"Kansas City Faces $3.6 Billion Sewer, Stormwater Upgrade"
I know this is old news.
But I was going through some old photos lately of a trip my first wife and I took to Great Britain back in 1989.
One of the places we visited was the city of Bath.
The Romans established baths here (hence the name);
"During the Roman occupation of Britain, and possibly on the instructions of Emperor Claudius,[8] engineers drove oak piles into the mud to provide a stable foundation and surrounded the spring with an irregular stone chamber lined with lead."
Our plumbing infrastructure is what? ...70, 80 years old? And it's already crumbling. But toga wearing, Zeus worshipping, sandle wearing, mostly homosexual (not that there's anything wrong with that), militaristic, Roman conquerors built a plumbing system in a conquered nation two thousand years ago just to give themselves warm mineral baths between battles and their shit is STILL WORKING!
What did we used to know that we unlearned?
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We've all seen Notre Dame de Paris - the iconic cathedral that's stood for centuries. Quasimodo did his thing there.
In the city where I lived - a bit north of Paris - we had a cathedral that could fit the entirety of Notre Dame de Paris INSIDE its walls.
I used to go to sit in the nave of this grand edifice to admire the sculpture and architectural genius that was in every detail.
People had sat exactly where I sat, looking at the same walls and at the same pillars for 250 years before Christopher Columbus was even conceived.
In America we build things out of wood and, if they last for a hundred years or so, we label them as monuments.
There was a time when forever was the only option. (I've used that line before - just in case someone calls bullshit on me).
not to rain on your northward march upon the appian way to your memories of france and england, but...
all of the stormwater in kc is discharged through outfalls and combined sewer overflows (CSOs) into our creeks and little streams. this discharge contains high levels of bacterial and nutrients, heavy metal and organic chemical contamination, and this remains the single biggest cause of the system’s degradation. further, many industries in the region discharge chemical contaminants where they shouldn't; agricultural non-point sources of sediments, nutrients and pesticides are have all been identified in the upper watersheds...then there are the surface roads that carry millions of tons of pressure atop most of the mains, adding to their unnatural aging. and let us not forget the roman’s use of forced slave labor to build most everything: as Shrub would note, “The prospect of Death concentrates…hey! Watch me hit this drive!”, thus improving the original quality of construction.
kansas city, on the other hand, ran pipes made out of clay (heard of the dickey clay company?) to transport waste from our sinks and toilets to the sewage treatment plant.
clay.
even presupposing that the pipes had been treated with a vitreous enamel, the largest danger to the pipe still comes from mechanical failure (say, oh, repeated pounding from 5-ton trucks passing directly overhead) or from cracking due to thermal shock. hmmmm, kansas city and cold/hot weather snaps. often in the same day….
there are many things to admire about the romans: water laid on to houses and public places via lead lined pipes from their aqueducts, nominal taxes, orgies, extravagance, decadence and burning fiddles, to name just a few. however if they had had to contend with modern ills, i’m willing to bet more of their artifacts would resemble the ruins of the coliseum than not.
where's your bull whip Indy?
stink - I know what you mean. When I moved from Missouri to NJ I was really impressed by all the "old stuff" back east. Independence Hall in Philly. Buildings predating the Revolution.
Then I went to Great Britain. Shit was thousands of years old.
There is a section of Edinburgh in Scotland that dated back to the early 1700's that also predated our Revolution.
To this day, they still refer to it as the "new" part of town.
doc - I'm just going to ignore you because refuting any portion of your comment would require tedious research on my part and there is a KC Strip downstairs with my name on it. Literally. I actually brand my steaks with my name before I grill them.
mm - my whip is in my pants!
My Dad lives in Bath, and I've taken the same damn picture there. Everything stinks like mold over there too.
So who's the hot lookin' dude in leather? ;)
fiery - sadly, he no longer exists. He has been replaced by me. :(
Don't know why you're :(, you're yummier than he is!
fiery - your optometrist just called. You're prescription expired in 1989. LOL! But thank you. You are too kind.
Plus, as I recall (and as my divorce papers detail) "that guy" was a bit of a whiney dick.
I'm feeling much better now!
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