The state of U.S. public infrastructure is a disgrace. Bridges are falling apart. Roads are filled with potholes. Water lines burst. Sewer systems leak or overflow. Levees fail. None of this is news, and we know what’s causing it. Governments are broke. The recession has greatly reduced the amount of money available for public works projects, and only the most urgent get any attention. And even in good times politicians prefer new projects that create jobs (votes) to unglamorous repairs. OK, we understand all that.

But what about private infrastructure? What about things like oil pipelines, for example? In recent weeks there have been leaks in a BP pipeline in Alaska, an Exxon Mobil pipeline under the Yellowstone River, TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline in North Dakota and the Plains All American LP Rainbow Pipeline in Alberta. And let’s not forget last year’s explosion in a PG&E gas line in San Bruno, CA. The companies that own these pipelines cannot plead poverty, so why aren’t they paying more attention to their condition? Cleanups are expensive. Does the bad publicity from a spill cost a company more than the price of maintaining the equipment? Maybe not directly, but what will public resistance to the next pipeline projectadd to the cost of that? The money may not come out of the maintenance budget, but it’s still corporate money.

There’s already simmering public resentment about big corporate earnings with few jobs; perhaps putting crews to work checking and repairing pipelines (and publicizing that you’re doing it) would do some good for everybody. And perhaps it would be worthwhile for a lot of folks from the oil patch to make plans to attend thePipeline Leak Detection Technology Conference scheduled for Sept. 13-14 in Anchorage, AK... and to start paying more attention to our deteriorating industrial infrastructure.

Source from valvemagazine.com