That is a question people have been asking for the last 20 years -- every time they release sewage into the Lake. THere has never been a satisfactory answer. One excuse is that some of the older communities have their storm sewers and their sanitary sewers merged. It will cost a fortune to retrofit a correction. The decision was made 20 years ago that it was too expensive, and thus we have this problem with every big rain.
This storm came on the heels of another big one 2 weeks ago. People had just finished cleaning up when they were hit again. 8 homes in one neighborhood saw their basements collapse. Three have already been razed, and 5 have been evacuated.
So what are the citizens going to do now? It’s a shame that municipalities can’t engage in deficit spending themselves, as much as I hate it. This would be a perfect time to retrofit the whole system - it would be a buyer’s market in terms of cost, and actually get some money out there in construction jobs. Plus having a system that WORKS, in a city that is obviously preparing for a successful future, makes it immediately more appealing to businesses looking to move or expand. Too bad our Federal economy is in such a horrible deficit situation! What’s the state’s budget like?
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if we’d taken just 10% of the money we’ve poured into Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 8 years and dumped it directly into infrastructure upgrade and maintenance. Would we have been the victims of terror attacks that would have done as much damage to America as our crumbling roads, bridges, water systems, and electrical grids have caused? Certainly the collapse of the Minneapolis I-35 Bridge alone would have been a greater catastrophe than any of these penny-ante losers who call themselves Islamic “terrorists” could have achieved.
But then I’m a real Conservative in that I believe in *conserving* the valuable things given to us from our forefathers, including all these buildings and structures built with ingenuity from the sweat of their brows. To let them disintegrate because you are too interested in present-day consumption is like letting your roof cave in because you had to buy a flat-panel TV instead of getting the leak patched.