Sunday, June 12, 2016

Dead Air, Wet Streets

 
Just a quick note that you can feel free to comment on if you like...I just really need to note that I have never lived or heard of a place that has SO MANY water main breaks as Port Angeles has. It's a regular, almost scheduled occurrence.

"What time is it, Ma?"

"Gettin' close to noon, Pa."

"Oh, alright then. 'Bout time for the water main to break, I reckon."

Now, I know that this could be a false impression. Maybe water mains are breaking all around me every day and I just don't know about them. Maybe they're just so noticeable in Port Angeles because the Peninsula Daily News does such a great, great job of covering local issues both big and small.

Broken water mains are just a symptom
of a totally broken system.

Or maybe...Just maybe...There really are a disproportionate number of water main breaks in Port Angeles because the City Council (at staff's direction, of course) directs a disproportionate amount of money away from basic infrastructure projects and into crazy, loco, lunatic, needless and pointless projects.

Maybe? Ya think?

37 comments:

  1. You'd like to think it's just PA, but water main breaks happen everywhere. Syracuse, NY has nearly 400 breaks per year. It's not old pipes necessarily. http://www.waterworld.com/articles/print/volume-16/issue-4/editorial-focus/corrosion-not-age-is-to-blame-for-most-water-main-breaks.html

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    1. Syracuse, NY also has a population that is more than DOUBLE the population of Clallam County as a whole, so your comparison is...inexact.

      But nice try, Glenn! Way to attempt the misdirect!

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    2. Oh, but Syracuse is only about 2.5 times the size of PA, and that sounds like a whole lot more than 2.5 times as many breaks. You do know that they don't fix 'em till they break...?

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    3. Yes, Anon 4:08, and I'm sure there are lots and lots of places that have, say, more hot air balloon accidents. Not that that is relevant to Port Angeles, but gee, let's add it to the discussion, shall we? That way we can further exonerate the city council from their own idiotic decisions.

      Hurrah! Under the watchful eye of Mayor Pat Downie and Deputy Mayor Cherie Kidd, Port Angeles has gone a full year without any hot air balloon accidents! That makes us better than Ottumwa, Iowa! Kind of!

      Thanks for calling a troll a troll, CK.

      In the meantime, wear your rubber booties.

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    4. Dear Anonymous 7:31 AM: Perhaps you'll pay attention to this, since you obviously missed details in my first response.

      One: Syracuse has a population of nearly 150,000 people, which is twice the population of Clallam County as a whole. Which means it's hardly "2.5 times the size of PA."

      Two: The greater Syracuse metropolitan area has a population of 732,000. Or, roughly ten times the population of Clallam County as a whole. Much more there than "2.5 times" I'd say.

      Three: "You do know that they don't fix 'em till they break..." Well, you do know that some place anticipate that there aging, aging, ancient infrastructure is going to need replacement and both plan and budget for such things.

      Port Angeles does neither.

      That creates very, very expensive emergencies. Said emergencies are very disruptive of people's lives, and the City's (nearly maintenance-free) budget. So these breaks end up costing more to fix, causing more disruption when they happen, and generally show the City to be inept and shortsighted.

      Hopefully the leaders of Syracuse are more on the ball, whatever their water main situation may be. But we KNOW the leaders of Port Angeles will choose the crackpot project over the essential infrastructure nine out of ten times.

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    5. Oops! Should be "places." Sorry! Oh, and "their." Hurrying after work...My apologies.

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    6. Excuse me, but, did I accidentally wander into a blog about Syracuse? Enough already...

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    7. The last flight for Syracuse has left. There are no further flights scheduled.

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  2. Priorities.

    And, haven't we all heard from the workers on the various projects around town, employees of the contractors who talk about the way old infrastructure that is supposed to be replaced is just cleaned and repainted to look new?

    The money gets spent, but the work doesn't get done.

    And, here we are. Port Angeles.

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    1. On a related note...Several people have landed on this blog in the last week after searching for "port angeles corruption."

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    2. And, this morning, someone wound up here after searching for..."harold norlund." Harold, are you out looking for a job again?

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  3. Was Catherine Harper walking anywhere near the break before it erupted?

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    1. She's housebound, so I doubt it.

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  4. Anything that happens around here on the public dime is suspect to fraud and graft. Anything that happens around here Underground is ten times more susceptible to graft and corruption. Example: The CSO project is a $50 million project supposed to stop sewage overflows into the strait. Not so. We still have overflows into the strait and are out the 50 million. Another upcoming project ripe for graft and corruption. The Carlsborg Sewer project. Here's a project no one "on the ground" wants but the county commissioners and the stooges at the county public works cannot wait to break ground so the graft train starts running again. When the Port changes out underground fuel tanks they get them out fast and cover up the hole so no one can tell if the 50 year old fuel tank has been leaking into the surrounding soil. Out of sight out of mind--until the ground is dug up again like with the new Olympic Medical Center expansion. There they've found not one but two plumes of fuel spills that never got taken care of when the tanks came out so now the clean up is passed on to the taxpayers. Same with Pen Ply, Rayonier, etc etc. Out of sight out of mind is the mindset here. We need a new city government.

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    1. This place is so corrupt, so poisonous, so evil, so vile, it is almost beyond belief. Port Angeles is the civic equivalent of cancer. On an official level, this city is a sociopath.

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    2. True. But it isn't "out of sight, out of mind", it is the way the public/taxpayer gets to pay for what the cronies SHOULD be responsible for.

      Not testing soils when tanks are pulled or replaced is never put before the public to decide or consider. It is just done.

      Like many things in this town, things like this are selectively enforced. Those in the right positions decide what laws and regulations get enforced, and which are allowed to be overlooked, because making the local business comply will be "bad for business".

      We just wait until the property is acquired by the city for some reason, THEN it gets cleaned up. Otherwise, it all gets overlooked.

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  5. I note that there is still nothing further about the driver of the car in the recent hit and run fatality. You'd think there would be some sort of further info released by now, unless they are trying to protect someone. Hmmm...

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    1. You'd think that. I'd think that they didn't catch the driver in the car, so it's not as simple as you think. It still takes a while to build a case around a confession if they even get one. Hitting a pedestrian is not automatically a crime in WA. Hit & run is. If they don't get a good witness or other evidence that the driver didn't exercise due caution, they may have to settle for felony hit & run.

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    2. Yes, the lack of follow-up to the story is weird.

      @5:56, why would someone with the power to avoid arrest be driving a Geo Metro? It might equally have been a case of a true accident, someone wandering into the street and getting hit. But if not, and a crime did occur, then we are owed a follow-up.

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  6. I know you cant bring yourself to posting dissenting opinion but I send it to you anyway because - well you seem somewhat intelligent and trying to make change. Change is necessary but the "flammability" of your material doesn't help affect change but polarizes. The greater the polarization and the farther you drift from the center diminishes the chance of change.

    So here is my thought for today - there may be more residents of Syracuse NY, but for the environment (corrosive soil) are we comparable. The answer is yes and the rant is rendered moot.

    Bill

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    1. Hey Bill, thanks for writing. One question, though: Which "rant" are you rendering moot? It's unclear...Thanks!

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    2. Your Syracuse rant

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    3. Dear "Bill",

      Smoke the ganja much? Awake very often? Follow what goes on in this town, much?

      You seem to think discovering a process called "corrosion" answers all the compounding, degrading actions taken by the powers-that-be in this town. That, even though we see every day where our leadership outright lies under oath, or fabricates what happened, or engages in outright deception of the public, that somehow we should believe that there is nothing fishy going on with water main breaks.

      You may trust them, despite all the examples we see, year after year, after year. There is no way I trust anything to do with this town.

      But, light up another doobie, and believe what you want to believe.

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    4. The "flammability" of this entire blog seems to be completely necessary. The ones in power have proven time and time and time again that they disregard the opinions of anyone else. THEY are the ones who have polarized, and who continue to engage in CRIMINAL activity, the kind that really pisses us off.
      So the flammable "material" here, as posted by us bystanders, is all too often the sole voice of reason and sanity. The soft underbelly of this City is indeed posionous and, at the end of the day, a form of uncivilized evil. And that, my friend, is an understatement.

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    5. @6/14 8:19am - nothing will make you satisfied. You approve of no candidates. Your misery knows no rest. The world is better when you sleep. Rest peacefully.

      Bill

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    6. Dear Bill,

      You know nothing about me, or what I do. You reveal to the world your sad willingness to judge and condemn that which you know absolutely nothing about.

      To what extent does your way of passing judgement on things you know nothing about, represent the reasons why Port Angeles cannot move forward?

      Today, we see the city has erect a fence to prevent homeless people from sitting on a cement pad at Lincoln and Front street. This, according to the civic leadership interviewed, was done because "it looked bad" for people driving by. As if this is why Port Angeles does not prosper.

      Like you, the City takes one issue, and thinks it has the answer. You read about corrosion as a cause for breaking water mains, and assume that is the reason for breaks in Port Angeles. Never mind all the stories over the years about how the city hasn't been spending money on needed repairs and upgrades.

      Perhaps you were in attendance at the City Council meeting 12 years ago, when city staff informed the council about regulations concerning the discharge of polluted water into the Strait? Since you have the answers, I'll wait for you to tell us all what the city council's response was.

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    7. Anon 9:11 - I know about you. You approve of no one and nothing.

      Erecting barriers to prohibit vagrants is common and often used. Have they moved elsewhere - yes. Was that the intended outcome - yes. But don't call it successful because your reality would be shaken to its foundation.

      Cities prioritize projects. I am sure you know each project over the past thirty years and understand the prioritizatiin, litigation, funding and restrictions so I will await your response.

      Bill

      Ps - beware of fluoride, chemtrails and Sasquatch. Wear your foil hat with pride.

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    8. LOL, the real people whom you call "vagrants" simply moved a couple blocks into the downtown core today. Hardly "successful" by any measure, unless they were able to take in more than average due to the impressive crowds. One cannot in good conscience argue this was "intended."

      BTW I'm not Anon9:11, there are many of us. You will be assimilated and given a tin hat. Resistance is futile.

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  7. "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?"
    "Gone to Port Angeles, ha ha ha!"

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  8. This habitual problem with broken water mains in Port Angeles might be something that the $7.5 million "settlement" check written to the city a few years ago could start to fix.
    Remember that wad of $15 million cash that the state paid half to the city and half to the Port? Has the Port blown through it's share? I fear I can guess the answer as to the city's share....

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    1. Oh, yeah. The "Graving Yard Settlement" money paid out of state taxpayers' pockets.
      Follow that money to tally the public benefits it spawned.

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  9. Well, I think that infrastructure is crumbling all over this great country of ours, primarily due to the fact that short sighted crooked dumbasses are pretty much running this great country of ours. If infrastructure in Port Angeles is crumbling at greater than average rates than the rest of our great country, it may be due to the fact that we have a greater than average ratio of crooked dumbasses running things.

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    1. LOL, at least here they ain't smart criminals, them are the worst kind. Here it's just hide'n'seek, but the cash flows are produceable if you ask the right questions.

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  10. The people in PA who have the power with the money are hidden for the most part. They are the elders with old money coffers that they distribute to the interests that they deem fit. Some don't even live here. We had a visionary a few years back in Paul Cronauer who passed a few years ago. He was fought tooth and nail from the establishment government here and tried to make the waterfront mall a better place. Most of what we see now is from his work albeit unfinished because of his demise. His widow tried to "oversell" the property and has since moved on. read into that what you will. A younger woman married an older man, etc...The puppets around here only do what they are told and paid for. The public is wildly uneducated about who is really sincere either as an official or a representative of the City and County. Ax Man will surely win because of his "rural" stance of the old world tradition of logging around here and fake knowledge of how things should run. I am sure a disclosure of his financial contributions would most likely expose some of these hidden old money people.

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    1. Agreed, and from the multiple infrastructure threads that had to be posted, it's painfully obvious that these hidden old-money people don't give one rat's ass about the quality of this town. When you really think about it, you have to maturely admit that, with their constant skimming of public funds, they are a detriment to our community, much more so than any benefit. Diverting public funds for private purposes is not just corrupt, it's criminal. So we all need to lift our heads and see them and their minions as precisely this. They are not your friends.

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    2. That Thom Bimm was fighting for a better town and tried tor un for City Council once, years ago. He left with his chickita, can't blame him.

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