Oroville Dam and U.S. Infrastructure

Northern Californians have their eyes on the Oroville Dam as the situation seems to change by the hour. The Dam itself is fine, but the gateways leading water out of the dam have been damaged. This damage came at a point when the lake behind the dam reached capacity due to a series of storms. Northern California is currently experiencing several days of sunny weather giving water managers time to plan for the storms coming.

California like most of the nation is not alone in it's need to update major infrastructure. The Oroville Dam was completed in 1968. Older infrastructure obviously needs to be maintained with more rigor than newer structures. Are we putting the resources needed into maintaining bridges, water systems, electrical grids, transportations systems like train tracks and airports?

This blogger thinks we are failing. New projects like speed-rail become so political it takes forever to get from the drawing-board to implementation. The same goes for building and maintaining new bridges and maintaining the ones already in place. Airports almost across the board need to be upgraded. Only airports built recently have the ability to meet demand. The same goes for electrical grids and water storage.

I hope President Trump is serious about building up the nations infrastructure. Republicans and Democrats believe it's important. Coming up with the $$$ is always the main issue. We need to stop talking and make it happen.

I  hope a crisis in Northern California can be averted. When the emergency passes and it comes time to make repairs the facts will most likely point to Oroville Dam as being one more piece of infrastructure that did not receive the funding and upgrades needed to keep it in A+ shape. The policy of doing only what is necessary needs to change dramatically. Our economy is tied directly to a working infrastructure. It's time to build, build, build and maintain, maintain, maintain. If this happens we will see our economy grow faster than it has over the last 20 years.