Engineers: Texas Infrastructure Threatened by Funding Shortfall

The biggest threat to the public infrastructure in Texas is a lack of sustainable funding, the Texas Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers said last week in its 2012 report card.
Texans fail to see as long-term investments the money spent on maintaining roads, repairing the state's 7,000 dams, and ensuring an  adequate water supply, said Crespin Guzman, executive director of the Texas group.
"We can either invest in our future now, or pay even more later if we fail to meet these obvious needs," he said at a news conference in Fort Worth. "We cannot continue to build things and not fund or maintain them."
Guzman said the state will need $212 billion of new water supply, distribution, and treatment facilities over the next 50 years to meet the demands of a growing population.
"If a major drought occurs in Texas in 2060, approximately 41% of municipal demand for water could not be satisfied by current water sources," he said.