Much of Shorewood's infrastructure is in the “100 year-old” category. We've been quite frugal over its maintenance, primarily because it's costly and shows no immediate financial pay-back.
Another reason for limiting our expenditures along these lines is that our politicians have usually promised minimum or no tax increases. We've also relied on the thinking that “if it ain't broke, don't fix it.”
Shorewood, as many communities, must face up to the fact that the days of “expensive fixing'” have arrived. The condition of our streets, for one thing are beginning to indicate that.
From a political stand point, we're pretty lucky. We've begun to accept that our energy resources are limited and that any venture aimed at reducing these costs or producing energy or energy materials is politically acceptable.
As we turn to an organized approach to upgrading our infrastructure, we need to take both energy saving and and energy producing factors into account. We need to include programs that take advantage of solar and wind opportunities for producing energy in all of our redevelopment projects.
Geo-thermal heat needs to be included in our project designs as well. We need to encourage more sophisticated “pay-back” approaches in our development processes.
Even self-contained sewer systems that digest the waste content and in the process purify the water and create sources of usable gases are possibilities to be explored.
Shorewood's redevelopment should prefer and include new overall approaches to renewing our infrastructure over piecemeal methods. We should find ways to engage in both research and development of 21st century community infrastructure projects.
Do our officials have the time to begin thinking beyond day-to-day pot-hole repairing and sewer mending-type of projects? Do we have the motivation and the courage to take action along these broader lines?
