According to Wikipedia, the Carolina Reaper, originally named the “HP22B,” is a cultivar of chili pepper of the Capsicum Chinese species. It is bred in a Rock Hill, SC greenhouse by a man named Ed “Smokin’” Currie. The peppers have been rated as the world’s hottest chili peppers by Guinness World Records. The official heat level was measured at 1,569,300 Scoville Heat Units.
Recently, a man by the name of Wayne Algenio ate 22 Reaper peppers in the span of 60 seconds, which happens to be a new Guinness World Record. I have to admit, this was a difficult video for me to watch and I’m giving you fair warning, it’s not for the faint-hearted.
I bring this to your attention because I want to again, take up the subject of infrastructure for discussion.
Like a bowl of Carolina Reapers, it may be hard to think about what’s ahead, but look what can ultimately be accomplished. All it takes is an extreme amount of intestinal will and fortitude. And maybe half a pint of 1% milk.
Infrastructure Week is from May 16–May 23, 2016. It is a national week of events, media coverage, and education and advocacy efforts to elevate infrastructure as a critical issue impacting all Americans. It is comprised of more than 100 affiliate organizations from all sectors of the nation’s economy and civil society. Forester Media, the publisher of Grading & Excavation Contractor magazine, is an Infrastructure Week affiliate. And this GX magazine blog has already been having the conversation.
A few weeks ago, I reached out to various manufacturing executives and industry experts with four questions regarding the state of our infrastructure. We’ve had responses from the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, Volvo, John Deere, and CASE.
This week, Adrien Patané, the regional manager of technology solutions and services at Trimble, answers our four-question questionnaire.
Grading and Excavation Contractor (GX): Which infrastructure projects should be given priority? Roads and bridges? Dams and levees? Water supply? Electrical grid?
Adrien Patané (AP): The choice or type of project, while it should be based on today’s societal choices to improve community’s quality of life, sometimes must be shared with the urgency to rectify aging and crumbling infrastructures that take over investment priority.
This realization is likely one of the reasons why long-term [30–35 years] PPP-based [public-private-partnership-based] infrastructure contracts have become so popular these days—ensuring the lifecycle of new infrastructure is calculated and delivered as part of the initial funding/investment. This further reinforces the need to enable proper constructible modeling and maintain precise as-built throughout the lifecycle of that infrastructure.
GX: Is there a solution to long-term infrastructure funding?
AP: Our past mistakes for aging infrastructure has taught us of the need to (a) factor in not only the initial cost but also the O&M cost of the entire lifecycle of an infrastructure—therefore to properly balance short-term cost savings versus quality of construction for long-term true cost—and (b) the fact we cannot mortgage our children’s future by ignoring these lifecycle cost in the initial investment decisions.
Therefore, the solution is to adopt funding models that are all-inclusive, thus the popularity of the PPP approach. But this approach alone is not sufficient to prevent PPP partners from going insolvent during their mandate if any part of the construction quality or the revenue model becomes unsustainable during the mandate. Enforcing public transparency of the approach, the constructible model and the resulting as-built on which the O&M is exercised would ensure less “ surprises” in the delivery phase of the PPP mandate—and that can only be achieved if modern 3D BIM & CIM approaches are adhered to and maintained for all new infrastructure projects.
GX: What kind of harm is the current state of our infrastructure doing to the economy and the community?
AP: The urgency of rectifying aging/crumbling infrastructure is now taking over our investment priorities for the future and this will be accelerating. And a worse scenario is where these urgencies are ignored in the hope that there will be no catastrophic failures…something the current public administration is not equipped to cope with.
We saw what a tsunami did to a nuclear reactor site in Japan in 2011 and the US has more than 600 aging water dams located near population centers that are not structurally monitored other than once per year. But besides the danger of critical failures of aging existing infrastructure, the lack of investment for new/expanded world-class infrastructures is hurting the American competitive productivity on the world scene. Our reluctance to invest and promote high-quality mass transit [high speed railways] will eventually have dire environmental cost for our children and is today making our productivity less competitive against other world competitors.
GX: What can various government entities—from local to federal—do to attract private sector support and investment?
AP: There are many examples of how various government entities have taken action to drive cost savings, lower risks, and overall improve the support of the private sector to invest in certain industries. Often this is done with specifications or standards. Think about the telecommunications industry, for example: standards have allowed for a boom in private sector investment in telecommunications. The other example is to reduce the risk of investment, making returns more predictable. This is not always easy as there are several PPP infrastructure investment examples where future revenue and costs were over- or under-estimated. The best way to manage this risk moving forward is to trust that accurate infrastructure lifecycle cost and benefit data will lead to more accurate and lower risk investment decisions.
Private industry and investors need to have a clear and structured path to economic benefit both from the construction of the project, but also [during] the ongoing operations and maintenance. DBOM [design-build-operate-maintain] projects, for example, facilitate engagement with private industry and long-term monetary benefits, but also with the associated responsibilities of long-term investment and return. This imparts ownership during construction by connecting the construct and maintain phases of a project and throughout its entire lifecycle.
GX: Thank you, Adrien.
The next time we talk about Infrastructure Week, we’ll hear from an executive from the Associated General Contractors of America.
These issues go well beyond grading and excavation. All of Forester’s publications, Stormwater, Erosion Control, Business Energy, Water Efficiency and MSW Management have asked the same four questions of their various industry executives and experts. All of the discussions will be revealed here on the Forester Network leading up to Infrastructure Week.
Feel free to be part of the discussion by adding your comment below.
