Third World

As promised


To the Editorial Board of the Oregonian:
Infrastructure, Oregon's Rural areas pushed back to third world status.
While I write this opinion with much mixed feelings, it is time that someone identify the reality that faces our rural communities while identifying important decision points that need to be discussed. This is also an attempt to remove unnecessary bureaucratic regulatory Choke Points before it's too late.
While I awoke this morning to a loud Oregon Senator Betsy Johnson's replying to Clatsop County Commissioner Ann Samuelsson's (a rural County in Oregon, the oldest US Community West of the Rocky Mountains) concern of her town of Jewell's electrical infrastructure which is trying to recover from recent storm flooding and I listened to Ms. Johnson answer with direction as she provides leadership in the upcoming legislature, I could not help to realize that we as Americans are losing control of our rural communities. KAST a local AM radio station, broadcast community leadership issues during its morning news report. (Notice I did not say Pod Cast, or You Tube, or MSN Internet Broadband Cast, but AM Radio.) I'm sure like many rural areas in America, the heart land of America's infrastructure is going backwards, not forwards and many still listen to AM radio..
Let me try to identify the micro-disaster of what I just heard with examples.
1. Jewell: Western Electric has a an infrastructure problem of connecting power from point A to Point B. Since they as a service provider have responsibility to repair our power infrastructure, they rely on our Federal Regulators to allow them to work in a wetland. Since they, like most people with common sense, wanted to protect the infrastructure by trenching (trenching protects the lines from tree falls during storms that destroy the aerial lines) they quickly were informed by The Army Corp of Engineers that they couldn't trench it and save money, but they had to protect it by HDD boring( Horizontally Directional Drilling) the wetland so not to disturb the environmentally protected wetland doubling if not tripling the infrastructure cost.
2. The Astoria Rail Line. Over 3 years ago, a terrible storm broke the dirt filled rail line in Knappa, Oregon. Emergency repairs were made and as the railroad prepared to replace the line with new rail, the area again ( because of another storm) was breached by the Columbia River Slough and the Army Corp Regulatory Departmetn would not allow them to repair it without permits. (Mind you that the STB protects railroads but in this case the Army Corp refuses to recognize the STB), 3 years later, it still not repaired. The failure of repairing the railroad threatens the economic viability of a Public Port the Corp was commissioned to protect under the River's and Harbors Act. It's the last rail line going to Oregon's Coast that could be repaired for less than 110K, the others are closed for costly repairs or abandoned, but the Corp is requiring expensive environmental conditions that will push it over 1 million. If Railroad's are not our Country's Critical infrastructure, what is?
3. Last year's horrible storm destroys a rural bridge on Foss Road, is it fixed yet? It happens to be the only improved road that connects two Rural Communities in a 40 mile radius. Ask the over worked rural Public Works Director in Tillamook County what FEMA and The Army Corp told her?
4. City of Astoria, America's oldest city West of the Rockies, struggles to increase its sewer fees to pay for Storm Sewer Separation mandates or be further fined by the EPA and other government organization. Not able to afford either, it challenges its population of retirees and increases its fees and moves forward delaying other critical repairs as any community would. How long will that last?
These are but a few down on the ground examples but like the bigger highways and bridges that are critical nodes, the rural communities struggle. In every community in Oregon, from Port of Tillamook Bay Railroad, to Netarts/ Oceanside Sewer District, from small communities in Southern Oregon to the Farmer in Pendleton Oregon, name it, there isn't an Oregon Legislator that has not heard or has been faced with a similar example, and Betsy Johnson is not alone.
It's time to reorganize the US Army Corp of Engineers and NOAA NMFS. "Woe, slow down Floyd. Did I just hear you correctly? Don't take on the Corp and NOAA, you'll never consult in this country again", said a well known friend.
"Its broke and needs fixed. The USACE needs to be focused on fixing our countries infrastructure, not regulating it. I'm popping the Red Flare", I replied.
What does the bureaucratic organizations that govern or regulate repairing our countries infrastructure have to say about this? Do they not realize that their regulatory issues is nearly doubling if not tripling infrastructure repair costs?
Colonel Miles, US Army, US Army Corp of Engineers, Portland District. "My hands are tied and we expose ourselves to third party law suits if we rush to repair something without review and move forward without consulting NOAA/NMFS" .
Well, Good Colonel, that explains everything. Three years later the 180 feet of washed out rail line has yet to be repaired and China just built another city and 3 nuclear powered submarines.
In the meantime, our communities will go broke waiting to repair infrastructure so that jobs can be created and money made to pay companies like Western Electric or Portland and Western Railroad who don't have the funds to meet your requirements. The small rural areas suffer and our kids will be contaminated with over flowing sewer lines and pot hole roads and broken rail lines, no power and the Ports you were commissioned to protect are crumbling. I have lived and worked in those communities, but it wasn't in The United States of America, at least I thought it wasn't.
Despite the new President's and Oregon's Governor promises of repairing our Countries' infrastructure, Oregon communities will have to go through the gauntlet and pay enormous costs of permitting these projects and the community chest will pay the increased costs based on environmental paranoia.
Good Luck Senator Johnson, we all need your help and thanks for waking me up this morning, but where do we start and unfortunately, you better hurry up and consult with the "USACE and NMFS" and wait like the rest of us.
Floyd E. Holcom, Astoria, Oregon

Floyd Holcom is the founder of the IBIS Group, an international consulting company who in the early 1990s took Nike, Powell's Books and other companies back into Vietnam and China. IBIS performed the recent analysis of the Port of Tillamook Bay Disaster and landed the recent International China Verizon cable at Nedonna Beach, here in Oregon. Floyd is a retired Army Green Beret who most recently fought in Iraq. He and his family reside in Astoria, Oregon and is a new Commissioner at the Port of Astoria.