – have taken their toll on a water control system that defines the water supply for much of California, particularly her major cities. Writing for the March 14th Los Angeles Times, Susanne Rust and Ian James describe the issues, starting with a massive system of earthen levees and dams created more than a century ago: “Across Northern California, the Central Valley and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, there are more than 13,000 miles of levees designed to protect dry land…

“The levee breach that left an entire California town underwater… is putting a spotlight on how the state’s vital flood control infrastructure is being weakened by age, drought, climate change, rodents and neglect — and leaving scores of communities at risk… On Friday night [3/10], the swollen Pajaro River burst through the worn-down levee [pictured above left], flooding the town of Pajaro and sending its roughly 3,000 residents into what officials are now estimating to be a multi-month-long exile. A second breach was reported Monday [3/13].

“For decades, the levee was ignored by the federal government — never rising to the status of a fix-worthy project — despite repeated pleas, breaches, floods and even two deaths… ‘Yeah, the money wasn’t there because the prioritization wasn’t there,’ said Mark Strudley, executive director of the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency… And as the communities and local government agencies begged for help and funding, the levee aged, eroded and, in some places, sank.

“The situation is by no means unique to Pajaro. Experts say similar weaknesses plague levee systems across California and the nation… As climate change threatens to intensify and exacerbate extreme weather events — such as flooding and even drought — the unease and desperation of residents and emergency responders in communities near these crumbling systems is growing… ‘We all know that there’s a lot of economically disadvantaged communities that are built in natural disaster-prone areas,’ Strudley said. ‘That’s just the very unfortunate way the planning and development process has worked over the past 100-plus years in the United States.’” 

Indeed, as demand for infrastructure repairs and upgrades face unprecedented demand, even with recent budget allocation under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, there isn’t remotely enough money to fix and upgrade most of our nation’s infrastructure. So high-value infrastructure that supports the most valuable land, urban and otherwise, as well the largest concentrations of people, moves to the top of the priority list. The poor areas generally have to experience death and destruction before anything is done. The breach of the Pajaro River is just one small example of a vastly bigger problem. That the Pajaro region is a low-income area pushed its priority way down the list… until the above breach,

As Legal-Panel.org pointed more than a decade ago, Sacramento-San Joaquin River “Delta [pictured partially, right above] is currently a labyrinth of levee-lined tidal channels surrounding sunken islands, but researchers say that its current form is unsustainable. Rising sea level caused by climate change, risk of major earthquakes, subsidence (sinking) of Delta islands, and aging infrastructure all threaten this freshwater resource.” Surprise, surprise, it happened. That most of the dams and levees are just mounds of compressed earth illustrates the vulnerability of the entire system. A serious breach, caused by a major earthquake for example, could take years to repair and cut water flow to Southern California by as much as 30%. 

While the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is of tremendous importance to the entire state, and hence the nation, it is but one example of issues all across the United States. Oddly, China’s massive infrastructure, supporting its mega-cities, is in better shape that our systems for two reasons: most of it is newer and until the new US commitment above, China spent tens times the amount US expenditures on infrastructure. We still aren’t in their league of supporting our most essential infrastructure needs… trillions behind where we need to be. All this as a very powerful GOP constituency in Congress wishes to cut back budget allocations that are needed to upgrade to a “sustainable” our system of roads, bridges, dams, levees, power grids, harbors and airports. The system will not fix itself!

I’m Peter Dekom, and productivity and livability are both deeply impacted by the quality and expanse of infrastructure… and the United States is way behind where it needs to be in order to sustain global competitiveness and a decent quality of life for most of us.