Promoting our technical expertise Ana Nixon, Public Information Officer, City of Grandview, Missouri; Dennis Randolph, P.E., Director of Public Works, City of Grandview, Missouri, and member, APWA Engineering and Technology Committee
ublic works professionals are too modest. Our modesty has led us to not effectively promote the work we do and the part we play in making the world a better place to live. Since we do not promote our work, many people do not know much about what we do. Often, the picture we present to the public is “the people who cover roads with orange barrels or cones, or the ones we blame when the toilet backs up in our basement.” While the public works profession, led by APWA, has done much in educating about the need for orange barrels and other common public works tasks that are taken for granted, there is still much to learn. While APWA has taken the lead for us, the task of educating people about public works is so big, it takes every public works professional’s time and effort to get the job done. There are an estimated 313,326,687 people in the United Statesi. Besides knowing little about the broad range of work that public works professionals engage in, few of these people have any idea of the size of the job we do. However, when they wake up in the morning, they expect to have water available to brush their teeth and to flush the toilet. Further, when they walk out their front door, they expect to use a street or sidewalk to head out on their business for the day. Yet, while we are assailed regularly about potholes and other obvious failures in the facilities that we are responsible for, most people are oblivious to the span of our work. Perhaps too often, public works
26 APWA Reporter
June 2012
Size of the Public Works Job in the U.S.
employees have been victims of negative stereotyping; who hasn’t wondered, when driving by a public works crew fixing a road or a water line, why most of the workers just watch while one or two do all the work? It is important to note that public works employees do make sure the work of keeping a community running smoothly is done, and done well.
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Over 1 million miles of water main (US EPA) Over 4 million miles of streets and roads (ARTBA)
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Over 1.2 million miles of sanitary sewers (US EPA)
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Over 75,000 dams (National Inventory of Dams)
politicians, or “media experts” step in to be the face of the problem or question. Thus, because we do our jobs quietly and efficiently, people rarely recognize the importance of our work to the social and economic well-being of our country and society in general.
The general public tends to forget or doesn’t understand that public works professionals not only protect and enhance the human environment, but also present investments for the people who create them and for future generations. For example, public works professionals are responsible for the proper spending of large amounts of public and private money. In 2008, state and local governments spent $356,000,000,000ii on public works (refer to Table 1).
We need to stress that publicity for publicity’s sake, or simply bragging about everything we do, is not the point of our story—far from it. But the public works industry suffers from a continuing problem of lack of notoriety that makes our jobs far more difficult than they already are.
We manage millions of miles of roads, sewers and water mains, and build and maintain thousands of buildings, dams and airports. But except for those times when we are making a plea for money to repair a critical problem, the public rarely hears from the public works professional. Often, elected officials,
Because people lack knowledge of what or how much we do, we find ourselves in a “negative” competitive position when it comes to gaining funds for our work. A sterling example is the difficulty the U.S. Congress
Table 1 -‐ 2008 Public Works Expenditures Item Total Highways Air transportation Water transport and terminals Sewerage Solid waste management Water supply Mass transit
2008: Total $356,314 $153,515 $21,264 $4,940 $46,679 $23,757 $55,215 $50,944
Millions of Dollars State $108,226 $90,645 $1,758 $1,492 $1,273 $2,439 $354 $10,267
Local $248,087 $62,870 $19,507 $3,448 $45,406 $21,318 $54,860 $40,677
