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Article published Mar 10, 2005
Roads, sewers need boost in S.C., report says
South
Carolina needs to spend billions of dollars to upgrade outdated and overburdened
public infrastructure such as roads, bridges, sewers and schools, according to a
national report released Wednesday.The American Society of Civil Engineers gave
the nation's infrastructure as a whole a D, sayingthat little or no progress has
been made in most areas since the last report card in 2001.During that last
survey, the country as a whole earned a letter grade of D-plus.According to the
report, the country needs to spend an estimated $1.6 trillion over the next five
years to heal its crumbling infrastructure.Though states weren't graded
individually, the report outlines South Carolina's roads, wastewater and bridges
as the state's areas most in need of improvement.Thirty-nine percent of the
state's major urban roads are congested, the report finds, and 22 percent of
major roads are in poor or mediocrecondition.The report also labels 23 percent
of the state's bridges as being structurally deficient or obsolete. Nationally,
the group estimates $9.4 billion a year for the next 20 years is needed to
eliminate all of the nation's nearly 591,000 deficient or obsolete bridges.Gov.
Mark Sanford has said the state has significant unmet infrastructure needs, and
federal dollars haven't provided enough flexibility to fund a variety of
projects, spokesman Will Folks said.U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said his
STATES act is designed to give states more flexibility in the use of federal
money on state-maintained secondary roads in order to address high fatality
rates or safety concerns."We can address the severe secondary roads needs we
have in South Carolina by leveraging the federal money we already receive and
making it go further," DeMint said in a statement.Folks said the S.C. Department
of Transportation also should do a better job of analyzing and balancing the
benefits of projects with regard to cost."We've got to prioritize resources at
DOT like we do at any state agency," he said. "Unfortunately, that hasn't always
happened."Michael Covington, deputy director of executive support at the DOT,
said the state has an index that it uses to assess paving needs -- a program
that recently added secondary roads.The problem, Covington said, is the state
allocates too few state dollars toward road and bridge projects, relying heavily
on federal money."Here, we're putting every penny we have into road
maintenance," Covington said.The state has identified $59.7 billion in roads and
bridges' needs over the next 20 years, he said. But at the current funding
levels, the state will have only about $19.4 billion over that time.According to
the civil engineers' report, the rehabilitation of the state's most critical
dams would cost an additional $75 million, and drinking water infrastructure
needs are estimated to be $820 million over the next 20 years.South Carolina
also has $1.31 billion in wastewater infrastructure needs, the report
shows.Graham Rich, general manager of the Spartanburg Water System, said $150
million worth of upgrades and maintenance are being made to the county's water
systems.Still, there is a significant need to improve water systems throughout
the state, he said."It's something that you're not going to catch up on in five
or ten years," Rich said. "It's something that is ongoing."Luke Connell can be
reached at 562-7219 or luke.connell@shj.com.