Posted on 02/02/2013 6:38:48 AM PST by Uncle Chip
Officials in Pennsylvania’s state capital are dealing with an abysmal issue they can’t afford to fix: 41 massive sinkholes throughout the city as wide as 50 feet and as deep as a typical grave.
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But the city is too broke to replace many of the aging pipes and repave its roads as it deals with ongoing budget woes and the looming threat of bankruptcy, according to media reports.
The first of the recent sinkholes perforating Harrisburg was reported on New Year's Eve when a chasm measuring an estimated 50 feet long and eight feet deep, swallowed a neighborhood block, damaging water and gas pipes and forcing more than a dozen residents to evacuate their homes.
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In addition to the rising number of sinkholes, the struggling city has been unable to fix a sewage treatment plant that has been dumping toxic waste into the Susquehanna River, which flows into the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
‘We can't do anything right now because no one will lend to us,’ William Cluck, chairman of the city agency that oversees the water-treatment facility, told the Journal. Harrisburg, which is in default on its debt, is unable to tap into the municipal-debt market, which cities and states use to finance their infrastructure, including bridges, roads and tunnels.
After city officials rejected a state-sponsored financial recovery plan in July 2011, Harrisburg ‘was briefly transformed into the Greece of Pennsylvania,’ the New York Times wrote in an article published at the time.
The city’s financial woes stem in part from a failed plan to borrow $350 million to upgrade an enormous trash incinerator. That plan fell through in 2010 after the federal government blocked the effort due to the threat of toxic air pollution.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Maybe they should have thought about that before they blew all of the taxpayers money on other "significant" projects.
1. Have everyone receiving food stamps, unemployment or other types of welfare show up in person to get their money.
2. Hand out shovels.
3. Problem solved.
Obviously caused by fracking. /sarcasm
This reminds me of the aliens in Independence Day - consume all the resources and then move to another place and start over.
I think they inherited their problems from the Republican administration around 1902, wasn’t that the last time a republican was in charge?
At least it’s a start.
Of course not caused, but fracking will be blamed nevertheless. "The fracking caused the ground to shake which broke the pipes which caused the sinkholes! Big Oil has to pay for the cleanup!" Or any of a dozen other excuses.
“Stephen Reed, Harrisburg’s former mayor who ran the city for 28 years, brought it to near bankruptcy as the more than $500 million in bond deals he oversaw to finance development projects drained the city’s coffers, according to Bloomberg.”
Sounds like what is going on in D.C.
Perfect description of the democrats. They've destroyed their homes, now they're moving down here to destroy mine.
Again, any thing NEGATIVE and we have to hear it from the Brits.
Is Harrisburg built over old coal mines? Or is it to far East?
Is it Detroit that is built over a Salt Mine?
“It would cost nearly half of Harrisburg’s $50 million budget to permanently fix the 41 sinkholes, one city engineer recently estimated.”
Only because they would have to use city workers and union labor and pay off all people involved.
You forgot:
2a) Have on hand an instructor to teach the welfare cases how to use a shovel: which end is the handle, hold the concave side up or the dirt will fall out, step on the ridge at the top when necessary, &etc.
:-)
The “righteous judgement of God upon these barbarous wretches..”- Oliver Cromwell
EPA should give them the Jefferson County treatment. But they won't because PA is a red state and this is the seat of government in PA.
Jefferson County Recap:
In 1993 attorney Bart Slawson filed a lawsuit against the county on behalf of residents near the Cahaba River alleging that the county's sewer system was spilling and overflowing during heavy rains, allowing large amounts of untreated wastewater to enter the Cahaba River
The county settled both lawsuits in the US District Court by signing a consent decree in December 1996. The county agreed to make the improvements necessary to satisfy the EPA that the system complied with the federal Clean Water Act.
Altogether, the cost of complying with the decree was estimated to be $1.2 BILLION. Population: 600,000
They spent over $3.3 BILLION. Residential sewer rates went up 7X.
I say give Harrisburg the full EPA treatment.
Gandy dancing...
Sounds like what is going on in D.C
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
DC ended up with a 400 mill (give or take) surplus.
THE ONLY thing (officially) NOT mentioned is giving it back to the taxpayers.
HIZHONOR, MAYOR FOR LIFE, Marion Berry (The Biatch set me up) took after the Comptroller - who Resigned yesterday.
Berry’s BIGGEST problem is “HOW stupid is the administration to allow that money to be shown as a plus. Back in my day, we had stopgaps to PREVENT extra monies from being found”.
Of course MB was one of those pols that truly thought “THE BUCK STOPS HERE” only he was talking money, not scruples.
I heard that from the ‘fly on the wall’ that was present.
Hell, if it works for Reid, it should work for me.
It made me think of science fiction too.
I remember when the mayor tried to steal money from flood victims by declaring a $2000/day fine on residents who had flood debris piled up on their property.
All other places were doing their best to help everyone get it cleared - but not in Harrisburg
To call them incompetent is an insult to incompetent people
$1.2 MILLION per hole! What do they propose to fill them with?
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