Category: Infrastructure
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Massive Infusion of Rural Healthcare Funds will be a Magnet for Waste and Fraud
by James C. Sherlock The Trump administration has announced that Virginia will receive $189,544,888 for 2026 alone to improve rural healthcare. That figure is based on an application made by the Youngkin Administration that specified how it would be spent. That is just a down payment. The Rural Health Transformation Program’s $50 billion…
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Storm’s Coming. Where’s FEMA?
by Dick Hall-Sizemore At his press conference in the Virginia Emergency Operation Center last fall in the aftermath of Hurricane Helen, Gov. Glenn Youngkin introduced “my newest best friend”—the representative from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). (The “best friend” comment can be found at the 13:15 mark in the video.) When a major disaster…
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Avula Engineers Transition in Richmond Waterworks Leadership
by James A. Bacon April Bingham, Richmond’s director of public works, has stepped down in what Mayor Danny Avula described as a voluntary and amicable parting of the ways. In the wake of the cutoff of water supplies to residents of Richmond and neighboring counties last week, Avula said, “there probably are other skills that…
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Political Blood in the Richmond Water Fiasco
by Paul Goldman But for former Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney running for Lieutenant Governor, the RVA water fiasco would likely have been a far different political story. High profile for sure. But Mayor Danny Avula is new, and folks likely would have been willing to let him fix the issue, fire the public works director, and…
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Stupidity on Steroids
EV charging stations as a microcosm of the ineptitude of America’s governing class. by James A. Bacon The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has granted Virginia $10.8 million to build out its EV charging infrastructure. The goal is to deploy 392 charging ports at “urban and rural tourism destinations across Virginia,” with more than half to…
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The Hits Just Keep on Coming
by James A. Bacon Ordinarily, one would categorize a busted-water main story as routine news and forget about it the next day. But in the wake of the breakdown of the City of Richmond’s water treatment plant, which cut off water supplies for the better part of a week, the natural reaction is, what’s next?…
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Dry January Takes on a Whole New Meaning
by Jon Baliles The start of every New Year often comes with people making resolutions to do more exercise, choose better eating habits, and make changes to improve one’s life. One of the newer traditions in recent years has been Dry January, which started in England but has spread worldwide and challenges people to spend…
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Richmond’s Water-Gate Fiasco Will Be Investigated
by James A. Bacon Richmond Mayor Danny Avula committed himself yesterday to an “independent” investigation into the failure of Richmond’s water treatment facility, while Governor Glenn Youngkin said yesterday that the state would conduct its own inquiry. “We are absolutely outsourcing this. We’re going to bring in a third party to do that investigation,” Avula…
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Mayor Avula, Appoint an Independent Commission to Fix Richmond’s Infrastructure
by Paul Goldman Once again, Richmond city government is facing a crisis of competence. The current water treatment plant fiasco is symbolic of this long history. You can’t run a city by moving from crisis to crisis. That’s why I believe Mayor Danny Avula should create an independent committee to review the city’s well-documented infrastructure…
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Water-Gate Needs an Independent Investigation
by James A. Bacon Evidence continues to emerge of warning signs that the City of Richmond’s water-treatment and distribution system suffered from a failure to properly maintain, repair and upgrade its physical plant. WTVR-CBS reported yesterday that a 2022 Environmental Protection Agency alerted the city to corroded pipes and bacterial contamination. Today the Richmond Times-Dispatch…
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How About a Regional Solution to Richmond’s Water Woes? No Thanks.
by James A. Bacon In a myriad of small ways, the City of Richmond’s water woes have spilled into neighboring Henrico County where I live. The County is on water-boil alert, making cooking meals a hassle. One of my favorite restaurants, which is normally half full on Wednesday nights, was so jammed with diners when…
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Richmond’s Water-Gate Scandal
by James A. Bacon What an embarrassment. The City of Richmond’s water system shut down Monday, just as the General Assembly was scheduled to convene in the state Capitol. With no working toilets, legislators decided to delay deliberations until next week. As the city struggled to restore service, restaurants closed, a waterless VCU Medical Center…
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Maybe Another Subsidy Will Finally Boost EVs?
By Steve Haner Yet another effort will be made in 2025 to get Virginia’s two major electric utilities deeper into the business of building and maintaining charging stations for electric vehicles, with their ratepayers – even those who have no interest in such vehicles – having to pay the tab. Given they are supposed to be…
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Details, Please, About the New Nuke
by James A. Bacon Has fusion power finally arrived? Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a Massachusetts-based developer of high-temperature, superconducting magnets used to jam hydrogen molecules together and release massive amounts of energy, has announced that it will invest “several billion dollars” to build the world’s first grid-scale, commercial fusion power plant. “This is an historic…
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A Cluster Fark of Monumental Proportions
by James A. Bacon Broadly speaking, there are two ways to extend broadband Internet service to remote rural areas. One way is to sign up for Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service. Order a Starlink satellite dish, Wi-Fi router, mounting hardware, and cables; the kit arrives within a few weeks and typically can be installed in…