Nerds Unplugged: Take 2 with Deb Heiser and Richard McCoy

Join us for Take 2 of the Nerds Unplugged where I sit down with Deb Heiser, Engineering Director for the City of St. Louis Park, MN, and Richard McCoy, Public Works Director and City Engineer for the City of Robbinsdale, MN. We recap the last four episodes and chat about some random topics like college tours, bridge collapses, and infrastructure funding.

I plan to have these Unplugged episodes about once every two months or so. If there is any topic you would like us to discuss, or have a question, feel free to send it in via the podcast website listed below. Thanks for listening!

www.thepublicworksnerds.com

Show Notes:

https://www.pca.state.mn.us/news-and-stories/mpca-brings-cutting-edge-technology-to-minnesota-to-remove-pfas-from-water

 https://www.startribune.com/why-is-the-epa-regulating-pfas-and-what-are-these-forever-chemicals/600357849/

 https://www.epa.gov/sdwa/and-polyfluoroalkyl-substances-pfas

 https://www.pca.state.mn.us/air-water-land-climate/minnesotas-pfas-blueprint

 Baltimore Harbor Bridge Collapse and state by state bridge condition data:

 https://www.axios.com/2024/04/25/baltimore-bridge-collapse-new-channel

 https://www.axios.com/local/nw-arkansas/2024/04/24/arkansas-bridge-conditions-baltimore

 Mpls Bridge Collapse: August 1, 2007

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_bridge

AI Generated Episode Description:
Ever wondered about the people shaping our city landscapes, the minds behind the concrete, and the tales etched in our urban forests? Buckle up for an enlightening voyage with Deb Heiser and Richard McCoy, as we raise our glasses to Richard's National APWA Award win and dive into Deb's preemptive strike on pavement management. But hold on, because we're not just talking shop—get ready for a heartwarming detour through personal anecdotes, from navigating college tours to the dynamics of family life. It's a candid peek behind the hard hats, blending professional pride with the connective threads of our everyday lives.

Now, let's saunter down the green path where city forestry meets cutting-edge technology. You'll hear the triumphant story of a new graduate taking root in her city forester career and how cities like Robbinsdale and Minnetonka aren't just standing by as the Emerald Ash Borer looms. Discover the arsenal of tools—from GIS to AI—that's revolutionizing how we safeguard our leafy canopies. And as if that wasn't enough, we're also painting a picture of how public works and park spaces can come together to create vibrant, community-centric spots you won't want to miss.

But we're not shying away from the grittier side of things. Enter the labyrinth of infrastructure challenges, where the battle against time and decay calls for ingenious fixes like pipe lining and live sewer monitoring. Learn how we're calibrating our strategies for a smarter future, balancing the scales of high-tech aspirations with the stark reality of budget constraints. And in the shadow of past tragedies like bridge collapses, we're reminded of the unyielding importance of vigilance in infrastructure maintenance. So, if you're ready to ignite your passion for public works and peer into the blueprint of comm

Transcript

Richard McCoy: 0:01

Welcome to the Public Works Nerds Podcast.

Marc Culver: 0:07

Welcome to the Public Works Nerds Podcast, a Public Works Podcast of the nerds by the nerds and for the nerds. I'm your host Marc Culver. Today we are unplugged with Deb Heiser and Richard McCoy. This will be our second attempt at this unplugged kind of freewheeling I won't say what Richard said, but freewheeling episode where we just kind of talk about stuff we're going to go off script. We can see if we have a little fun talking about public works related items in the news, recap some of our recent episodes and maybe get some additional insight into public works in general. Like I said, joining me today are Deb Heiser, engineer Director for the City of St Louis Park.

Deb Heiser: 0:51

Good afternoon Marc.

Marc Culver: 0:53

Good afternoon Deb.

Deb Heiser: 0:54

And.

Marc Culver: 0:54

Richard McCoy, public Works Director and City Engineer for the City of Robbinsdale. Thanks for having me back. You know you made the cut.

Richard McCoy: 1:01

I must have behaved myself.

Deb Heiser: 1:02

Did you just call me the Public Works Director? No I think I said engineer director, did I not say, if I did not say engineer director. I thought you gave me another title no, no, no, I wouldn't do that to jay. No, no, sounds good. Don't do that to jay, he's doing a great job.

Marc Culver: 1:17

So yes, so yeah, it's just the three of us today. Um, maybe that results in a shorter episode. Maybe it results in a shorter episode, maybe it results in a longer episode, I don't know, but let's kick this off. So how are you guys doing?

Deb Heiser: 1:30

How's life treating you? I don't know. I think Richard might be having a really good week.

Richard McCoy: 1:35

Yeah, well, it's busy as usual. But good news on when was that Tuesday? About the National Award for the Water Treatment Plant.

Marc Culver: 1:44

Yeah, was that APWA? That was APWA.

Richard McCoy: 1:47

Awesome Project of the Year in the Small Cities, rural Communities, environmental category. Wow, very pleased that's awesome.

Marc Culver: 1:55

So some more hardware. You're going to have to build a bigger shelf.

Richard McCoy: 1:59

Well, the staff have got the other three up on the wall already. They just have to make room for the fourth. I guess yeah.

Deb Heiser: 2:06

Yeah Well, good Congratulations.

Richard McCoy: 2:07

Thank you.

Deb Heiser: 2:08

I think it was well-deserved. I was sharing with Mark before we started talking is that it's a very well-deserved award for not only what you did. But I will just say that Richard writes a mean nomination form. I had the pleasure of reading the nomination when I was reviewing it for the executive committee for SEAM.

Marc Culver: 2:26

That's helpful. How about you? What do you got going on?

Deb Heiser: 2:30

Well, it's been a pretty busy week. My favorite part of the week, though, is that spring is here, and so I've been gardening. So that's maybe not public works nerdy enough but hey, it's.

Bolton & Menk: 2:42

Minnesota. In the spring it's a gateway into public works right.

Deb Heiser: 2:45

It is actually Probably very much a gateway. It's all about maintenance yep making sure everything's working well digging yeah and you know pollinator gardens and you know right right so but yeah, I've had a really good week. We had a council meeting on wednesday, um, and a lot of great conversations being had with that, so I don't have anything quite as exciting as Richard oh construction, our pavement management. So our annual local street reconstruction actually started work last Wednesday and this is the earliest. That's pretty early.

Deb Heiser: 3:16

My last year at Roseville, we started the last week of April, but this is the first time we've ever started in mid-April, so it's been a real unique year. So that's exciting.

Marc Culver: 3:27

When is it mid versus end?

Deb Heiser: 3:29

End is the last week.

Marc Culver: 3:31

The last week.

Deb Heiser: 3:31

Yeah, it's like this week versus this Sunday, versus next Sunday, so when did they start? They started Wednesday, the. Let's see today's the 26th, so Wednesday, the 17th. Okay, if you're in the teens, you're still in the mid.

Marc Culver: 3:40

Okay, okay, the 17th. Okay, if you're in the teens, you're still in the bigs. Okay, all right, I'll go with that, all right.

Richard McCoy: 3:46

I'm just going to challenge you. Is that an official definition then?

Marc Culver: 3:48

Well, there needs to be. We need to have clear we do Demarcations here on this Specifications.

Marc Culver: 3:56

Yes, clear communication is what we're all about Right, right, so well, good, good, I don't have anything as exciting. Just, I'm both my kids are going to college, so my wife and I have been darting around the country touring colleges with our, with our kids, our respective children next year, and my my son, is going to be a junior somewhere. So that's kind of been uh, dictating my thoughts and time lately. But from a work perspective, working on a really cool project with the uh city of um, shakopee. They're doing a really extensive riverbank restoration project. They got a whole bunch of grant funds.

Marc Culver: 4:43

So, uh, tim olson, um, from bolton and menk here, and josh shields, uh, kind of him, and those two and I are kind of managing this really large scale project. And and shakopee's got this park along the riverbank alex jordan, um, hopefully hoping to get him on a podcast episode sometime soon, but Alex George and City Engineer Chakrabi is still working with him. But they have this really pretty nice park adjacent to the riverfront there and we're trying to figure out how to do this riverbank restoration and shoreline protection and then tie the park into that. So you know, it's just a really fun kind of, I would say, eclectic project to work on, bringing in a lot of different elements and, you know, working on a park.

Deb Heiser: 5:31

Who would have thought I would be working on a park that they even let me, parks are where you put stormwater, right, right, okay, right, oh no, I mean I mean that there's a great synergy that can happen with parks.

Deb Heiser: 5:44

Yes, we have. On our project, the Cedar Lake Road, louisiana project that's going to be starting this year. It's a three-year $28 million project. We are putting an underground chamber in a park along the corridor in order to meet the infiltration and do some flood storage as well as do infiltration water quality. But it's great to be able to put that underneath that space. We don't have to buy easements. Yep, we had, can. We had compared two places. We had. We're working on putting it under a parking lot at on along the corridor and they would have. They were. We were negotiating and it was about to be 600,000 to be able to get that easement and so we're like, let's put it under the park. Yeah, so, um, but it's a great synergy. We can redo the fields, we can, and we put a skate park on top of one of these in st louis park. Um, we put in a, oh, a one acre foot underground chamber, um, for treatment, and we built a skate park on top of it. So, um, it was.

Deb Heiser: 6:42

It was kind of fun to you know that people probably don't even know what's underneath that skate park unless they saw it built, like I did right but um, it's a great synergy that can happen with that plastic, metal or you don't care um, we use we've been using uh concrete, so they're oh yeah, these are these are, you can walk storm

Richard McCoy: 7:00

trap.

Deb Heiser: 7:00

These are these are actually chambers. They're 12 foot by 12 foot so they're like massive culverts yeah, massive culverts, wow, making sure you have enough access for them so you can clean them up. And we actually do have a filter system to remove um, to remove phosphorus, and we have cartridges. We have to replace every three, four years, whatever the case may be, depending how much water goes through there. But it you know, it's a great partnership that we can have with our parks department, um, and it saves the public money really. Um yeah.

Marc Culver: 7:28

So works well, that's cool. Well, well done. I'm assuming you've got some uh watershed funding for that.

Deb Heiser: 7:34

No, actually those, uh, our, our city council is very committed to um being a leader in environmental stewardship, Um the the idea is we are a first ring sub suburb and when that happens, all the pipes were put in to move the water away and we are part of Minnehaha Creek Watershed District and probably two-thirds, maybe even three-quarters, of our city drain to Minnehaha Creek and just making sure that we can do our loading reductions, um, and really we usually go above and beyond when we, when we build these things, and so our council is really committed to um ensuring not only flood protection but that water quality, making sure we have cleaner water leaving our city awesome.

Marc Culver: 8:18

So well, good for you, good for your council. Yeah, that's good to hear um anything else like topical or recent for you guys recent man work-wise whatever you want to talk about your cat, we could create a whole instagram account for the public for no, when you mention your kids are looking at college, I've got to.

Richard McCoy: 8:44

In two weeks my middle kid will be graduating. Wow, college Yep, from where Iowa State? Awesome.

Marc Culver: 8:52

Everybody's going to Iowa State. Good for Iowa State. Well, good Congratulations, degree in Degree in forestry.

Richard McCoy: 9:03

Okay With a minor in animal ecology.

Deb Heiser: 9:07

Awesome Is that two foresters you have in your daughter is also.

Richard McCoy: 9:10

No, that's who's graduating. Oh, she's actually graduating.

Deb Heiser: 9:12

Forgive me, I thought she was already graduating.

Richard McCoy: 9:14

No, she's graduating in May, the 11th May, 10th, 11th, something like that. Yeah, Cool, well, good for her Does she have a job Cool Well good for her. Does she have a job? Yep, when? With Davy Davy? Tree oh okay, davy Resource Group yeah, so she'll learn some or develop her skills a bit further with them. I think ultimately she'd like to be a city forester.

Marc Culver: 9:37

Fantastic. You know what that is. That is a fantastic segue into one of the recaps for one of the episodes recent episodes and that was with Hannibal Hayes, who is the city forester for the city of Minnetonka, and I'm sure Hannibal would be a great resource and connection point for your daughter. I mean, you are too. I'm sure You've got lots of people to help her find a job ultimately when she wants to do that. And Hannibal, I invited him to be on this Nerds Unplugged and he was really, really disappointed that he couldn't join us today. But I really enjoyed that conversation I had with Hannibal. He's a really interesting guy. I really enjoyed that conversation I had with Hannibal. He's a really interesting guy just in general. But just to talk about some of the technology, you know that they are looking to use that's out there, that's evolving for city forestry. So I don't know how engaged are you with forestry in Robbinsdale? How proactive are you guys with that?

Richard McCoy: 10:47

Well, the forester is under my control as part of the public works engineering team. Our forester has done a sensational job with Emerald Ash Borer. He has been on top of that for many, many years. We haven't lost a single public ash tree to emerald ash borer. There's been, obviously, some private trees that have been chewed up by the bug, but he has been getting around. Now he's probably on his third rotation of working on the ash trees in the public realm, injecting them with insecticide to protect them from the from the borer. Wow, so, uh, he felt that was important to keep the diversity of species that we have in the urban forest. So, uh, he's done a really good job on that is there a?

Marc Culver: 11:39

do you guys expect that at some point you're going to lose them despite your efforts, or are you? Is this a really long-term effort to to keep them?

Richard McCoy: 11:50

I mean I, I think we, we are committed to to it long term. Yeah, um, it will be interesting to see the the behavior of the of the bug as time goes on. Yeah, you know, we had that uh, very uh noticeable wave that came through, that kind of jumped from city to city and decimated ash populations. Now you know whether the numbers of the bugs drop off, seeing that there's not as many ash trees for them to feast on as they continue to march their way west. I guess we'll just have to keep an eye on that. And you know, we might go from treating every three years to be able to treat every five years, or something. I don't know. That's still to be worked out as we monitor what the movement of the bug is.

Marc Culver: 12:37

Yeah, it's an interesting point on that and I know I guess I haven't really considered it from the perspective of beyond that front wave, um, or first wave of of the um pest, uh, moving through what is behind, like how, how likely is it for it to move backwards, so to speak? You know, if we're eradicating the, the habitat, or treating the habitat for them, you, you know it's kind of an interesting question. However, there's also a lot of trees on, as you mentioned, on private land. That's not necessarily being treated. I know, and I mentioned this in the podcast with Hannibal.

Marc Culver: 13:19

But, you know, because of our changing climate, I know the emerald ash, the, the Emerald Ash Borer, is moving further North than we thought it would. Um, it's getting up into the forests in Northern Minnesota. So that's going to be interesting to see the impact there. But yeah, I'll, I I plan to have an episode in the near future focused on Emerald Ash Borer, um, hoping to get future, focused on emerald ash borer, um, hoping to get uh, and maybe, by saying this out loud on the podcast, I'll commit him to this. But matt johnson, who's the current public works or the current parks and rec director at the city of rooseville, um, rooseville had a very kind of taking a little bit of an opposite approach. You know they they were. They're treating the the really large trees um, but being very proactive about the removal and replacement of trees. So they had a multi-year um program contract with tree trust uh for that, for removing the trees, replacing them and things like that. So I'm going to get him in there to kind of talk about how how they manage that.

Deb Heiser: 14:25

And that's that's more similar to the way St Louis park is managing it. So, first and foremost, we we've not been so fortunate. We actually have had quite a bit of quite a bit We've had to remove because they were infested quite a few trees being infested and, again, getting that word out educating the residents about what we're doing and why. We've been treating our ash trees in the right-of-way, anything over 10 inches. But we have a contract with Rainbow Tree Care and one of the things that we do is that we treat the ones that are healthy. But we also extend a discount to our residents so if they have an ash on their property and they want to treat, they can reach out to the city and they can kind of get on with our contract with rainbow tree care.

Deb Heiser: 15:06

Yeah, we're, we're just starting some additional removals in the right away right now, but again, it's about different, diversifying, it's about getting, you know, getting different types of different, different species of trees in the right of way to replace them. It yeah, it's just, it's hard, it's it's every time you get another one of these. It's, it's a hard way to manage and it's hard to see a mature tree.

Richard McCoy: 15:26

I mean what's next? Yeah, what's next? I mean we had.

Deb Heiser: 15:30

Why can't I remember? Dutch Elm. Dutch Elm in the 70s. I remember that going to visit my grandma in Minneapolis and all the trees were gone.

Deb Heiser: 15:40

So when you look at this, what's next? You know what's the next bug that's going to make it because of climate change up into our area, and it was such a warm winter that didn't help at all either. So, yeah, you know again, we've got a great Michael Baugh, who's our forester, our natural resources, who actually Richard's daughter was one of our interns last year oh cool, and he's doing a great job just trying to work through that with the messaging, working through it with the community and managing it. And it's a question of resources too, because if you want to cut those trees down, that's cost.

Marc Culver: 16:16

Yeah.

Deb Heiser: 16:16

You know yeah.

Marc Culver: 16:18

I mean, besides the loss of the tree.

Deb Heiser: 16:19

Yes.

Marc Culver: 16:20

Yeah, there is the cost of it and how do you dispose of it. And that was another interesting element of Hannibal's podcast is, you know they're kind of unorthodox. You know method of getting rid of the trees. You know what do you do once the tree is cut down, and having their own mill.

Deb Heiser: 16:40

That was pretty cool. Yeah, that is very cool.

Richard McCoy: 16:42

I would love for our city to have something like that. That is so nice. Yeah, that is very cool. I would love for our city to have something like that.

Marc Culver: 16:46

That is so nice. Yeah, yeah, and I mean what a great way to you know, at least figure out a way for that tree to live on, you know, versus just grinding it up.

Deb Heiser: 16:57

And you know if you could put it into the buildings, use it for park benches, or you know, whatever the case may be that you can. I just thought it was really innovative.

Richard McCoy: 17:13

Yeah there's been a few developments up in Robbinsdale where some unfortunately some large oaks have had to be removed and you know, being able to reuse that wood would have been absolutely sensational yeah.

Deb Heiser: 17:20

Well, actually we had a Bridgewater, a new building that was built I think it was about four or five years, or, excuse me, the Quentin. It's an apartment on the north side of town.

Richard McCoy: 17:37

The developer, actually the trees that were cut down reused the wood in the lobby.

Deb Heiser: 17:38

That's cool, it's great and it was kind of a neat way to approach that.

Richard McCoy: 17:41

That is really good yeah.

Marc Culver: 17:47

All right approach, that that is really good, yeah, yeah. So all right. Well, and I'll just close that episode up by asking you guys like um, you know part of that episode. Most of that episode was talking about the technology and using ai and some things like that. Do you get? I'm assuming you guys have a tree inventory and your gis systems?

Deb Heiser: 18:01

what we've, what we've started to do, and again, I, I still we talked about the, the ai uh, our last unplugged. I'm still just so fascinated by this idea of driving and be able being able to have that health and that species and all of the above. Um, one of the things I have as a gardener I have a app on my phone that I can identify plants with and it's really cool that this is so much easier, such as your fingertips and all of the above. But one of the things that we've started doing is we have a Green Corps member working through getting our inventories and getting that on GS, getting those updated.

Deb Heiser: 18:34

But what engineering has started is we will contract on every single one of our street projects and we will do an inventory of all the trees you know, health species, all of the above and we will do an inventory of all the trees, health species, all the above, and we will supplement it. So if you're doing five miles a road or whatever the case may be, we can help keep that current and help out our forestry. And so we started doing that two years ago. That's great when Mike tells us what we need, what he needs for his inventory, and we contract out and use his project funds for that to kind of help supplement Cool. That's good.

Richard McCoy: 19:08

We've got a pretty good Stefan. Our forester's done a really good job with the inventory. He takes out his tablet and updates it using Collector or whatever the software is these days for that. So he's got live updates whenever he's doing work on trees and what have you. We haven't delved too much into the AI. You know he's got some good kind of street view type software that when he's talking to residents he can hop in there and he gets a good vision of what's going on so he can talk to the resident about the trees on their property. It's always interesting when it's street reconstruction time because Stefan loves his trees and sadly some of the trees need to be removed to facilitate deep utility construction, service line reconstruction and what have you. But you know we try and work around these trees wherever we can, particularly the large and good looking mature type trees. Sometimes we can't. At the end of the project Stefan can come back in and revegetate with trees as he sees fit.

Deb Heiser: 20:23

As a part of one of our alley projects two years ago we had five miles of alleys in the city that were gravel and we are now replacing with concrete and, as you can imagine, trees are encroaching in that right-of-way. Imagine trees are encroaching in that right of way. We had a very healthy, happy oak. That was. You know, bottom line was going to be a problem and we met with Mike and when it came time we put a. We put some exploration dollars into the contract so that we could carefully excavate around the trees, see where the roots and then being able to relay just to protect the roots instead of just cutting them and just working through that and putting in different material around that tree when we built that alley Kind of babying it.

Richard McCoy: 21:14

Like the Stockholm soil yeah. Connecticut University type soil yeah.

Deb Heiser: 21:19

And we also had a. We experimented. We annually have a sidewalk replacement project where we go out and you know, obviously sidewalk panels, roots heave them, but we did that on one of those as well, just to you know again, cutting the roots is going to make them weaker. Cutting the roots could you know what happened with the University of Minnesota study? The big wind comes up, they no longer have that structure and so we've been looking at doing that as well. When we were working around the trees as a part of our sidewalk replacement program, where we'll be, you know, deliberate about the roots, maybe bring it up, bring it down, whatever the case may be, so that we can protect and that tree will thrive. We always talk about trying to make sure that the trees will thrive after we leave. I mean, construction is hard, it's a harsh space anyway for the boulevard trees, but then you come in and you're like putting in curb and even if you don't, Compacting class five.

Deb Heiser: 22:12

Yeah, so and just working on that, and we're working with the forester also on requiring tree protection, fencing around our trees and making sure nothing gets stored so that additional compaction happens. So again, we're not perfect, but we're trying to find ways to work with it.

Marc Culver: 22:31

Well, you can't be perfect. I mean unfortunately, like Richard said. I mean we have infrastructure that we're trying to maintain. We have infrastructure that we have in place to support our society. You know our way of life and trees are part of that, absolutely 100%. But you know when you have to dig 30 feet down to get to a sewer line.

Deb Heiser: 22:53

Or if you have a water main that needs to be replaced and those boulevard trees are in exactly the wrong place.

Richard McCoy: 22:57

for the safety of having that happen, yeah, I'm sure back in the original days of Robbinsdale, when they put in the services, both the water and the sanitary there must have been an X that marked the spot and the person who planted the tree thought, oh, that's where I plant the tree because inevitably they all coincide and it's very difficult.

Marc Culver: 23:18

Yeah.

Richard McCoy: 23:19

Yeah.

Marc Culver: 23:21

Well, good, good, well, so that was a good, interesting episode. Technology and city forestry, and then we'll touch quickly on the smart cities efforts, jim Elberk and John, the commitment that the city of Raleigh is making towards these uh, you know, software and technology initiatives. I mean they, really they have a staff, you know, for this innovation.

Deb Heiser: 23:50

Um, they almost talked about it as like an R and D department. I mean, and I thought that you know, and I often think about it, you know, stop thinking like a city. Um, you know, we we're fortunate in Minnesota that we have the Local Road Research Board and I always call the Local Road Research Board our R&D, and a portion, one half of 1%, of the gas tax goes towards this and the money just goes into studies to make us smarter, to try things out and everything else. But to have that at a city level, you know, and not being afraid to fail, yep, um, and you know, just trying different things and all the above, um, I, I, I thought it was very interesting and but I really what I really enjoyed?

Marc Culver: 24:28

I didn't know the smart cities conference was free yeah, if you're, if you're a government employee, I mean, you still have to get out there and pay for a hotel but uh, there's no registration and I was.

Deb Heiser: 24:39

I was actually when I was listening. I checked my schedule.

Deb Heiser: 24:41

I can't go, but um, that's in like two weeks, by the way um but, um, I thought that that's how great and I just loved their attitude of we just want people to have these conversations, yep, to start talking about it, and um, that's so true. You know, and I think we didn't richard and um, richard and I are in a group of a networking group called the West Metro Engineers, and I always tell people the reason we do it is so that we don't know what we don't know until we're talking about it, and we can always be stronger together. There's nothing under, there's very few things that somebody else hasn't encountered, and sometimes we can really fix things or at least talk through things at that meeting, and that's really what they're talking about. Is that talking through things? You know, having cohorts, having those conversations is so important. You know, I it was, it was very, it was very neat, it was, it was pretty cool.

Marc Culver: 25:33

Yeah, yeah, I thought it was really interesting, particularly from the perspective of, like Jim and his, his colleagues and staff are, you know, really gis people and you know it's just kind of like telling the gis people go think beyond gis, you know, I mean, use gis as your foundation and that for some of these things. But you know, think you, you're, we've got all this data. What can we do with this data and how can we collect more data? And and, yeah, just this, this environment of of really, you know, inspiration, um, and inspiring innovation, um, I thought was was really impressive and you know the, you know the, the, the, the traffic's uh camera thing that they came up with. Was is really interesting and some could say, well, there are other products out there that could do that. You know market ready products, but but what's cool about this is it was kind of home grown and I don't know that they would have used a product like that had they not done it in house on their own, you know.

Deb Heiser: 26:31

Well there's, I mean, at the core. A lot of times, you know you, your needs might be a little different, or the out of the box, whatever it is, may not exactly have what you want to use it for, and a lot every software program has different bells and whistles and things that they can and can't do. But to be able to say this is what we need, this is how we can access it and being given that license to be able to just run with it. You know, I've seen our GIS. People develop dashboards which are just mind-blowing when you can customize those and allow them to happen.

Deb Heiser: 27:04

We're doing more and more of that so that the data is more digestible, easy to access. We have a housing dashboard on our website that shows all the units that have been built how many parking stalls, how many EV charging stations, what year were they built, what is the bedroom count units and you think about that ability. You know that was customized and this is the same thing that they're doing is to be able to say this is what we need, this is what we want to use it for. I think there is some elegance to that. Yeah.

Richard McCoy: 27:37

We're not that For a smart city. I'll be happy when all of my lift stations and other infrastructure, my parks, buildings and everything are connected by fiber. That that will be a really good start for me. We're working on that.

Marc Culver: 27:50

We're not quite there yet, but well, yeah, and I think that's a. It's a really valid point. You know um, you know, smart city means different things to different people and to different agencies and things like that. And to your point, I mean it at some point. It's just a matter of starting small you know, just making those connections, having having that uh data connection to your, to all of your facilities and and and so, honestly, it starts with throwing some conduit in the ground when you're doing street reconstructions. Yep, yep, yep.

Richard McCoy: 28:22

Conduit is cheap.

Marc Culver: 28:23

Yeah, yeah, and then you blow fiber through there at some point, yep. Yeah, it's a lot cheaper than plowing it through later, for sure.

Deb Heiser: 28:31

Yeah, but it comes down to Richard, it's like you said, you'll be happy, it's smart cities and resources is really the challenge. Yeah, you know, I, I've been telling I had been telling when we were doing AV and connected vehicles, connected infrastructure. So you know, doing the connected vehicles, yeah, um, I, when I was at up on a, I was just on a panel and we were talking about it and they're like, well, it's just really easy, you just have to put the controller in. But I said, but you don't understand, I've got signal controllers that are 30 years old and they won't be replaced again for 30 years. And looking at the resource part of that, sometimes that's the challenge, that's the barrier. But the basics are important. Getting fiber connected, skata, you know. Having an asset management, you know, whatever it's a spreadsheet or whatever it is getting, those are, those are smart city things too yeah, you know, and, and those are, those are things that you need to really move up to the next level.

Marc Culver: 29:32

Yeah, I mean the smart cities, basic gis as we.

Richard McCoy: 29:35

We know it is the thin end of the wedge. Yeah, I mean I I mean I truly would love to have flow monitors in strategic locations in my sanitary sewers, all connected up to live feedback, so we can monitor what goes on in a storm event. We can monitor what goes on at different times of days. To me that would be sensational. Yep, not there yet, right?

Deb Heiser: 29:56

Well, and what we've been talking about? So we have our twos. Not there yet, right? Well, and what we've been talking about? So we have our twos. So when we're doing our construction, we will have a GPS point where the services are connected to the water main.

Richard McCoy: 30:09

We'll collect it before it gets covered, it gets covered.

Deb Heiser: 30:11

We'll get the box as well, and that'll be part of our data gathering. But we just had this aha moment with the lead service lines. You know why don't we take a picture too? You know, because it's that that need to be able to have a documented what's the, what's the city side, what's the resident side. It's open. So now we're starting to collect. We just we were just talking about this last two months, so just building on you never have enough data yeah, and how do you access this?

Deb Heiser: 30:41

how do you? Actually we're getting a gopro, if you can imagine. We're getting a gopro camera to be able to inspect manholes and not have to go into them now the question is what will your staff do with the gopro? Service lines but yeah, or service but yeah. Those are some of the things my staff are coming to me with and saying hey can we do? This. It would be so much easier because the dog house is being able to get down there having a light on it. You don't have to do confined entry.

Richard McCoy: 31:09

Make sure you get the cover that protects you. Don't drop it.

Deb Heiser: 31:15

Right, they are waterproof.

Marc Culver: 31:21

Cool. Well, I think I heard another segue in there, because you mentioned that. You know it's a matter of resources, and when we were downstairs waiting for Richard to show up, you quoted one of my other guests, and what was the quote?

Deb Heiser: 31:37

The quote again. This is Sean Kershaw, from the St Paul Public Works director, and it's just so true. We have amazing staff. So, again, we've got really good at it's not an engineering problem, it's a resource problem. You know, when you look at the infrastructure that's out there and what I was sharing with Mark before we, before we came up, currently, right now, the city of St Louis Park is having conversations with our city council regarding capital planning and how we approach, and our approach for the last 20 years because in 2004 was when we first started doing our pavement management program has been to let the pavement condition drive and really, when the road needs to be rebuilt, then we'll look at everything underneath and make determination if things need to be rebuilt.

Deb Heiser: 32:23

Looking at water, main breaks, breaks, all of the above. We had a. We had, um a eye-opening experience in 2022 two years ago, um, a failure of our water main that got into the sanitary sewer and affected 55 homes, and we really started asking how should? Should we be doing this differently? Should we be looking at this differently? How can we be doing this differently? Should we be looking at this differently? How can we do this differently? So, in the course of the last year we've completed a HDR. I shouldn't do plugs. Should I do plugs Anyway?

Marc Culver: 32:46

HDR assisted us A consultant, a consultant assisted us. We can replace that with Baltimore.

Deb Heiser: 32:54

Put together a utility risk assessment, just taking a look at our water and our sanitary sewer system, first and foremost to look at likelihood of failure, looking at the age of the pipes, looking at water main break history, looking at pipe materials and then the consequence of failure, which is who does it serve? You know, is it a large main, is it? You know the size, all of those things, and then putting together that risk number the higher the number, the higher the risk and then using that. So we're going to be presenting this to the city council in early May the report's done and just talking about how that could be a driving factor. So not just pavements, looking at if we have a high risk water main, you know, prioritizing that, adding to that and having some additional criteria being placed into our capital planning for streets it could be.

Deb Heiser: 33:50

You know, we've been kind of just thinking about water main, sanitary sewer, is there flooding? Pavement condition? You know, is there safety? Safety would be a big one. Race equity, you know there. Is there safety, um, safety, big one race equity. You know, building different criteria and then developing a new capital plan so tell me how.

Richard McCoy: 34:07

What's the average age of your underground utilities in saint louisville?

Deb Heiser: 34:11

oh so the majority, 70 percent of our of our water main was installed in the 50s and the 50s, 60, 60s, the boom right after the war. So I mean, when you look at the numbers for sanitary and water, we were a post-war, post-world War II I've got to make sure I'm telling which one and we were everywhere, houses, everywhere, lots of growth, and there's that growth. And then we've been really living in this space of growth and there's that growth. And then we've been really living in this space of dividends. It's new, it's only 50 years old.

Marc Culver: 34:46

Hey everyone, I just want to take a quick moment to thank our sponsor, Bolton Mink, who is producing and editing our podcasts.

Bolton & Menk: 34:54

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Deb Heiser: 35:16

And so our message to the council is that you know, first and foremost, we have this risk. You know, the more breaks you have, there's a logarithmic scale. You know one break and it'll start happening sooner and sooner and closer and closer together. But we also have this lifecycle conversation. So you know, we have a balloon payment coming, you know, and how do you flatten that curve? How do you work through that? So those are the two things that we're gonna be talking to the council about. Sanitary sewer is important, but there's with with lining, and you guys can help me out with this. When you, when you have a vitrified clay pipe and it's in good shape, it's still flowing, it's it's, you know, it doesn't have any offsets, it's not cracked, cracked you can line it and you can help with flattening that curve. You know, I've heard 50 years. You can add to a pipe, but is that just an estimate? You know, whatever the case may be.

Marc Culver: 36:07

So we've been talking about that, and that's part of the problem with some of these newer technologies is they're they've only been around for 20 years, yeah, so how are we supposed to know if they're going to be 40, 50, 60, 70, 60, 70-year-olds?

Richard McCoy: 36:19

It's like the LED lights right, they tell us they're going to last 100 and something thousand hours, but half of them are already starting to go. Purple Valid point. What's going?

Marc Culver: 36:27

on with that Purple. We have purple lights now Purple lights. I think that was intentional for Prince.

Deb Heiser: 36:43

So the reality is, looking at that, or if you're going to choose to a high replace, a high risk water main center is right, there might as well do it too, you know. But but at the core is, once we get that idea that that mapping out, you got to find the money and that's not going to happen overnight. You know utility rates have to be set, you know. And bringing that through, um, you know, is it, is it a? I always, I always think the same thing as the mama bear, the papa bear and the baby bear. You know you've got you replace everything. You keep on doing what you've been doing. You got to find that middle ground. That's just right. Um, but that's the. That's the journey we're going to be taking in st louis park over the next year that's.

Richard McCoy: 37:12

That's interesting. I mean, my most of my underground infrastructure was post-World War I.

Deb Heiser: 37:18

Wow.

Richard McCoy: 37:19

Some of it is experience. We'll be enjoying its centenary coming up here very shortly. Wow Happy birthday. Yeah, a lot of the water mains are only four inch.

Deb Heiser: 37:29

Oof-da.

Richard McCoy: 37:31

So it doesn't make sense to me to be pandering around with that stuff. The old clay tile sanitary sewer was put in by WPA during the day and if you send a camera down it it wiggles everywhere. So that's not the sort of thing I would bother trying to line. So for me, my underground assets are what's driving my program. Yeah, so we get out there. We're 20 years into it.

Richard McCoy: 38:02

you know, 20 years into what should be about a 50 year program. So so far we're holding the line. We haven't sent the city uh broker anything like that, but, um, yeah, working our way through that with all the other fun stuff that that happens on the side.

Marc Culver: 38:19

So yeah, and we're not. We're not alone. I mean, you mentioned, you know, you kind of had probably a smaller world war one boom, but certainly a very large. You know that's not called the baby boomer generation for nothing, you know, but a very large building boom after world war two, building boom after World War II, and a lot of communities across the United States are in that situation. And so we are at a really critical time for our infrastructure, where infrastructure is failing and if you don't have some sort of comprehensive plan to address it, you're in pure reaction mode and then you're just going to have all of these catastrophes.

Deb Heiser: 39:03

Really and I will say one one. One thing that we did find out is that, um, we have seven miles of water main in our cip between last year and this year replacement, and when we've got the risk, those are all high risk for the most part they, they, you know this. This whole exercise, the decision trees we've been doing have been successful. Um, you know, using using the break data and everything else as being a a way to make those decisions. But it's just, you know we may not get at other ones and but yeah, it just was. It's. It's been really interesting. I've learned a lot about our infrastructure.

Marc Culver: 39:44

Yeah, um, well, you know. Just getting back to sean kershaw, you know he's in saint paul and and they're, they're a little worse because you know they're, they had a boom in in the early 1900s, you know. So they're 10, 20 years ahead of you, um, on a lot of their infrastructure and have a lot of other, a lot of issues and they're dealing you must. Are you dealing with a lot of led service?

Richard McCoy: 40:07

I think we touched on this in the last one, but you're not dealing with no, I think we've got one led service okay, you had said you you'd had a really great inventory, if I remember, yeah we replaced our water meters in 2019, and we had the thought to collect that data as they were putting in the new water meter. Yeah, so we have that.

Marc Culver: 40:24

Yeah, St Paul, Minneapolis not as lucky. So you know. Sean talked a little bit about St Paul. Water actually is not a part of St Paul Public Works, it's a separate agency. The utility is. It's a separate agency, the utility is. But that was one of the things we touched on. But touch more about their new street rehabilitation program funded by a new sales tax and some things like that. But did you guys have any other takeaways from Mr Kershaw? He's a really interesting individual.

Deb Heiser: 40:55

Okay, again I think I've talked about this before I think it is so important that you get out and you shadow, yeah and um, as a leader as a leader you know to really go out, shadow, learn, learn what your staff's you know, learn what the challenges are, and I thought it was great that he has a cdl and um.

Deb Heiser: 41:18

I found that fascinating and just that you know it. You know, in st louis park we we've encouraged other departments to shadow even other departments because you, you know, I've gone out with the police department just to see what it takes to do and if you ever sat with a cop writing a ticket for, uh, running a stop sign, it takes 20 minutes and so when you, when you look at that process and that you know the time, and meanwhile there's five other people, or during that 20 minutes there there's 100 other people blowing the stop sign, and you know just kind of it's. It's fascinating to be able to do that and we ride along with the fire department responding to calls, but then you can talk about what you have in common. And again, it's getting back to the North Carolina rally People getting to know what is important to engineering, getting to know what's important for public works, getting to know what's important for fire, police, finance, planning, whatever the case may be. But that's what I thought. I reflected on that quite a bit.

Richard McCoy: 42:22

That's interesting because when I was an undergraduate, doing internships at different cities, I went to a rural shire, shire, a shire.

Deb Heiser: 42:34

Lots of shires Were there. Serfs in the shire there weren't.

Richard McCoy: 42:38

So, yeah, it was a four-hour drive west of Sydney and you know I was fairly green at that time. As you could imagine. My job was to construct roads. Okay, so each and this was a pretty cool local government unit because they had their own construction equipment. And for a young engineer still going through the course to see all these graders and scrapers and bulldozers, ooh, this is fun. Well, the guys encouraged me to get into the machines and try doing what they do. Yeah, and it gives you a really good insight at how good those guys are. Yep, because this was back in the day where you didn't have the joystick or anything. You had, you know, 10 handles in that grader to adjust that blade and all the rest. And you're doing, you know, doing about a mile at a time and you're giving them five points across the formation and they go through there and you re-survey and dang. You guys are good. So it's just fascinating to have that experience. And then you know you don't have unrealistic expectations of the guys, the operators, because you know how challenging it is to get that stuff nuts on, yeah yeah, and I want to be invited to his backyard yes, yes, I think we're all going to have to what oh um sean has this

Richard McCoy: 44:01

um concert.

Deb Heiser: 44:02

Yeah, that sounded real cool I was like how do I get invited to that, sean, if you're listening?

Marc Culver: 44:09

I'm struggling with the name of it now, but it's like Oak, yes, the Old Oak Opera or something like that.

Deb Heiser: 44:18

Yes, that sounds right.

Marc Culver: 44:23

But I'm just saying Grand Oak Opera, I think, is what they call it. But yes, that sounds really cool and I look forward to trying that. I believe his schedule for the summer is up on that website, so check it out. If you're in Minnesota, check it out or come visit us.

Marc Culver: 44:40

Yeah, sean is a really, really interesting guy and, you know, I think the more, one of the more interesting things is is, you know, he was a planner, uh, way back in the day, and then um did some work with um, some non-profits and some things like that, and he said he'd always been you know this, this public works nerd, um, and and finally got this job and I think he's you know, he's he really has a passion for it, which I think is great, so I'm glad he's my public works director in St Paul. So, moving on to the last episode we'll talk about today, and that is Chris Evers talked about innovative technology and pavement management. I talked about innovative technology and pavement management and I found Chris via the APWA Top 10 Public Works Leaders for 2023. He was only my second one out of 10. I'm not doing real well on a batting average on that one, but Chris is a pretty funny guy, pretty nice guy and one of the rare private sector honorees for that. But uh, some interesting things that he talked about.

Deb Heiser: 45:53

Um, I am fascinated by this clear coating for the smog yeah, smog eating roads smogging titanium oxide and I was.

Deb Heiser: 46:05

I was thinking to myself, you know, and I was I, you know. Again, we're all talking about greenhouse gas emissions. We're all talking about you know that's one of the. We have a climate action plan. St louis park is probably one of the aggressive, most aggressive climate plans in the state and carbon neutral by 2040. And you look at you know how long does it last, you know, especially in winter. You know that's for those of you listening, if you live in Minnesota, first and foremost, you will always hear but will it work here? And then you know. Then I thought what if we coded cars and something like this? You know the, the, the and I? I started just going down this rabbit hole with that, but I was.

Marc Culver: 46:49

I was pretty fascinated. Yeah, I I. I mean I'm a little skeptical. You know I did some reading on it, but it was all their literature. I haven't found any third party literature on it yet, but I haven't dug too hard on it either, admittedly. But I mean it's a really interesting premise, like you said, as we look to try to counter these emissions or capture them or get rid of them. Um, yeah, and, and you know, it's combined with their rejuvenation product, um, and in which, which is a clear coat uh product that they spray on. It's like a translucent fog seal. Um, woodbury has used it, it's called reclamite, I mean, I'm sure, a couple other communities.

Deb Heiser: 47:32

Yeah, Golden Valley does as well. Golden Valley Center, yeah.

Marc Culver: 47:36

And apparently Edina has a stretch of road that has this smog-eating road treatment on it too. So it was a Min Road test project. I don't know what road it was, I don't know what kind of road it was yeah, so I'm I know I should have done that before this episode, um, but got to figure out what, what road that is, and uh, I don't know, go measure the emissions or something I don't know.

Deb Heiser: 48:05

But it reminded me that um 35w. So when the, when the bridge, when the bridge was rebuilt, yeah, they put in 30 foot tall pollution sucking sculptures, so that if you, you know there's, there's these yeah, that look like the river yeah, and those, those are supposedly in my understanding is they're they're actually supposed to be cleaning the air.

Deb Heiser: 48:25

how, um, and I'm just I'm, I'm looking it up right now, but besides mimicking the look of the Mississippi River as a pass-through Minneapolis, the new sculptures are made from a type of concrete that is photocatalic, meaning it will be able to convert gases like carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides and other sulfur dioxide to higher oxidized states, making them less damaging in the environment. Another benefit of the new concrete mixture is that it never looks old, as it maintains a white, oxidized color in its outer skin.

Marc Culver: 48:53

Say that word again Photocatalic, photocatalic, that was our nerd word of the day for that episode.

Deb Heiser: 48:58

Yeah, it was.

Marc Culver: 48:59

So this whole titanium oxide thing uses this photocatalic process. So it's the sun hitting this chemical or what have you um this surface and triggering this chemical reaction, that that does that, and that's that's really interesting. So, um, it would be interesting to hear and that's one of those things it's like it's really difficult to how do you measure this?

Deb Heiser: 49:25

how do you measure any of this? Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's just like the flow meters or whatever. How do you measure any of this? And the white papers are so important? Yeah, but you know, even like I was talking about, we have these carb, we have these filters for getting um phosphorus out, but you know how, how do you measure how much? You know, you don't, I don't, I can't report out, it's's just the expected, you know.

Richard McCoy: 49:47

Get out there now and start measuring your inflow.

Deb Heiser: 49:51

Right when I get back to the office.

Richard McCoy: 49:52

I'm going to go yeah.

Deb Heiser: 49:54

Go hang out skate park.

Richard McCoy: 49:55

There you go. I could see you doing that.

Marc Culver: 50:00

So I mean it was really it'll be interesting to watch that to see how many other communities um are, you know, use that and if there are some you know third-party studies or something on that to to try to measure the, the effectiveness and and and such on that. And he also mentioned that there was some pavement temperature um benefits to it and things like that as well. So very interesting.

Deb Heiser: 50:28

Yeah, I mean, the whole urban heat island is something else, and trees are important for that to shade pavements, but if this is something else that could do that.

Marc Culver: 50:41

All right. Well, those were the four episodes I was going to. I thought I'd mentioned a couple of um for our conversation today but, and one of those was going to be pfas. There you know the, the epa, um did set some new limits and standards for um, these pfas chemicals. But I'm just going to simply commit to bringing in an expert on on PFAS and and talk about that in a future episode. But I did want to ask, richard, like when you know you have a brand new award, nationally award-winning water treatment plant, we'll add sound effects to that for that Some trumpet sounds or something excellent. My producer bows his head. Come on um, did we? Uh, did you? Did you talk about that at all?

Richard McCoy: 51:36

because at the time, you know, you got to remember that the planning for this was so many years ago yeah, and you got to also remember that the way they've changed the, the limits for pfas, it's orders of magnitude different yes, I mean now it's.

Marc Culver: 51:52

It's basically if you detect it you have to treat it.

Richard McCoy: 51:55

So, no, we didn't. So we're we're just um kind of looking around at the moment to to see well, you know, what can we do about this? Yeah, I mean, um, it's a pretty low limit and some of my wells are right on the cusp, so we just got to be prepared, yeah, and uh, investigate different ways of uh, of taking this on to make sure that we remain in compliance yeah, there are a lot of communities that are in a similar situation as you.

Marc Culver: 52:26

You, you know they're on the cusp, you know part of the issue is that these chemicals are leaching through our aquifers and groundwater systems and that and so it's moving. It's moving through the system.

Richard McCoy: 52:40

Well, it is. The thing that I'm kind of a bit concerned about is where are we at in that leeching through the system? Are we at the start of it? Are we in the middle of it? Are we at the end of it? Right, because you know, by bringing this rule down, you're committing a lot of agencies to spending a lot of money, not only for capital costs but for maintenance costs, operation costs, and if we're going to see a decline in that number, you know, in a couple of years, well, what's the sense of that?

Richard McCoy: 53:15

Yeah, the other thing that annoys the blazes out of me is and I've spoken to people in the department of health about this is you know what is the ratio of the PFAS intake that an average person gets from their chip packets and their cosmetics and things like that, versus the the intake they get from their water? Well, before they changed the, the standard, it was something like 25 to 1. So what is it now like 500 to 1? I just doesn't make sense to me. We, we should be going after the bigger number, yeah.

Marc Culver: 53:48

And I know Minnesota has made some efforts to remove PFAS from the industry, the sources of PFAS, and I'm not sure where we are in that because I know it was staged.

Richard McCoy: 54:05

I don't know if they're done with it. There's still some deadlines coming up in 2025, I think yeah.

Marc Culver: 54:11

But it's a valid point and I know there's some information out there about holding these manufacturers responsible. 3m had a big settlement with the state of Minnesota about that, but holding other manufacturers responsible, uh for it. But how much money are we going to need if every water treatment plant out there is going to need a reverse osmosis system or granulated carbon or right, whatever the yeah, I mean there there are, uh, there's some other foam thing ix.

Marc Culver: 54:44

Uh yeah, that I was reading. I mean you're going to need very expensive treatment procedures at every water treatment plant at some point, given these levels.

Richard McCoy: 54:56

Or at the wellheads.

Marc Culver: 54:57

Yeah. So anyway, something to keep an eye on and, like I said, I will bring an expert on that. I just wanted to also kind of touch on and we're getting close to the end of the episode here but the the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in March in Baltimore and you know, obviously that was it was very unfortunate. We were, I mean, the six. You know they lost six people at least from that and they were maintenance workers on the bridge. But they were able to close their bridge to the public before it collapsed, which is great. But you know, obviously it brings back a memory of the 35W bridge collapsing here in Minnesota, in Minneapolis, in 2007. And you know just kind of uh memories of that, I mean just how uh shocking that was.

Deb Heiser: 55:53

I mean you were starting to say where, where you were at a planning commission, yeah, so the it was a Wednesday and um, uh, we had, we were at a planning commission meeting and and one of our, one of our planning commissioners, um, worked for MnDOT emergency operations. Oh, and his phone. You know to the point where, when I so I wasn't always up front we usually sat in the audience and I pulled him aside and said, hey, the bridge collapsed, the 35W bridge collapsed, and he's like what you know, and I just remember that. But for those of you, I mean, this is a bridge that I drive over all the time. This bridge was one that I drive over all the time.

Deb Heiser: 56:39

I worked in Roosevelt at the time and live in South Minneapolis and so, depending on what mood I was in, I would at times take the 35W bridge home and it collapsed. You know rush hour and you look at it and it was just, it was bridges aren't supposed to fall. No, we know, in the United States, in a nation that you know bridges aren't supposed to fall, in a nation that you know bridges aren't supposed to fall, and you know it drew the attention to our infrastructure, the resources. We've been talking about this, the infrastructure, the grades. We've been trying to tell that story, you know, with the make the grade and everything else, the state of the grade for the nation's infrastructure.

Deb Heiser: 57:24

But the unfortunate thing is that here we are again and, granted, this one got hit, but it was a different circumstance, but there was so much energy at that time when the 35-by-W bridge collapsed, about putting more money into bridges. I don't think that really got to where it needed to go. Right right, you know what I mean.

Marc Culver: 57:50

You know, in Minnesota, I think it definitely had an impact on our ability to replace bridges.

Deb Heiser: 57:57

Yes, it did. Okay, there was definitely commitment.

Marc Culver: 58:00

There was, you know, there was actually, you know, quite the political story, and it's, it's part of political lore now in minnesota. Uh, the following year, um democratic, democratic, um house, senate, republic, republican senate and a republican governor, and they were able to pass a, a transportation bill that included the first gas tax increase in minnesota since 1988. So it had been almost 20 years.

Marc Culver: 58:27

And the governor vetoed it and six Republicans went against their party and voted to override the veto. And I mean, like I said, it's part of political lore now in Minnesota, but you know, that got done and, as a result, we had an eight and a half cent increase in our gas tax and most of that was, you know, went to pay off bonds to replace bridges and we had a surge of bridges that that were replaced. Now we're still, I think, chasing, you know, deficient bridges, structurally deficient bridges. I think the number of fracture critical bridges is very, very low right now, but we're still chasing that. You know.

Marc Culver: 59:16

According to one website I was looking at here, at least in 2023, 4% of the bridges in Minnesota were in a poor condition. But that's. I mean, the US average is 6.8% and there are some states where 20, west Virginia, 20% of the bridges are in poor condition. That's just scary to me. Iowa, which I do a lot of driving. In Iowa, 19% of the bridges are in poor condition. So there's still a lot of work to do there across our country. And you know, and we also have to recognize that the federal government classifies a bridge as any, like a culvert. That's over what? 10 feet in length.

Deb Heiser: 59:56

What is it?

Marc Culver: 59:57

Well, I, mean, yeah, it's a bridge.

Deb Heiser: 1:00:00

I think it's 10 feet. So, for perfect example, there's a culvert in Roseville I think has two bridges.

Marc Culver: 1:00:06

They're both culverts, yep, and they're both a, you know, a pipe underneath the road yeah yeah, and so you know, if those fail, the risk to the public is not huge, you know, and so most of iowa's are probably something like that. You know they've got they definitely have a lot of river crossings.

Deb Heiser: 1:00:27

When something like that happens, you realize how many times you actually are on a bridge, right? I mean usually when you're driving you're paying attention to the traffic and everything else. But now that I commute from Minneapolis to the West Metro, that whole section of 394 coming off of 94 is all elevated bridges.

Deb Heiser: 1:00:51

And it just just thinking about that yeah and how critical you know you don't miss it till it's gone. Right, you know it, it's. It's just like all of what we do we make normal happen. You don't notice these things until they're not working or they're not there.

Marc Culver: 1:01:05

Well, that you know. That's a really good point because, you know, going back to this bal, this Baltimore Harbor bridge, the Francis Scott Key bridge, it collapses in a major Harbor. There was a ship that was. There were ships out there that are still waiting, like they showed up. There was one that just went through yesterday that had been waiting for a month after, you know, until they cleared enough of the channel for that a bridge, a boat that size could get through. And and then, not to mention the impact to the transportation side of it too, you know, it was the only crossing of that Harbor and so now all that traffic's got to go around the other side.

Marc Culver: 1:01:40

Like you said, you, you, you don't know what you have, you don't miss it. You don't even think of the impact it's going to have if it's not there until it is gone. Um, so yeah, it just gets. I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a constant message that that we have, it's, it's something. As public works professionals, we deal with every day this whole concept of balancing the needs with the resources that we have, and we're always it does. It seems like we're always asking for more money. We're never satisfied. We get money and the next year we're asking for more money. But the fact of the matter is is, you know, it gets back to that conversation of of our infrastructure is at that 50, 60, 70 year old level and it's just getting to that critical point of we've got so much more to replace. Then we have the priority of funding.

Deb Heiser: 1:02:31

Well and in at times, and I don't, I don't want to be Debbie Downer.

Deb Heiser: 1:02:35

You know, it only I get to use that. But from from my perspective, every time I start thinking about this and you know, and again, again, working I've told you what I'm, this journey that we're going to be going on with our, with our cip, I have to sit back and say you know what? It just takes time, it took it. It in recognizing, looking back, how much we have done and looking forward, saying you know, 10 years from now I'll be able to say that that's done or this is done.

Deb Heiser: 1:03:04

It's like you said, the 20 years years, the 50 years.

Richard McCoy: 1:03:06

Looking at the map we have, all the roads we've done, we've shaded in a light gray, and the amount of city that we've covered already very satisfying. Yeah, very satisfying.

Deb Heiser: 1:03:17

And then even to the point where you know there has to be a limited amount of resource. There has to be that balance. But making sure you have the funding moving forward is so critical and that's what the sales tax that St Paul did. We've got a council that really believes in funding infrastructure and working through that. But we also have to reflect that you can't rip up every road in the city or you can't replace it.

Marc Culver: 1:03:43

It's not at the same time.

Deb Heiser: 1:03:44

Well, you can eventually, but people still have to get around. Some people think you do't replace it. Well, it's not at the same time.

Richard McCoy: 1:03:48

It's not at the same time. Well, you can eventually, but I mean, people still have to get around. Some people think you do, I know, I know.

Deb Heiser: 1:03:50

And we do really plan. I mean and I know that it may seem like we don't, but you know Hennepin County, if they're doing something, we're not going to do a parallel route you know and make sure that the clear detours are going to be there, and that's another part. And then you know people, every one of these projects affect not only the driving public but they affect the businesses, the residents. On that, and having a staff person, a field person, making sure it's being done appropriately, right and according to the way it was supposed to be designed, you know you need twice the amount of staff doing twice the amount of work and you know that those are, those are all part of this math problem, this resource that's why you say resource.

Deb Heiser: 1:04:36

It's not necessarily always just money. Um construction fatigue is what we call it.

Marc Culver: 1:04:41

Construction fatigue yeah well, we're engineers, we don't, we're not allowed to have construction fatigue. Um, but uh, hey, well, well, I think that, um, that'll do it for for today. Um, thanks for for another great unplugged episode do you have anything else you want to add?

Deb Heiser: 1:05:02

anything that came to mind, richard no, all All right.

Marc Culver: 1:05:07

Well, thank you. This is a good smaller group. I know Michael Thompson and Mark Ray. Neither one of those could join us today, but our next unplugged episode we'll have a couple more people, whoever those are, but in the meantime, look for some great episodes. I teased a couple about EAB and I'm going to find somebody to talk about PFAS and try to get some other professionals on here to talk about some nerdy things. So, thank you Deb, thank you Mark, thank you Richard, thanks Mark. We will see you guys again. And one last thing before we go if you have enjoyed this episode and the podcast in general, just help us spread the word Social media, linkedin, what have you? Just tell your friends, and tell your enemies too. That's good. That works for me too. Thanks, everybody Nerds out.