Underground Construction - February 2018 - 13

Personnel Performance Rating (per municipalities)
3.81
3.61

3.58

3.90
3.73

3.61

3.47

3.36

3.47

Contractors

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2017

2016

2015

3.14

2014

was excited about the possibility of an infrastructure spending
bill - it's desperately needed. But
now it seems like just another
pipe dream - pun intended."
"Our local economy held up
pretty well in 2017," stressed this
Southeast respondent. "But our
sewer budget for 2018 remains
flat. We can never seem to make
the sewer system a priority. Our
city is going to get a rude awakening in the future. "
A California municipal official complained that "The state
apparently can come up with
billions to invest in a new water
transportation pipeline scheme,
but we can't find any money to
fix all the leaks in our city pipes."
While many cities seem content to wait on federal infrastructure dollars, several cities
indicated state and local officials
are beginning to realize they
can't count on federal handouts
anymore. This Southwest city
official explained, "An infrastructure investment would be
great, but we can't afford to wait
on something that may never
happen. We're starting some big
projects in 2018 and finding other funding sources."
Said another Midwest city
respondent, "As painful as it is,
we're raising rates again in 2018
- there's just too many critical
needs for us to delay
any further."
Overall, new sewer spending
in 2018 is expected to remain
relatively flat. However, those
spending plans vary greatly on
a state-by-state basis. On the
positive side, sewer rehabilitation spending should see small
growth again on a national scale.
Overall, new construction and
rehabilitation piping infrastructure spending is expected to in-

Consulting Engineers

After the disappointment many experienced with their 2017
budgets and lack of movement to enhance federal and state
funding support, city officials were understandably cautious with
their spending projections for 2018.
crease by 1.5 percent over 2017
actual levels.
This city employee from the
Mountain States stated a concern that was repeated by several
other respondents. "We got another decent budget for 2018,"
he said. "We just have to figure
out how to actually spend the
money instead of being forced to
let it go back." Similarly, another
respondent from the Southwest
observed, "We play this game
every year - we get a healthy
budget, plan our CIP (capital investment projects) only to have
our budgets frozen and money
redirected."
Regulations
As expected, government and
Environmental Protection Agen-

cy (EPA) regulations were cited
frequently by city officials as
areas of high concern. But surprisingly, finding and retaining
qualified employees was listed as
an even higher problem area.
Municipalities are running
into the same lack-of-qualified-labor issues that contractors
and engineers are having across
the country. "We're having a real
problem with finding capable replacements for our retiring personnel," pointed out this respondent from the upper Midwest.
Echoed another city official, from
the Northwest, "Finding qualified and experienced people is
almost impossible right now."
For the potable water market,
2018 may see more concrete
action spurred on from the EPA

regarding the lead pipe panic
coming from the Flint, MI, disaster. While the Flint crisis was artificially created (expect further
punitive action again various authorities in 2018), it has drawn
intense scrutiny across the country to the possibility of leaching
lead pipes. In reality, the amount
of active lead pipes is small and
most of those pipes are in safe
operating conditions. Nonetheless, the current train of thought
is that any lead pipe must be replaced immediately.
The EPA is considering new
lead pipe regulations in 2018
that will require service line replacement. In addition, Congressional action remains a possibility. "We're probably going to
have to inspect and replace any
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Underground Construction - February 2018

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