Don't blame this situation on politicos, blame it on ourselves. We want lower taxes, we are the ones who force that agenda on candidates. We are the ones who would never elect the candidate who campaigned saying "I intend to raise local property taxes by 20% using 10% to improve education and 10% on our water and sewer systems." I say that as someone who lives in a city with what I consider substandard education, certainly based on the wealth in the area, but then many of the wealthy go to private schools, and a city which has water and sewer systems crumbling by the minute.
Our infrastructure reminds me of the person who buys a $10 million boat, but never spends a dollar on any routine maintenance, only reacts to emergencies along the way. What will it look like in 10, 20, 40 years? Look at the rundown houses around various neighborhoods where people could afford them but couldn't afford good upkeep. Did we expect roads, bridges, and water and sewage pipes to last forever. We should have built a replacement fund, starting in year one.
The other factor is we've continued to add people and businesses and not adequately account for them. Our cities are like one bedroom apartments with 20 people living in them. And, don't for a moment think it's just large cities. Drive through rural Mississippi which uses lagoons to handle sewage and watch all the sewage backing up in the streets after a huge storm. Years ago the company I worked for built new lagoons for one small town. See, we could get funding from the state for economic reasons based on employees added, but the town couldn't get any funding based on human needs or utility needs. So, we got state money for the lagoons and we bought the city the wetlands they needed to replace the new lagoon land. All things the town couldn't do and couldn't afford to do. That town has 2600 people, 1000 households and a median household income of $21,000 today.
It's like condos that don't build adequate capital reserves and ultimately must have a special assessment which then half the condo owners can't pay.
Now, this is somewhat off boating except it does affect our waterways. I'd suggest everyone looking at ewg.org and their city for the tap water database. Google and look for sewage system spills for your hometown. Here are a few Florida issues in the news.
https://health.wusf.usf.edu/term/sewage#stream/0
One more piece of information if you live further north. Check to see if your city still has a combined sewer system where residential, commercial and storm water all use the same pipes. I'm sure that was once thought to be a great idea, but what it leads to is 1" of rain can increase the flow to 5 or 10 times normal and then you see backup in your storm drains but that backup isn't storm water, it's combined all sewage, and when the station can't handle it all, then it's not storm water flowing to sea but it's a combination of all sewage. Now some cities have re-piped and others have built large storage tunnels to take the extra.
Those who rave about boating regulations while all this dumping have a point but the real point needs to be not to create more problems with waste in our waters, but to work toward stopping the existing ones. Ask what your hometown is doing?
If a city decides to propose a bond for improving their sewage system today, it will be at least 10 years before the real benefit will be experienced. 2 years to get it to the ballot and get the money and then 7 or 8 years building it. So, if your town hasn't already started, just think how much worse things will get. Fort Lauderdale has started but there are still many more spills to happen while they do the work.
