Ethical Dilemmas

Most of the buildings we live, work, and spend time in, are designed in conjunction with civil engineers. More generally, the infrastructure of the world is designed primarily by civil engineers. We all spend large amounts of our time on these roads, in these buildings, and whether we realize it or not, our lives are heavily influenced by the work of civil engineers. The water we drink is cleaned and transported in facilities designed by civil engineers, and the waste we create is disposed of in landfills and other processing plants that civil engineers helped create. Because of the sheer numbers of people that civil engineers work impacts, safety is a key consideration.

Innovation is key in the continual push to make our civil structures safer. One example of this is in areas where earthquakes are an ever-present risk. As the West Coast of the United States was settled in mass, building practices remained traditional and very similar to building practices in other parts of the US. But, because of the San Andreas Fault, California is always at risk for large earthquakes. For many decades, an earthquake along the San Andreas meant serious damage to cities as well as large death rates. But, with superior construction techniques, and better understanding of how the soils would behave, the risk of death has dropped significantly. This same trend can be seen in many other areas as well.

Aftermath of 1906 earthquake in San Francisco 

Even with this current trend to safer infrastructure and buildings, corners sometimes get cut and mistakes are made. Frequently, projects are a careful balance of factors including cost and safety. Often times, customers are trying to minimize the costs associated with projects, and this can, in rare cases, lead to project that are less safe than they should be. During the design process, it is very important to determine to what level something should be designed for.

 An example of this is the levees in New Orleans that catastrophically failed, and caused the city too be flooded several years ago. The levees were designed to withstand a storm surge up to a certain level, but when hurricane Katrina came, the surge was greater than it was designed for and the structure failed. Now, if they had designed the levee to withstand a greater surge, the project would have gone up in cost. This illustrates some of the trade-offs that must be made when designing projects. Design work is seldom ever black and white. Rather, it is more of a gradient were trade-offs must be made. In the case of the levees in New Orleans, they obviously leaned too far on the side of saving money.

There are many takeaways from these themes. Most importantly, it is important for engineers not to trade safety and security for cost savings. After the research and studies are done it is important that engineers follow the guidelines and lean towards over-designing for all contingencies rather than trying to save too much money. If engineers follow this rule of thumb, we can continue to improve the safety of our buildings and infrastructure.

California's Water Crisis

Water is one of the most important resources in the world, and its availability is vital for humans. Having an abundance of fresh, clean water is very important for our society to function and thrive. As human populations have continued to increase and we have started to use industrial applications, our need for water has also continued to grow at a rapid rate. Now, in certain parts of the world, our need for fresh water is beginning to eclipse the earth’s ability to regenerate it. The management, collection and treatment of fresh water has always been at the forefront of civil engineers responsibilities.

A picture from the annual snow measuring. Typical snow levels are between 6 to 7 feet

Recently in California, the governor, Jerry Brown, used an executive order to impose a 25 percent reduction in water usage throughout the state. This move puts the United States’ most populous state in uncharted territory as California has never imposed mandatory water restrictions before. The announcement from the governor came directly following California’s annual snow pack measuring in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where they have had a record drought year.

Some of the features of the new plan being put into place in California include, increasing the cost for high volume users, reducing excess water usage in urban areas, and increasing waste-water reuse. The state will have to continue to deplete their reserves which includes heavy pumping from aquifers and reservoirs. Although the state is not running out of water, the rate at which they are depleting their reserves is unsustainable.

This new aggressive policy may just be the beginning of major change throughout the country as many of the aquifers and reservoirs in the southwest have continuously been depleted in recent years due both to drought, and over consumption. Because of this water shortage, many are calling for the construction of seawater desalination plants along the coast. These plants could supplement the water supplies of the regions in which they are built, but present many design challenges. In addition to the call for desalination plants, the Southwest’s freshwater infrastructure is under the microscope as people look to make the system more efficient, as well as reduce consumption.

As stated earlier, there are many challenges associated with desalination plants. One of the major hurdles to be overcome are the massive amount of energy needed to run the plant. Because of this large energy consumption, the water made from the plant is much more costly to produce then natural water. This means that for the most part, the plant is only used in times of intense drought. Another obstacle is what to do with the salt the plant removes from the water. Many of the current plants around the world simply put the salt back into the ocean. Recently however, it has been shown that this high salt concentration close to the plant has a negative impact on the local ecosystem. Because of these drawbacks, many in California are hesitant to go ahead with the costly construction of a plant.

Over the next several years we will probably see a lot of change in how water is used in California as well as to the infrastructure. It will be interesting to see how they handle the challenges they are presented. As populations continue to increase and water becomes scarcer, many areas around the world will have to wrestle with the same problems that California is facing.