The Florida Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) yesterday released the 2021 Report Card for Florida’s Infrastructure. Florida civil engineers gave four water categories receiving an overall grade of ‘C’ meaning the state’s infrastructure is in mediocre condition.
Civil engineers graded drinking water as ‘C’, wastewater as ‘C’ and stormwater as ‘C-’.
Florida has consistently maintained its infrastructure using innovative funding mechanisms and asset management strategies, keeping bridges, ports, and other systems in impressive conditions despite hosting one of the fastest growing populations and some of the nation’s most severe weather. However, some sectors such as dams and schools have fallen behind, and additional steps must be taken to ensure the state’s infrastructure is prepared for continued climate impacts.
“This report demonstrates that Florida has done a commendable job across its infrastructure networks preparing for climate impacts and maintaining systems that are coping with growing usage due to tourism and population growth,” said Kathi Ruvarac, P.E., chair, 2021 Report Card for Florida’s Infrastructure. “We hope legislators and all Floridians utilize this tool to spark changes where needed and encourage continued growth where we have succeeded.”
The report finds that the state’s drinking water, wastewater and stormwater systems are collectively succeeding in handling growing capacity needs. In addition, Florida is a national leader in the reuse of reclaimed water, with reclaimed water projects making up 35 percent of all water supply projects.
However, severe weather and added capacity are putting strain on the state’s aging wastewater facilities, leading to a higher number of sanitary sewer overflows, which can cause spills and backups that threaten public health. In addition, only approximately 35 percent of the state’s local jurisdictions reported having a stormwater program to fund and maintain the infrastructure, and 27 percent of the stormwater utilities stated that operation and maintenance capabilities were adequate only to meet the area’s most urgent needs, while 7 percent were not adequate to meet urgent needs.
Florida’s dams (D-), which had the lowest grade in the report, are lacking in up-to-date data and only 41 percent of them have an Emergency Action Plan, compared with 81 percent nationally. Similar to dams, only 40 percent of Florida’s 90 levee (D+) systems have been assessed for risk, despite their role in protecting nearly $100 billion in property and 1.6 million residents.
The report also includes calls to action to raise the grades, such as:
- Improve routine data collection and assessment in Schools, Dams, and Levees sectors to expand the public and lawmakers’ access to information to inform safety and funding decisions.
- Expand the application of new approaches, materials, and technologies across Florida’s infrastructure sectors to improve its ability to withstand or quickly recover from natural or man-made hazards.
The Report Card was created as a public service to citizens and policymakers to inform them of the infrastructure needs in their state. Civil engineers used their expertise and school report card-style letter grades to condense complicated data into an easy-to-understand analysis of Florida’s infrastructure network. ASCE State and Regional Infrastructure Report Cards are modeled after the national Infrastructure Report Card, which gave America’s infrastructure an overall grade of ‘C-’ in 2021.
View the report card and all 14 categories.
