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Whistles, Pipes and Modern Day Robber Barons

By Joe Consumer

Bob Herbert has a New York Times column today about the sorry state of this country?s infrastructure, a problem that hopefully the President is more willing to tackle especially because of the jobs it could generate.  Herbert tells an interesting story about the pipes under Philadelphia, when (according to then Mayor Ed Rendell), ?58 of our water mains broke, causing all sorts of havoc ? The pipes were old. Some were ancient ... and they were laid shallow, without much protection.  So with any radical changes in temperature, they were susceptible to breaking.  We had a real emergency on our hands.?

In fact, some of those pipes were laid back in the 19^th century - robber barons days.  So it's kind of incredible that they lasted so long.  I guess even the greedy industrialists back in the day didn?t have the gall to do what apparently the company JM Eagle has been doing to cites and water districts since 1996.  According to the company?s former employee, John Hendrix, the company has been:

falsifying test results about the quality of its products. Pipes that should last 50 years are in some cases rupturing in their very first year, according to Mr. Hendrix and some state documents. This can lead to explosions, leaks, fires and other dangers.

[Hendrix said] JM Eagle had been selling substandard plastic pipe since 1996, and that it had subsequently manipulated test results. ?It became apparent to me that this was being done intentionally,? he said in an interview [with the New York Times].

Nevada, Virginia, Delaware, Tennessee and more than 40 water authorities in California have brought suit, saying this could cost each of them many millions of dollars to fix.  And that?s just the beginning. The company claims ?about 60 percent of the nation?s market for new water pipes.?

And for all of you asbestos trivia fans out there, turns out that JM Eagle is a successor to Johns Manville, which went bankrupt in the early 1980s after poisoning countless people with asbestos for decades knowing the medical dangers, covering this up for 45 years. 

Let?s hope this whole mess at least creates some jobs.

Full post as published by ThePopTort on February 16, 2010 (boomark / email).