BYRON DE ARAKAL -- Between the lines

Having marked my 42nd year on this planet Tuesday, the rusty arthritis

in my right shoulder and the cranky condition of my lower back served to

remind me -- more effectively than last year, I might add -- that it is

pinheaded to continue sidestepping an annual rendezvous with my doctor

and his box of rubber gloves.

The bald and harsh truth is this: Things start breaking when they get

old. And it seems to me, increasingly so, that a broad survey of my

machinery is by far the wiser thing than simply waiting for some part --

hopefully not mission critical -- to shut down.

With that said, I think there’s a relation here to the advancing age

of what civil engineers like to call infrastructure in our twin cities.

But let’s not throw around fancy words. A critical part of what makes our

lives in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa so grand is the network of pipes,

drains and pumps that deliver water to our homes and take it away once

we’ve fouled it with the unmentionables of human existence.

Now it’s understandable that we pay little thought to all of this, so

long as it works. But if you’ve ever wrestled with a congested drain --

or paid a plumber to wrestle with it for you -- you’re aware of the price

to be paid for inattention. Clearly, the stakes are considerably higher

for an entire city.

Last month, a 73-year-old water main buried beneath Dover Drive in

Newport Beach had enough. In medical parlance, the thing had an aneurysm.

Thousands of gallons of water poured from the ruptured pipeline,

undermining the roadbed and opening a huge sinkhole. Nearby residents

were stuck with dry faucets for about 45 minutes, Councilwoman Norma

Glover said at the City Council’s Nov. 28 meeting, while rightfully

praising the quick work of the city’s public works crew to restore

service.

Nevertheless, the breach took Dover Drive offline for several days and

ultimately cost the city $155,000 to repair.

Though not a symptom of Newport Beach’s admittedly aging sewer and

water infrastructure, the Dec. 8 rupture of a waste-water pipeline on

Irvine Ranch Water District land dumped more than 250,000 gallons of

partially treated sewage into San Diego Creek, which ultimately

contaminated Upper Newport Bay. That little incident forced a shutdown of

portions of Newport Bay for roughly three days.

Costa Mesa hasn’t been without its share of infrastructure ills

symptomatic of elderly pipelines. During the city’s 1998-99 fiscal year,

Costa Mesa reported 20 sewage spills to the Orange County Sanitation

District.

These episodes are arguably less dramatic than the plague of

infrastructure ills that have ravaged Huntington Beach in recent years.

The most recent and noteworthy example of that city’s decaying sewers and

storm drains came to light in Los Angeles Times reporter Meg James’ story

revealing that some 71,324 gallons of raw sewage was pouring from broken

and cracked sewer lines throughout much of the 1990s. The revelation

served to remind Huntington Beach and its residents of the reason why its

City Council launched in 1995 a massive stem-to-stern examination of the

health of Huntington Beach’s infrastructure.

Much of Huntington Beach’s underground infrastructure was put in place

in the 1940s and 1950s as the city entered an era of unbridled post-World

War II development. Compared to the senior status of much of the pipeline

network lying beneath Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach’s

infrastructure could fairly be categorized as middle-aged.

Nevertheless, when Huntington Beach issued its Integrated

Infrastructure Management Report in 1997, the city revealed its sewers,

storm drains, pumping stations and the like would require about $1.3

billion in new construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation and

maintenance over the next 20 years. So staggering were the report’s

findings that it formed a Citizens’ Infrastructure Advisory Committee to

confirm the report’s conclusions. This fall, that committee issued its

report to the City Council and reiterated the accuracy of the city’s

original findings. Worse, it found the city was short some $800 million

to effect the needed repairs.

That Huntington Beach’s infrastructure has fallen into such expensive

disrepair is evidence enough for me that the problem should have been

looked at sooner. Still, the city deserves credit for tackling such an

exhaustive “physical exam.”

Given the spate of minor ills that occasionally infect the vital

underground infrastructure in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa -- much of

which is older than the infirm systems in Huntington Beach -- I’m hoping

the respective city councils of our twin cities will find instructive

Huntington Beach’s wise, albeit late, study of its infrastructure.

The studies will be costly, to be sure. But the price tag for doing

nothing will certainly be far higher.

* BYRON DE ARAKAL is a writer and communications consultant. He lives

in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays. Readers can reach him with

news tips and comments via e-mail at byronwriter@msn.com.