[cross-posted at 2020 Hindsight and in an open thread at FireDogLake]
Over morning coffee, I heard a ho-hum story that fits right with the Minneapolis bridge collapse and problem of aging infrastructure. My boyfriend read to me portions of an article from the Sierra Club newspaper: What are sinkholes and why do they happen?
The answer (it's old sewer pipes!) has the same root cause as collapsing bridges-- Aging infrastructure, dude! Oh, and there's a "how the media covers these events" angle, too.
So join me on this riveting recitation of the otherwise hum-drum. It's far more relevant than you think. And it's mud-slinging! Full of sh*t, too. But only peripherally. Mostly what I recall from the article. I should get a reading comprehension prize.
News coverage of sinkholes generally takes the story of city officials saying, with wide eyes and hands on cheeks, "We have no idea why this happened"
Sinkhole experts say that, no, it’s no mystery– it’s bad sewer pipes. When you get a hole in a sewer pipe, sure, you might get leakage out in to the surrounding soil, but you also might get surrounding soil to enter the sewer pipe, which gets carried away to wherever sewage goes. If that goes on for a while, a hole in the earth develops, and lo! a collapse from above fills it in. Sinkhole.
If there’s a nearby manhole cover (entrance to sewer pipes) near a sinkhole, it’s a smoking gun.
Municipalities don’t like to come out and say "it’s a sewer problem" because, well, they’ve just admitted liability.
Many sewers were constructed 60 years ago; they’ve got 50 year lifespans. Look for more sinkholes as these sewers age and break and carry away earth that falls into sewer pipes.
The news coverage about sinkholes has to change from some sort of X-file mystery to "it’s the sewer, dagnabbit" in order to pinpoint the cause and deal with the problem. Oh, and in cases where they say, "Look, there’s a sinkhole that caused damage to the sewer pipe" — that’s completely backwards.
This makes for an interesting local blog issue. Citizen journalism and all that. Calling bullsh*t on any "OMG, we have NO idea why it happened" news coverage, if the story hasn't explored the issue of aging, broken sewers.
And, in light of the Minneapolis bridge collapse and attention being paid to aging infrastructure, now’s a great time to talk about sinkholes. Because it’s the same problem.
[edited to make headline and intro a bit more, well, exciting]