Tag: infrastructure

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Tag Teaming a Grant

Rep. Cohen takes the pledge at last weekend’s Kennedy Dinner of the Shelby County Democratic Party. (Photo: Courtesy Lexie Carter)

“We’ve secured $13.1 million in federal funding to overhaul one of the most dangerous intersections in our city — Lamar Avenue, Kimball Avenue, and Pendleton Street.”

So begins an online notification from the office of Memphis Mayor Paul Young, and it is accompanied by a photograph of the mayor with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

The notification goes on to boast that “[w]e’re not just fixing a dangerous intersection — we’re transforming it with clearer signals, safer crosswalks, and better pedestrian pathways” — all of it being “a huge step towards ensuring that every Memphian can navigate our streets with confidence and peace of mind.”

Sounds good all right. I remember that intersection from the days when, as a 14-year-old, I threw the old Memphis Press-Scimitar in that neighborhood. In vintage times, it was where the old streetcars did a turnaround, and it absolutely was hazardous to negotiate, especially on a bicycle.

And comes yet another online notification — this one from 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen: “I’m pleased to announce a new investment of $13.1 million [under the] Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act … to completely redesign the dangerous intersection at Lamar Avenue, Kimball Avenue, and Pendleton Street …”

The congressman, a senior member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, notes further, “I strongly advocated for this project and for funding to improve our streets in hearings with Secretary Buttigieg and in letters of support to the U.S. Department of Transportation, and I’m proud we brought it home.”

Well, er, to whom goes the honor of having snagged this benefit from the feds? The mayor or the congressman?

Both, as it turns out. Asked about it, Cohen calls it a “cooperative joint effort” and says, in a text, “The mayor was a planner, and they’re his people. Politics and pitching by congressmen certainly helps. … Grants don’t just fall out of a coconut tree.”

And credit for the grant goes even further. Cohen points out that the grant, in its original form, was first proposed by former Mayor Jim Strickland and had been included as an earmark in legislation that, before being resurrected, was stalemated in a previous session of Congress.

All of which is to say that, yes, it does indeed take a village to get things done.

• Perhaps unsurprisingly, the vote of the Shelby County Commission on Monday to support the City Council’s lawsuit against the Election Commission to restore a gun-safety referendum on the November ballot was passed on a party-line vote — nine Democrats aye, four Republicans no.

Speaking for the Republicans, Commissioner Mick Wright quoted Governor Bill Lee’s concerns, expressed earlier Monday in Memphis, that the city should find itself at odds “with the rest of the state.” Democratic Commissioner Henri Brooks countered that it was “time to stand up to bullies.” And other commissioners tended to follow their party’s line.

With its vote, the commission became an “amicus curiae” in support of the suit, which has caused various GOP state officials to talk ominously about withholding shared state funding from Memphis.

• Citing the prosecution in Georgia of a father who armed his son with an AR-15 used in a fatal school shooting, Democratic state Rep. Antonio Parkinson says he intends to re-introduce his measure to penalize “a person who illegally transfers a firearm to a minor” using it for criminal purposes. Parkinson’s bill was introduced in last summer’s special session on gun safety but was tabled by the majority Republicans.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Lights Out!

These storms are no joke. (Photo: Shara Clark)

While driving through the city in recent weeks, I’ve found myself being re-routed around fallen trees and/or limbs several times. There were at least four big ones restricting access to streets within 10 blocks of my Midtown home. Out east, and up north in the Bartlett area, things were much worse.

It’s becoming the new normal. Over the course of several storm systems this summer, the number of Memphians without power at various times was well over 100,000, often for days.

And if it’s not wind turning off our lights, it’s ice, as heavily coated trees and limbs fall on power lines and leave us in the cold and dark. After February’s ice storm, thousands of people were without power, some for up to 10 days. The winter before, it was the same thing — with the added bonus of making our water undrinkable for several days.

MLGW says its infrastructure is outdated and being upgraded, but there’s no getting around the fact that the magnificent trees that shade us through Memphis’ asphalt-melting summers also shut off our air conditioners (and furnaces). If you add up the number of people in the city who’ve lost power just this year as a result of various weather incidents, it’s well into six figures, certainly well above the 100,000 number I cited above.

This was a tweet from MLGW in response to criticism from city council members during the 2022 ice storm: “It took three years to get our budget with a rate increase to fund our five-year improvement plan approved by City Council. We are in the third year of the five-year plan, which has been hampered considerably by the pandemic.”

So, now they’re in the fourth year of the plan. Forgive me if I remain skeptical — and not because I don’t think they’re trying. MLGW workers have been magnificent, working long hours, doing their best to fix a system not built for the increasing frequency of severe weather. They’re trying to play Whac-A-Mole and the moles are winning — with a big assist from global climate change.

The outcry always arises that we need to put our power lines underground. The utility’s response, and I think it’s legitimate, is that it would take decades and cost several billion dollars. So maybe let’s think outside the Whac-A-Mole box.

Some people are already doing it, of course. This has mostly taken the form of buying a gas generator to provide power when storms strike. I get the appeal, but let me suggest another option that came to me when I drove through the back roads of Arkansas last week. I couldn’t help but notice the surprising number of solar panels on rural houses and businesses, many of them new, some even being installed as I drove by. These folks are likely taking advantage of the Inflation Reduction Act’s solar Investment Tax Credit, which reduces tax liability on solar installation by 30 percent of the cost. In addition, taxpayers will be able to claim a 30 percent bonus credit based on emission measurements, which requires zero or net-negative carbon emissions.

So, instead of getting a generator, maybe consider installing solar panels. The initial cost is higher, but the long-term advantage is significant. In addition to a tax credit, you can even get paid for selling electricity back to the grid. Not to mention, solar panels are quiet and don’t pollute.

And here’s another thought: Maybe the city and/or MLGW could divert some of those theoretical funds for burying power lines into incentives to Memphis home and business owners for going solar.

I’m under no illusion that thousands of Memphians will immediately begin installing solar panels, but some will, especially if the benefits are publicized. It beats snarky tweets between city council and MLGW. And there are similar federal tax incentives for businesses that have solar technology installed, so why not sweeten the pot with local funds? Maybe we could get solar panels on our grocery stores. Or our 10,000 Walgreens.

We have to start somewhere. Continuing to chainsaw ourselves out from under fallen debris and wait to be reattached to the grid after every major weather event is not a plan. It’s time to re-route our approach to keeping the lights on.

Categories
News News Blog

Blackburn: Defund Amtrak, Build Border Wall

Credit: state of Texas

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) wants to defund Amtrak to build “the wall.”

Ahead of votes on President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan, Blackburn said “the American people should not be forced to foot the bill for Joe Biden’s pet project.”

“If Joe Biden truly cared about infrastructure, he would build the wall at our southern border,” Blackburn said in a statement. “Instead, Biden spent hundreds of millions of dollars to not build a wall and allow illegal aliens to flood into our country.”

Blackburn’s one-page amendment to the infrastructure bill would reallocate $1 billion in Amtrak funding “to construct a wall along the international border between the United States and Mexico.’’ 

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee sent 300 Tennessee National Guard troops to the Texas border this summer “quelling the most severe border crisis we’ve seen in 20 years.” The move and his visit to the troops in July were done with little evidence any crisis existed on the border. 

Instead, Lee and other governors sent troops there at the behest of Texas Governor Greg Abbott who claimed, “open-border policies have led to a humanitarian crisis at our southern border as record levels of illegal immigrants, drugs, and contraband pour into Texas.”

Abbott vowed to build the border wall himself, in the absence of support from Biden. So far, more than $915,000 in donations have been raised on a Texas government website to fund the project.

Blackburn and her Senate colleagues — Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), and Mike Lee (R-Utah) — released a joint statement criticizing Biden’s plan, calling it a “bait and switch” and “the first step in … a liberal wish list.” They say the bill does not show how the infrastructure will be funded. 

Here’s the statement:

“We can’t spend money we don’t have. Period. Just look at what is happening with inflation. 

We were promised this infrastructure bill was fully paid for, and now we see that it’s not. This was nothing more than a bait and switch. 

$205 billion of this bill was to be paid for with re-purposed COVID funds. The latest proposal only shows $50 billion in COVID funds being used, as well as a lot of the proposed ‘pay-fors’ missing. 

So, we are asking our colleagues: how is this infrastructure spending bill being paid for? We still don’t know. We still don’t have a score on this legislation from the Congressional Budget Office. 

Let’s not forget, this is just the first step in the Democrats’ plan to pass their $5.5 trillion tax and spend liberal wish list. We support infrastructure, but it has to be paid for. This proposal isn’t it.”

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Inside the Hot Box

Photo: Mike K. | Dreamstime.com

When I was in the fourth grade, my science teacher began a lesson on the biosphere with an example that made a lasting impression on me. She set a glass terrarium on the table at the front of the class. The glass rectangle held tufts of spongy green moss, gravel and sand and soil, and a water bowl disguised as a rock. If I had been a small lizard in the market for a new home, I could have done worse.

“This is the Earth,” she said. “Anything in here, we can use it, but then it’s gone. And anything we add, it’s going to be in here with us for a while.”

I’m paraphrasing, but I think I’m pretty close to the mark; that one lesson stuck with me more than anything else I learned in school. It’s a simple trick for reframing the way you look at the world — every action, whether adding or subtracting, makes some change to our environment. If we’re all just little fence lizards and five-lined skinks in a science teacher’s terrarium, I want to be one of the good guys.

By the time I was in fifth grade, I lived in Phoenix, Arizona, where my mother still lives today. She texted me last week, ecstatic that it was raining. She used three exclamation points, and excess punctuation aside, she had reason to feel relieved. At the time, there were 13 major fires in the area.

Right now the Pacific Northwest is experiencing a “once-in-a-millennium,” “record-crushing” heat wave, to quote a few headlines. Washington State DOT’s Twitter has posted videos of pavement buckling in the heat. The West is a tinderbox, and Independence Day — with all its sparky celebrations — is right around the corner. Our little terrarium is awfully hot these days, on track to get hotter by the year, and its corners are experiencing weather patterns for which they’re woefully unprepared.

To a Memphian, I’m sure it seems silly to watch others panic when faced with the kinds of temperatures we see every summer, but I would remind anyone laughing of two things: First, remember last February, when a freak cold front shut us down for a week? “We don’t have the infrastructure,” you probably explained to your Northern friends and family. “Temperatures don’t fall so far or so fast here, and we certainly don’t get this much ice in a week.” Washingtonians are as equipped to handle this heat wave as we were ready for ice and cold. Climate change is wrecking typical weather patterns, and the different regional infrastructure we have set up to prepare us for the usual weather extremes won’t be enough.

Thing number two is that it can always get hotter. You think you can handle the heat, my fellow Memphians? Oh, you sweet summer child, wait until you’ve seen 110-degree temperatures as the weekly average. Trust me, a former resident of America’s furnace, also known as Phoenix, Arizona, when I say we aren’t ready for that. Flying into Phoenix, an airplane passenger with a window seat can’t help but notice the number of swimming pools and covered carports laid out below. The houses are constructed differently, too, all pale white stucco, crouched close to the ground, and nary a grass lawn in sight. I vividly remember the many public service announcements about avoiding water waste or heat stroke. I don’t think I ever saw a house with an attic or a single window unit; whereas, I now live in the converted attic of a Midtown home and am currently listening to the gentle hum of a small window air-conditioning unit.

Now imagine Phoenix temperatures with Memphis humidity. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Southern heat.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure bill, introduced last Thursday, cut costs by doing away with many of President Biden’s more ambitious environmental goals. The newest version of the bill still allocates funding for public transit, electric buses, and charging stations for electric vehicles, but much has been left out. Gone are the funds earmarked to help create a national standard of clean energy. Of course, this bipartisan version of the infrastructure bill might not pass, but, whether in the infrastructure bill or elsewhere, we must make a priority of combatting and preparing for climate change.

It’s our terrarium, after all. It’s up to us to make sure it’s the kind of place we want to call home.

Categories
News News Blog

Report: Floods Cost Mississippi-River States $6.2B Last Year

CREDIT: Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative

Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative

Mayor Rick Eberlin of Grafton, Illinois pilots a boat full of media during a press tour of flooded areas of his city last year.

Floods cost 11 Mississippi-River states $6.2 billion last year, according to a group of mayors representing cities and towns along the river.

The Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative (MRCTI) released the finding and more in meetings with federal officials this week in Washington, D.C. There, they are, once again, pushing infrastructure proposals to improve resiliency along the Mississippi River from the “acute shocks and chronic stresses” the region has sustained.

Flooding along the river was worst last year in Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas, MRCTI said, with each state incurring flood-related costs of $1 billion-$2 billion.

Last year, Grafton, Illinois lost 80 percent of its economy because of flooding. Vidalia, Louisiana saw 270 consecutive days of flooding, a new national record, MRCTI said.
[pullquote-1] “There is definitely an upward trend we can chart over the last few years,” said Bob Gallagher, mayor of Bettendorf, Iowa.“The spatial scale and duration of the 2019 Central U.S. flooding set many records. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), it’s plausible to expect this trend to be more frequent with damaging riverine and urban floods to continue.”

The flooding trend is expect to continue this year. While the National Weather Service said last week the 2020 spring flood season is expected to be less severe than last year’s, flooding is expected, particularly in the upper and mid-Mississippi Valley.

“This all begs the question of what we’re doing to address these issues and mitigate our seemingly mounting risk,” said Sharon Weston Broome, mayor of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.“Meeting these challenges is part of the reason for the MRCTI visit to Washington, DC.”

Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative

Clarksville, Missouri used temporary flood structures to save their downtown as the Mississippi River moved up Main Street last year.

MRCTI officials met with key officials and pushed proposals that would cost $6.85 billion but would mitigate “mounting climate risk,” create more than 128,000 jobs, and generate more than $20.5 billion in economy activity. The money would be spent on improvements to the built and natural environments to protect cities along the river.

Memphis will soon embark upon such an improvement project at the Mid-South Fairgrounds and in the Belt Line neighborhood. But these improvements are thanks not to feds but to private funds and foundations.

Memphis and New Orleans each won money for projects through the very first Environmental Impact Bond Challenge from capital firm Quantified Ventures, the McKnight Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation.

“Memphis will focus its Environmental Impact Bond on financing a suite of green infrastructure projects concentrated in the Fairgrounds and Beltline neighborhoods to reduce local flooding, improve water quality, provide community green space, and revitalize underutilized areas,” according to a MRCTI news release.

Categories
News News Blog

Leaving TVA Could Free up MLGW Funds for Infrastructure Improvements

CREDIT: MLGW

MLGW

Switching to another power supplier could help Memphis Light, Gas, and Water (MLGW) save money in one area, and invest in another, such as infrastructure, which could reduce power outages in the long run, says Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland.

After heavy storms hit Memphis on May 18th, approximately 27,000 MLGW customers were without power and some didn’t have it restored until Tuesday, May 21st. Strickland said in his weekly newsletter last week that that’s “unacceptable.”

“First, let’s talk about power outages,” Strickland wrote. “We had too many of them for too long after Saturday night’s storm. It’s unacceptable. So, how to fix it?”

The mayor said the city’s electric infrastructure is “old and in dire need of an overhaul.”

However, Strickland said that’s a “high-dollar endeavor,” and paying for infrastructure upgrades would be a challenge.

To that end, the mayor said the city is “serious about the possibility of finding major savings” that could come as a result of a switch from the Tennessee Valley Authority to a new power supplier with lower rates.

Strickland said switching could save MLGW money that would fund new infrastructure.

Infrastructure includes everything from poles, wires, transformers, and the metering system, said MLGW CEO and president J.T. Young.

[pullquote-2]

Young discussed similar infrastructure concerns Thursday during a Facebook Live discussion, but said that improving infrastructure will not reduce all outages.


Young said the infrastructure challenges that we have are to some degree significant, but that when severe weather like the May 18th storm hits Memphis, “we were going to experience outages regardless of the type of infrastructure.”

But, Young said the upgrades that the utility is planning would minimize the number and length of outages.

“I think the perception might be that nothing’s been done over the past several years with our system,” Young said. “When things break, we replace them. That costs money.”

Looking at past budgets and data, Young said MLGW has invested “quite a bit” of both capital and operational funds into maintaining the system.

“I would equate it to maintaining your car,” Young said. “You take it in every so many miles and you get oil changes and those kinds of things, but you really don’t do an overhaul of your engine or transmission or what have you, except for rare situations.”

Young said this is that rare occasion in which much of the utility’s system is in need of an overhaul.

“We’ve got some very, very old equipment,” Young said. “You can maintain equipment, which is what we’ve done and I think our folks have done a great job at keeping the system up and running, but it is certainly time to make some major investment in equipment.”

[pullquote-1]

Some of those investments will be put into automated services, underground cable repairs, and tree trimming, which will result in fewer outages, Young said.


“We just know it’s time to make some rather significant investments from a preventative standpoint, where we will not have to be reacting all of the time,” Young said. “Now it’s time to make some much needed investments so we aren’t always being reactive.”

In the meantime, as summer approaches, customers can expect more storms, Young said.

“No matter what type of infrastructure we have, we’re going to have outages,” Young said. “The resilience of our infrastructure is important, but even with the most resilient infrastructure, you will have occasional outages.”

When outages occur, Young said the utility moves “as quickly as we can” into the restoration process because “we know we don’t just deliver electricity.

“We are delivering hope. When you don’t have power, you really feel like sometimes you don’t have hope, especially the longer it goes.”

Categories
News News Blog

City Council Looks to Implement Transportation Utility Fee

The Memphis City Council is looking to implement a transportation utility fee to fund roadway and transit projects.

Councilman Edmund Ford Jr. said the fee would be used to fund roadway improvement projects, such repairing curb and gutters, as well as support the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA)’s new transit plan.

“I think it’s time for us to look at ways that we can garner enough funds that we don’t rely so much on property taxes,” Ford said. “I know we’re not in the phase of putting the ordinance together, but I think the discussion is important if we’re serious about funding MATA, as well as making sure public works has what it needs.”

The fee would be tacked on to Memphis Light, Gas and Water bills and would be similar to the stormwater fee, Wayne Gaskin, former city of Memphis engineer told the council. The residential and non-residential rates would be based on the amount of trips a property generates and could range from $4.75 to $15. Gaskin said the fee could generate more than $30 million in revenue each year.

This revenue will be used to offset the costs of road projects and create a dedicated source of funding for MATA, Ford said.

Last month, Robert Knecht, director of Public Works, told the council that the city doesn’t have dedicated funding for street improvement projects, such as fixing sidewalks. With more funding, other improvements such as switching to LED traffic signals could take place. To implement all of the roadway improvements currently needed citywide, Knecht said it would cost $60 to $80 million.

To upkeep sidewalks only, it would cost an additional $19 million a year.

The city is currently on an approximate 25-year street paving cycle, Knecht said. This means on average all 8,816 lane miles of street will get re-surfaced at least once every 25 years. Knecht proposes a 20-year cycle, which would cost another $8 million a year. A 10-year cycle hikes the cost up by another $50 million.

Ford plans to draft a resolution for the transportation fee and present it to the council in two weeks.

“I think it’s a true example of finding a way to be creative, while making sure that people are paying their fair share,” Ford said. “About 310,000 cars come through the city of Memphis every single day.”