COUNTY SYSTEMS RATED C+ ENGINEERS STUDY INFRASTRUCTURE.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

Los Angeles County earned a C-plus grade for its poor infrastructure and needs to spend about $4 billion a year to repair or replace its aging roads, bridges, dams, parks and other public works, an engineering association said Wednesday.

``Degrading L.A.,'' the first report on the county's infrastructure, was prepared by the Los Angeles section of the American Society of Civil Engineers and assessed the state of 11 systems.

The infrastructure, most of which was built 50 to 100 years ago, has outlived its useful life and is deteriorating as public works expenditures have dropped from 20 percent of statewide spending in the 1960s to just 2 percent to 3 percent today.

``Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a bipartisan commitment to infrastructure in California under Govs. Pat Brown and Ronald Reagan,'' Assemblyman Keith Richmond, R-Granada Hills, said at a conference at the University of Southern California.

``It really was known as the Golden State. Clearly, over the last couple of decades we have not had a commitment to infrastructure in the state of California. The California Transportation Committee did a study a couple of years ago that found the needed investments for roads and highways alone was $110 billion.''

In response, Richmond said, the Legislature passed a bill he sponsored last year that will give voters the opportunity in March 2004 to dedicate 1 percent of the state's general fund to infrastructure beginning in 2006-07. The total would rise one-third-percent annually until it reached 3 percent a year in 2013-14.

By 2026, it would generate $9 billion to $10 billion a year and in the third decade it would raise a total of $200 billion to $300 billion.

The report, which follows a recent one in Orange County giving its infrastructure an overall grade of C and a federal report giving the nation a D-plus, found that half of the roads in Los Angeles County and its 88 cities are in poor condition.

Analyzing 142 arterial and 80 freeway congestion monitoring stations, the report gave freeway congestion a D grade and arterial congestion a C-minus. The report said the county needs about $1.3 billion a year to maintain the roads.

The report found that many of the county's water lines were constructed in the 1920s and 1930s. Water line breaks caused by aging pipes are a common occurrence in many communities and frequently exacerbate the already poor condition of roads.

Most sewage lines were constructed 50 to 100 years ago to serve a much smaller population. These aging sewers are often clogged, leading to sewer main failures, often resulting in sewage spills and beach closures, costing millions of dollars in economic and environmental damage.

``The worst categories were urban runoff, transportation and streets and highways,'' said Harvey R. Gogas, president of the Los Angeles section of the civil engineers society. ``Urban runoff is an area where nobody has really given it much attention up until the past few years.''

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SOURCE: American Society of Civil Engineers