Alva Review-Courier -

With the latest news that Alva’s water lines in the Southwest quadrant are in dire straits, what other subterranean surprises await?

We’ve all been concerned with the aging infrastructure, of which water lines are only the tip of the iceberg. Sewer and natural gas pipes, and cables – metallic or fiber optic, lie in wait for the unsuspecting excavation. In dealing with projects as diverse as campaign signs to trailer house anchors, the protocol of calling 811 before you dig should always be followed.

How serious can it be? Ask the public works backhoe operator who punctured a fiber optic cable and disabled communications across town, disrupting business, civilian interaction and emergency operations. Or the contractor who hit a 3-foot-wide steel tube in Alabama that carried 1.4 million barrels of gasoline each day to 50 million Americans in a corridor lining the East Coast. That was responsible for an explosion that ensued, loss of life, elevating the price of fuel, roiling the futures market, and increasing importation, all of which led to aftershocks in the economy.

Pipelines abound in Woods County, road crossings marked, streams crossed and prairie covered, carrying crude oil, natural gas and salt water laden with chemicals from fracking operations destined for refineries, the Eastern U.S. or injection wells, respectively.

Reducing truck traffic, accidents and carbon emissions is a goal but, from above, underground utilities paint an interesting mosaic of interconnections critical to the nation’s economy and the ongoing maintenance of that infrastructure as a challenge for the future.