Reactionary maintenance
Our national infrastructure has some serious problems, and it’s primarily because of neglect. Anti-tax initiatives, which were supported by some on the theory that less taxes would mean less waste, have done some serious damage to the functioning of government. The waste, fraud, and abuse continues, but now there’s little left over for the actual necessary functioning of government. Case in point: the fire hydrant system in Washington, DC.
A stepped-up inspection of D.C. fire hydrants is finding that nearly 10 percent don’t work, fire union officials said yesterday.
Firefighters doing the testing said they think that more than 900 hydrants across the city are not in working order, posing a significant public safety risk. [ Nearly 10 Percent Of Hydrants Don't Work, Union Says (Washington Post) ]
The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority, the maintaining authority, says they only know of thirty eight. Here’s how it works:
“I can only talk about the ones we know to be out of service,” said WASA General Manager Jerry N. Johnson. “When it’s reported to us, we go out and check them.” [ Ibid. ]
In other words, the people responsible for maintenance aren’t doing testing and preventive maintenance. They wait for the hydrants to fail, then they wait for someone to tell them the hydrant has failed, and then they go out and fix the hydrant.
“But Thud,” you say, “that’s a city function. What does it have to do with the Federal Government?” Besides the fact that the US Congress approves the budget, laws, and regulations for Washington DC, you mean. Perhaps not much. But according to Rick Perlstein, it does track pretty closely with how the FDA handles its food inspections:
The Associated Press studied the records and found that between 2003 and 2006 the Food and Drug Administration conducted 47 percent fewer safety inspections. FDA field offices have 12 percent fewer employees. Safety tests for food produced in the United States have gone down by three quarters—have almost ground to a halt—in the previous year alone.
What does that mean, in practical terms? Consider the peanut butter.
Factories producing the foods most susceptible to contamination, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, are supposed to be inspected every year. (That’s cold comfort to those who ate this year’s bad batches of spinach, lettuce, cantaloupes and tomatoes.) Since the last known outbreak of salmonella in peanut butter was in Australia in the 1990s, that puts it in the “low-risk” category; peanut butter factories are inspected only every two to three years.
People started getting sick in February. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control traced the illnesses back to a single plant in Sylvester, Ga. The next day, the FDA arrived for a post hoc inspection (by then 425 people in 44 states had been sickened). Then they covered their own back: “What you saw with the spinach and certainly what you saw with the spinach and certainly what you saw with the peanut butter, is when we see those signals, we’re going to act to protect the public health,” a spokesman promised.
He was saying: The system worked. In a sense, he was right. This was the system working as it is presently designed. Barn door: closed. Cow: already long gone. That, basically, is as good as it gets in the modern FDA. [ E. Coli Conservatives ]
When a problem is reported, they go verify the problem exists. And if they decide it’s serious enough, then they will take action. Does that sound like an agency determined to prevent disaster? Or an agency determined to hush them up?
