Underground Construction - February 2022 - 6

EDITOR'S LOG
A Little Faith
As is typical of me these days, there never
seems to be enough hours in the day.
Always one more thing to do, one more
mountain to climb. So, it should come as
no surprise that I'm actually writing this
column in Fort Worth as our staff gears
up for the Underground Construction
Technology International Conference &
Exhibition (UCT).
The show officially starts on Tuesday,
Jan. 25, though there is a plethora of
meetings and pre-show events in progress
already. UCT is ramping up for what should
be an outstanding event.
I say " outstanding " because since Jan. 1,
registration has spiked at amazing levels.
The Most Valuable Professional Award,
presented
jointly
by
the
Underground
Construction Technology Association and
Underground Construction magazine, has officially
sold-out (record attendance). We're
approaching similar numbers (dare I say
" pre-Covid 19 " numbers) for the Horizontal
Directional Drilling Reunion/Annual HDD
Hall of Fame which honors industry legends
Frank Canon and John Hair.
And impressively, the renowned UCT
Educational Program is outpacing past attendance
levels. That's very encouraging,
considering two years of pandemic depression
and well-documented challenges with
labor shortages, lingering supply chain issues
and soaring inflation.
6 FEBRUARY 2022 | UCONonline.com
But through it all, the heart and soul of
the underground infrastructure industry are
contractors, owners (sewer, water, telecom,
electric, energy) and consulting engineers
who represent the building blocks for our
country's future. These people know that
work has been piling up for years and now,
largely due to free-flowing federal dollars in
quantities heretofore never seen, many of
those projects are kicking off in force. They
have tremendous faith in underground
markets and to see so many committing to
high-level information, education, learning
from peers, studiously examining new technology
and benefiting from case histories
and lessons learned, is extremely gratifying
- and what UCT is all about.
Unfortunately, for many manufacturers,
they are not as engaged with their customers.
We've had several regulars at UCT get
the bad news from their superiors that
trade shows, with Omicron still around, are
just too risky; that it's been a rough couple
of years so they're going to hold back for a
while longer.
Others are concerned that supply chain
issues may keep them from having ample
product for markets. Whatever the reason,
these manufacturers are conspicuous in
their absence. But having faith in the markets
is something our contractors and owners
have always had and always will. UCT
2022 is proving to be a great example of that.
In the same vein of faith in the future, this
issue includes Underground Construction's
Annual Municipal Survey & Forecast, our
exclusive research and evaluation of the
municipal markets. Respondents to the
Muni Survey displayed unusual and strong
confidence in their markets.
I say unusual because the level of hope
and confidence in the market is unprecedented
in the 25 years that we've been doing
this survey. And the best news is that
the federal funding bonanza should continue
for five years.
But perhaps the best news for underground
infrastructure markets is that
COVID-19's highly contagious Omicron variant,
which has been burning through people
around the world, is now retreating at similar
levels. At press time, Omicron had officially
peaked in South Africa and the United
Kingdom, as well as other international locations.
In the U.S., the first city to be overrun
by Omicron, New York City, has also peaked
and is seeing cases rapidly dropping. The
same thing is beginning to happen in many
parts of the country, with expectations for
February to be the peak for all of the U.S.
As contractors go to work spending their
new-found funding dollars on critically important
infrastructure, concerns over infectious
disease will be fading for the first time
in quite a while. All experts are pointing to
expectations that finally COVID-19 will become
endemic - still around, but only showing
up in bits and fits and can effectively and
expeditiously be dealt with.
COVID is apparently going the way of the
Spanish Flu, chickenpox, measles, malaria
and tuberculosis; always a threat but now
we've learned how to treat these diseases,
even if a rare outbreak occurs. We can effectively
hold these illnesses at bay each year
with vaccination programs and oral medication
ready to tackle symptoms.
The exception to the peaking of Omicron/
COVID-19 is that in some Asian countries,
such as China, Singapore and Taiwan,
Draconian prevention measures to stop
the spread of Omicron have been imposed.
Because it is so infectious, even at its relatively
mild symptoms level, Omicron's inevitable
spread through these areas will be
slowed - but not stopped. These regions will
get hit by Omicron and they will just be behind
the rest of the world in finally escaping
the worst of the virus.
Bottom line, we are now seeing the end of
COVID-19 and the beginning of an amazing
explosion in work. We have faith in a bright
future for the construction, rehabilitation,
hardening and replacement projects for the
underground infrastructure. *
Robert Carpenter | Editor-in-Chief
http://www.UCONonline.com
Underground Construction - February 2022

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