United States

1. Roads
2. Dams
3. Wastewater
4. Drinking Water
5. Navigable Waterways

• The FAA projects passenger growth at 4.3% a year through 2015, a 52% increase over 2005 demand.
• The number of aircraft handled by air traffic control is expected to increase from 45.1 million in 2004 to 58.4 million in 2015.
• Between $9-15 billion is needed annually to enable airports to meet the expected demand.

• 27% of America's bridges--more than one in four--are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
• A slab of concrete falling from the deteriorated Steinway Street bridge in Astoria, NY, in July 2004 critically injured a motorist on the parkway below. In Chicago, concrete 'rained down' from the 33rd Street Bridge, blowing out the tires on at least four vehicles passing below. Just two weeks earlier, concrete from another bridge crashed into the windshield of a car on Chicago's Interstate 57, injuring its occupants.
• "Ever tried to take a 12-ton fire engine over a three ton bridge?" - A civil engineer from Modoc, CA
• There are 590,750 bridges in the United States.
• 31.2% of the nation's urban bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
• FHWA estimates that it will take $9.4 billion a year for 20 years to eliminate all bridge deficiencies.

• Since 1998 the number of unsafe dams has risen by more than 33% to 3,500.
• There were 29 dam failures in the past two years in the United States.
• The Big Bay Lake Dam in Mississippi failed in March 2004, destroying 100 homes. The Silver Lake Dam in Michigan failed in 2003, causing $100 million in property damage and economic losses of $1 million per day.
• Since 1998 the number of high-hazard potential dams has increased from 9,281 to 10,213. High-hazard potential dams are those dams whose failure would cause loss of human life or significant loss of property.
• $10.1 billion is needed over the next 12 years to address all critical non-federal dams.

• In 2002, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that the country must invest $161 billion over the next 20 years to upgrade America's drinking water treatment plants.
• Federal aid has not kept pace with the demand, with the proposed funding level of $850 million in FY 2006 equaling less than 10 percent of the annual need.
• Annual federal appropriations for drinking water need to be at least $1 billion.
• Each day, six billion gallons of clean, treated drinking water disappears, mostly due to old, leaky pipes and mains. That's enough water to serve the population of a state the size of California.
• Surgeons in Franklin, NH, had to use bottled water to scrub for surgery after contaminants in the water triggered a boil water alert.
• A break in a 40-year-old water main left the community of Northbrook, Illinois, without water for 15 hours.

• The industry needs to invest $10 billion a year over the next five years to ensure the reliability of the national power grid.
• Annual spending on infrastructure improvements to the national grid has totaled about $5 billion in recent years.
• The construction of new transmission lines is falling behind the demand.
• During the August 2003 Northeast blackout, more than one million homes and businesses were without power for as long as 48 hours.

• As many as 350,000 chemically contaminated waste sites may need to be cleaned up over the next 30 years, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
• The national bill for this cleanup could reach $250 billion.
• Federal spending on the cleanup of Superfund sites has declined steadily in recent years, with the FY 2005 total reaching $1.257 billion, the lowest level in nearly a decade.

• Traffic on the nation's 12,000 miles of inland waterways is increasing, but the facilities are aging. Nearly 50% of the system's 257 locks are more than 60 years old, with some built in the early 19th century.
• Money to maintain the waterways comes from the Inland Waterway Trust Fund.
• The surplus in the Trust Fund has been increasing as the repair backlog of more than $600 million has been growing. Congress has not appropriated the full amount of money available for waterway repairs.
• Emergency repair of a navigation lock on the Ohio River at Louisville, Kentucky, halted transport of more than two million tons of cargo for a period of two weeks
• The 90-year-old St. Mary Canal system in Montana supplies irrigation to 110,000 acres of farmland and drinking water to 14,000 households. With crumbling concrete and buckled metal, the system needs $100 million in repairs.
• Tow boat captain Steve Lumpkins says the metal jutting from the 100-year-old locks on the Monongahela River could rip the whole side of a barge open. You can poke a finger through the concrete flume that empties water from the lock. Before the crumbling lock can be removed, a nearby 70-year-old lock will need to be replaced with larger, modern locks. The small, outmoded locks add $10 million a year to shipping costs.

• The U.S. National Park System entertained more than 266 million recreational visits in 2003 and maintains thousands of structures and roads to support its operations.
• More than 90% of Corps of Engineers-maintained lake projects were constructed before 1980, and 40% of those same projects were constructed prior to 1960.
• Investment in recreational boating infrastructure has not kept up with demand, as annual boat registrations have more than doubled in the past three decades.
• Coastal areas generate almost 31% of the U.S. gross national product and receive about 85% of the country's tourist-related revenues, largely because of the popularity of beaches.
• Dozens of California beaches, stretching from Imperial Beach to Malibu, were closed in January when heavy rains caused overflows of millions of gallons of raw sewage into the watershed.

• Class I railroads currently invest about $2 billion annually for improvements above and beyond repair and maintenance. At this level of investment, rail will lose freight market share over the next 20 years, as the industry will not be able to keep up with growing demand.
• Shifting all freight currently carried by rail to trucks would cost shippers an additional $69 billion annually. This will result in higher prices for U.S. consumers and increased truck traffic on the nation's highways, requiring an additional $54 billion in highway funds over the next 20 years to maintain the roads.
• To maintain current share of freight carried, and accommodate the anticipated increase in total freight carried, railroads would require $175 billion to $195 billion in investments over the next 20 years.
• Three railroad bridges used by Amtrak in the Northeast Corridor will be closed within two years if not repaired, shutting down passenger travel on the busy New York to Boston route.

• 34% of America's major roads are in poor or mediocre condition.
• 36% of America's major urban roads are congested.
• Road conditions are a factor in an estimated 30% of traffic fatalities. There were 42,643 traffic fatalities in 2003 in the U.S.
• Driving on roads in need of repair costs U.S. motorists $54 billion a year in extra vehicle repairs and operating costs--$275 per motorist.
• Traffic congestion costs American motorists $63.2 billion a year in wasted time and fuel costs.
• Americans spend 3.5 billion hours a year stuck in traffic.
• Motor vehicle crashes cost U.S. citizens $230 billion per year, or $819 for each resident, for medical costs, lost productivity, travel delay, workplace costs, insurance costs and legal costs.
• There is a balance of $16 billion in the Highway Trust Fund. These funds are derived solely from user fees.
• New Mexico built a new 4-lane highway from Albuquerque to the Colorado state line, but Colorado does not have the money to build the last 14 miles to Durango.
• A resident of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, says people drive in the left lane on the highway because the passenger lanes are so deteriorated.

• There has been no authoritative assessment of the condition of America's school facilities since 1999.
• School construction, renovation and maintenance funding totaled $28.6 billion in 2003, up from $24.3 billion in 2002.
• Public school enrollment increased by 394,000 from school year 2002-03 to school year 2003-04 to a total of 48,174,924 students.
• In 1999, the US Department of Education stated that $127 billion was needed to bring the nation's schools into overall good condition.
• "Every student deserves a chair," said Mt. Diablo High School student Andy Luo. Students at his severely overcrowded high school in Contra Costa County can barely move in the hallways and have to sit on the floor for history class and lunch.
• Orange County, Florida, has 4,280 portable classrooms, half of all its classroom space.
• Mount Vernon High School's newest portable classrooms, located in the former student parking lot, were dubbed 'Pebble Beach.' When they have to go to the bathroom, students use (what else?) the row of portable toilets a short walk away. The county's oldest 'temporary' trailers were installed in the 1960s.

• The United States generates approximately 369 million pounds of solid waste annually. Only 26% was recycled in 2002. Two-thirds -- 242 million tons -- were landfilled.
• Nationally, the states have an estimated 20 years' disposal capacity remaining, but several states report less than 10 years' capacity at present.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should restart the Project XL program to continue research into new ways of managing solid waste, including the use of bioreactors.
• More than 60% of the trash filling Ohio's landfills is paper, cardboard and plastic that could be recycled.

• An estimated 14 million Americans ride public transportation each weekday, with an additional 25 million using it less frequently, but on a regular basis.
• Ridership increased by 21.3% between 1993 and 2002.
• There are 614 local public transit operators serving urban areas, 1,215 operators serving rural areas and 3,673 operators providing specialized service.
• Public transit systems operate 106,395 vehicles, control 10,572 miles of track and serve 2,825 transit stations.
• Total capital spending from all funding sources was $12.3 billion in 2002; the FTA estimates that $20.6 billion is needed annually to improve the nation's transit systems to "good."

• The physical condition of many of the nation's 16,000 sewage treatment plants is poor despite a massive federal effort that has seen the investment of more than $72 billion in Clean Water Act funds over the last 33 years.
• Combined sewer overflows and sanitary sewer overflows release 850 billion of gallons of raw sewage annually into rivers, streams, lakes and oceans. In 2002, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated we must spend $390 billion by 2020 to remedy the problem.
• A sewer line break in Pima County, Arizona, in 2002 forced the evacuation of 90 families from their homes and closed parts of a busy street for six weeks.
• Less than a generation from now, the U.S. could wind up with dirtier water than existed before the Clean Water Act in 1972. Already, only 1% of Delaware's rivers and streams are fully safe for swimming.
• Congress must enact legislation establishing a special trust fund with a dedicated source of revenue for sewage plant construction.