BATON ROUGE, LA (KSLA) -
A report card by a team of civil engineers was released Wednesday, giving Louisiana's infrastructure poor grades.
The study, named the Report Card for Louisiana's Infrastructure, graded nine critical areas in Louisiana including solid waste, dams, aviation, bridges, drinking water, levees, roads, wastewater and ports. American Society of Civil Engineers Executive Director Dr. Kam Movassaghi says of the nine areas, only dams and solid waste received above average grades, a B- and C+, respectively. The other areas and grades were: aviation, C; bridges, D+; drinking water, D+; levees, C-; roads, D; wastewater, C-; and ports, C-.
Movassaghi says it is critical to repair and even replace the out-dated infrastructures. "Our infrastructure represents the building blocks of our society. We depend on these building blocks to keep us safe, mobile, healthy and economically competitive. It's very important. Our infrastructure is the key to our economic competitiveness," says Movassaghi.
The of engineers gave 42 specific recommendations including increasing funding to make changes and improvements to all areas of Louisiana's infrastructure. "We're not saving money when we cut infrastructure investments, we're just ensuring that today's problems become tomorrow's crises," Dr. Movassaghi said. "In the long run, it is cheaper to make repairs and upgrades when they're needed. Otherwise, a small and relatively inexpensive repair to a road, bridge, levee or drinking water system could become a catastrophic failure requiring massive future investments."
Movassaghi says Louisiana is the 25th state to produce an ASCE report card. Plans are to update the report card on a five-year cycle to keep the public informed and to report changes in the state's infrastructure over time. To view the report card, go to www.lasce.org.
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