For years, engineers have warned that New Jersey’s infrastructure is crumbling and in dire need of repair, but Hurricane Sandy brought this lesson home like nothing else. The full scope of the damage is not yet known, but it was of historic proportions. Apart from the thousands of downed power lines, the storm washed out bridges at the Jersey shore; ruptured natural gas pipelines, which caught fire and burned down houses; and caused wastewater treatment plants to malfunction, spilling raw sewage into waterways. The havoc wreaked by Sandy has galvanized a public outcry demanding infrastructure improvements, but no one knows where the money needed to rebuild will come from.
Even before Hurricane Sandy hit the state, New Jersey faced staggering costs to modernize its aging infrastructure. A 2009 study by the American Society of Civil Engineers found that 36 percent of New Jersey’s bridges were structurally deficient; the state had 213 high-hazard dams, meaning that a failure could lead to a significant loss of life; and 78 percent of New Jersey’s roads were in either poor or mediocre condition. The study also concluded that the state needs to invest nearly $7 billion over the next two decades to meet drinking water needs, and another $9 billion upgrading wastewater treatment plants.
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