Government Policy and Budget Discussion Thread (no politics)

[MichiFan87]

Coastal property values are already in decline (or at least not rising much relative to other places) and flood insurance costs are increasing, but that's still not stopping people from re-developing South Beach, Myrtle Beach, The Outer Banks, Cape May, Long Island, Cape Cod, etc, much less other coastal areas that aren't as popular like the Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay.

Unfortunately it may take another superstorm like Sandy in 2012 for investors and property owners to realize how stupid it is to keep rebuilding increasingly disaster-prone areas. Given the state of the world, it might be best to have that happen this year.

Conversely, I can definitely see property values of homes on/near lakes and/or mountains increasing substantially in the future.

[OrangeAfroMan]

Is ancient history an area of expertise for you, Afro?
It's not for me, but it seems that you have a sort of cartoon understanding of it.

I do tend to think much can go unsaid because of how obvious it is.  I guess that's cartoony.

[847badgerfan]

That is an interesting website.

So, Chicago is the culprit?

Back in the late 1800's, Chicago had a drinking water problem because all of the waste was sent to the river and the river drained into The Lake. Long story short, engineers designed a system to reverse the flow of the river and locks were installed. Now, all of Chicago's waste would be sent "down" river and eventually to the Mississippi River - a complete watershed transfer.

Much prior to that, the Illinois and Michigan (I&M) Canal was constructed (1850 or so) to enable a water connection from the South side of Chicago to the Illinois River, and Chicago boomed as a shipping center - before the railroads were built.

[Cincydawg]

The ability to build such canals in the 1850s is impressive.  I toured one in France built around 1880 where it had a long bridge over the Loire River, for the canal, which is still intact and used for pleasure rafting.

[847badgerfan]

Shipping goes through Calumet Harbor, which is where the Port Authority is centered. Almost all of the traffic downtown is now recreational and some commercial tour boats. There is no passage at Wilmette - just gates and a massive pump. Sewerage is often dumped at this location.

[Cincydawg]

Sewage today should be treated and pretty clean water, often cleaner than the river water.

Run off, well, that can be suspect of course.  Haber process, one of the great innovations of the 20th century.

[847badgerfan]

Coastal property values are already in decline (or at least not rising much relative to other places) and flood insurance costs are increasing, but that's still not stopping people from re-developing South Beach, Myrtle Beach, The Outer Banks, Cape May, Long Island, Cape Cod, etc, much less other coastal areas that aren't as popular like the Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay.

Unfortunately it may take another superstorm like Sandy in 2012 for investors and property owners to realize how stupid it is to keep rebuilding increasingly disaster-prone areas. Given the state of the world, it might be best to have that happen this year.

Conversely, I can definitely see property values of homes on/near lakes and/or mountains increasing substantially in the future.

Not that I can tell.

It will take a major shift in Government policy for this to truly happen, and Government doesn't have the stomach (or backbone) to do it. Policy is (almost) always rebuild.

Exceptions I see around here are at the County level. Lake (IL) and DuPage Counties have been buying flood-prone properties for years, so they can allow them to revert back to floodplain/wetlands.

[847badgerfan]

Sewage today should be treated and pretty clean water, often cleaner than the river water.

Run off, well, that can be suspect of course.  Haber process, one of the great innovations of the 20th century.

Not before it's treated.

Chicago is on a combined system. Stormwater and sewerage are mixed. When the treatment plants get overwhelmed during a (not so heavy), the raw dumping occurs. My solution would be to separate the systems, installing new sanitary sewers and using the existing sewers to drain runoff. This way the treatment plants do not get overwhelmed at all.

The Chicago solution back in the 1970's was to build a deep tunnel system, which sends the combined water to old quarries for storage, until it can be treated later. It's a Boondoggle and it's still not done. Probably never will be done. It's very inefficient too, having to treat not only waste water, but stormwater too. lots of people are making lots of money on this project.

[Cincydawg]

I was stunned to learn once that the barrier islands off the GA coast are only about 10,000 years old, same with SC and NC.  Most of them are shifting south apparently, the north end often has remains of some structure in the water.  The south ends often are extending, but not high enough for construction and often they are preserved as wet lands.  Ten thousand years is a geologic blink of course.

"They" do a somewhat better job now at keeping new construction back from the dunes and more inland (a bit).  Daytona et al. you see older construction right on the beack.

[847badgerfan]

The barrier islands were not always islands. They were under water, some time ago, when the sea levels were much higher.

[Cincydawg]

I have a friend in Cincy who works for the water works.  We talked a bit about comingling storm water and raw sewage and he said they had an issue but were making progress over time.  I know several points on streets I would use to get to work where pink slimy water would be pouring out of manhole covers in bad rains.  It looked like Ghost Busters, and of course I had to detour.  I'd take one side road when the freeway would clog up.

Nasty looking stuff.

The Mill Creek bisects Cincinnati in the flood plane and was consistently a problem, so they concreted the creek sides in places.  At times when I first moved there, enormous soap bubbles would be generated and drift across I-75 closing it down.  I don't know where the soap came from.  Ha.

The creek runs into the Ohio of course, but traverses a large levee of course, and when the Ohio is high the creek is pumped over the levee into the river.

I marvel at the massive infrastructure humans can generate, like Hoover Dam.

[847badgerfan]

Hoover Dam is something. Enables a water supply to Las Vegas, which obviously shouldn't exist.

Construction of that thing.. wow. Just the sequencing alone was amazing.

Concrete gets really hot as it cures, and there is a lot of concrete, obviously. Water pipes were installed within, with each pour, in order to keep the concrete cool.

[Cincydawg]

And they did it in the middle of nowhere.  The film "The Six COmpanies" is astonishing.

[847badgerfan]

There was this guy called Daniel Mead, who was the head of hydraulic and sanitary engineering at the University of Wisconsin. He also had an engineering practice in town, which is now called Mead & Hunt. Big company now, with offices all over the country. When I was in school, that was the place to work for aspiring engineers.

Anyway, Mr. Mead was big in the hydroelectric and dam business. He did a whole lot of work on that Hoover Dam structure.

No relation to Elwood Mead, for whom the impoundment formed by the dam is named.