For media inquiries, contact David Miller at (202) 942-2246
davidmiller@liuna.org
6/18/2008 Charleston Daily Mail The amount of money spent to replace aging water mains is insufficient for West Virginia American Water to maintain a sustainable water system, according to a just-released study.
Infrastructure-repair measure passes Senate but stalls in House
6/17/2008 Peoria Star A bipartisan group of legislators called on the General Assembly on Tuesday to pass a capital plan to repair the state's aging infrastructure while attacking the House speaker and admitting a lack of trust in the governor, who supports the plan.
6/17/2008 FoxNews.com The Washington area may be home to the nation's power brokers, but it isn't immune to the infrastructure woes that plague big cities throughout the nation. The latest breakdown, a massive water main rupture in the wealthy suburb of Montgomery County, Md., has closed hundreds of restaurants and left tens of thousands of people scrambling for clean drinking water. The rupture follows a series of recent disruptions for Washington area residents, including a blackout in downtown Washington, a Metro subway train derailment and track damage caused by the heat.
06/18/2008 Capital Times The heavy rains, strong thunderstorms and fierce tornadoes that have attacked the Midwest in recent weeks are a sign of the future, and communities will have to adapt to more frequent occurrences of extreme weather, experts say. It could be an expensive process. Ken Potter, a UW-Madison engineering professor who helped review the New Orleans hurricane protection system after Hurricane Katrina, said Wisconsin engineers will have to consider how to redesign structures to prevent flooding and events such as the draining of Lake Delton after extremely heavy rains.
06/18/2008 Greenwich Post Transportation is the key to remaining a leader in the global economy, according to a panel of experts who took part in a special conference organized by U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT) earlier this week. The panelists agreed America’s aging infrastructure is in desperate need of repair and must be expanded and enhanced if the nation is to accommodate its growing transportation needs. Rep. Shays said that on a more local level — as part of the “golden triangle” transportation corridor between Boston and New York City — Connecticut’s roads, bridges, rails and ports are often bursting at the seams with the nonstop commercial and commuter traffic that travels them.
6/17/2008 USA Today CANTON, Mo. - Floodwaters breached another levee in Illinois on Wednesday and threatened more Mississippi River towns in Missouri after inundating much of Iowa for the past week.
06/15/2008 LaCrosseTribune.com While hundreds of small dams in Wisconsin — many of them straining and failing against the tide of floodwaters last week — need repair, a state fund for dam maintenance has sat empty for years.Even after massive flooding last August, which damaged many of the dams now stressed by rising rivers, pleas for money from local authorities and the state Department of Natural Resources went unheeded.
6/15/2008 St. Louis Post-Dispatch WASHINGTON — At a gathering of futuristic thinkers last week, St. Louisans echoed the consensus that the government should invest more in the nation's metropolitan areas and a presidential election year is the ideal time to spread the word.
06/16/2008 DesMoines Register The Floods of 2008 have hurt Iowa so badly, it's likely to change the way we do a few things. And it should. For one thing, the flood proves Iowa has neglected its aging infrastructure for too long. Our systems of roads, bridges, sewers, water plants, pumping stations and, yes, levees, just weren't enough for the threat they faced. We're now paying a terrible price for that neglect. We should have borrowed money to fix things earlier.
6/5/2008 Hawaiian Reporter WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Representative Neil Abercrombie said Hawaii schools would be eligible for $20,546,800 in funds over the next five years for building modernization, renovation and repair under the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public Schools Facilities Act approved by the House this week. The Green Schools Act authorizes the five-year program to help school districts across the country make their buildings more energy efficient and reliant on renewable sources of energy.
