News 14 Carolina - Political Connections

Some interesting tidbits about the state's water infrastructure system. The NYC steam pipe explosion complete with asbestos got us thinking abou water pipes in North Carolina. The Greensboro water break where a car fell in the sinkhole got us thinking as well.

Many of you may know there's a coalition of sorts working to get some big time bonds on the ballot this fall. State leaders often talk about the need for new infrastructure, but piping for water systems in nearly every city is getting extremely old and causing many of the problems-structurally, financially, and health wise as well.

I talked at great length with Patrick Woodie over at the NC Rural Center. This is one of their headline issues and have done plenty of research on the need for water and sewer infrastructure. Anywho, he claims big water main breaks will continue. He also says there's a lot of concrete asbestos piping in this state as well.

But my favorite quote is this below and sorry it took so many words to get to this but here's the hookline for this entry..

"Not too long ago, Asheville was replacing some pipe in the Woodfin area of Asheville and actually discovered wooden pipe still in the ground," Woodie said. "Hollowed out logs that were used for water pipe."

Pipe they were still using! Call me naive but that's just wild to think about. Good thing no one got any splinters.