Public Works & Infrastructure Project – Part 3
Needs, Problems, and Opportunities
Needs
The need to have the municipal water project arises from the fact that there is water scarcity in the area. The locals would spend so much money on buying water because they need it for their daily activities. Some vendors would take advantage of desperate people and sell water at extremely hiked prices. Sometimes the vendors did not have enough water to cater to all the people. Also, the water that the vendors provided was not necessarily clean, resulting in several water-borne diseases among those who did not treat the water. Therefore, there was a need to provide clean, affordable water that was safe for drinking. People would not only save the money they used to buy water but also the one spent to treat water-borne diseases.
Problems
The major problem was the availability of funds to carry out the project (Goodman & Hastak, 2015). The cost of buying equipment and paying laborers seemed overwhelming. Finding a suitable piece of land to set up the water pumps was also a challenge. It was not easy to reach the Bureau of Land Management and convince them to provide a piece of land. The approval process was lengthy, and as a result, the sponsors lost a lot of valuable time and almost gave up on the project. However, the BLM eventually agreed to provide the land, and the project was underway.
Opportunities
Despite the challenges, the project would provide massive opportunities for development in the area. Once the problem was water availability was solved, the people could concentrate on other issues without worrying about whether or not they would have water when they return home. Therefore, they could switch their attention to other things, such as the development of education programs and agriculture.
Trade-Offs Between Repair, Renewals, and Replacements, and New Construction
The engineers conducted a life-cycle analysis that revealed that the project would remain functional over a long period (Störmer et al., 2009). They recommended that the pumps should be well-maintained to prevent them from functioning inadequately. They asked the sponsors to set aside funds for the repair, renewal, and replacement of faulty parts of the machine. By doing this, they would ensure that the project continued to serve the locals efficiently for a very long time. Lack of maintenance may result in faulty equipment, which may pose risks to the safety of the individuals it serves (Burn et al., 2003). Also, they issued an “acceptable” level of condition that the pumps should be. This statement meant that the pumps had to meet the specified condition levels, or better. However, they should never go below the recommended levels. If this were to happen, then they should begin the maintenance process immediately.
Methods used for comparing and prioritizing infrastructure alternatives
Before the beginning of any infrastructure program, the people involved make comparisons with other related programs to establish their best pick. This analysis requires correlations between different aspects of the projects to come up with the most suitable one. For this project, some of the methods used for comparison include a simple cost basis plus consideration of other specified engineering factors (Marcelo et al., 2015). Here, they considered the possibility of expanding the project in later years by adding more pumps to serve more people within a short period. They found out that the plan was flexible enough to allow for expansion. After that, they examined the vulnerability of the project to unforeseen problems. Given that such plants may develop problems at any time, they decided to set aside funds to deal with such issues in case they emerge in the future.