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Geotechnical News • March 2013
55
ASFE NEWS
effort to encourage kids to read. In
each pilot, kids’ reading improves
significantly and, more important, the
program-sponsoring engineers have
been featured in newspaper articles
and on TV. OK: So they’re not yet
members of the all-powerful Standing
Committee of the Chinese Communist
Party, which is, at heart, an engineers’
club. But they are making a differ-
ence for the kids and, in the process,
for their community, for themselves,
and for the professions they represent:
The proverbial “just a single step.”
But will it truly help fill the ranks?
Consider this…
In various settings, geoprofessionals
have been asked to raise their hands if
a parent, sibling, other relative, friend,
or trusted advisor encouraged them
– overtly or tacitly – to enter their
profession. Generally, about half or
more respond affirmatively. As such,
those who serve as mentors in the
Engineering Better Readers program
could be encouraging any number of
kids to at least look into the mentors’
professions simply because the kids
admire and respect the mentors. Of
course, being able to read is essential,
too, and that helps society. And who
knows: Maybe if more engineers and
scientists got into the limelight, where
they could share their insights, prefer-
ences, and profound intelligence about
just about everything, we’d have more
youngsters get involved, and not just
those who regard limelight as a threat.
And here’s yet another thought:
President Obama, just as President
Bush before him, has called for more
students to get involved in STEM –
science, technology, engineering, and
math – because, historically, those
who have – your forebears –
really
created this nation. Sure: George
Washington was successful in the
burgeoning nation’s first war, and let’s
give a shout-out, too, to Andrew Jack-
son, Winfield Scott, Ulysses S. Grant,
et al. – but wars do not make a nation
great: They destruct. STEM folks
con
struct. And unless we develop
more STEM folks, our nation will lose
its historic edge, the one that made
us so great. So, how are we going to
do it? By promoting STEM as the
greatest thing since sliced bread, just
as we have – unsuccessfully – for the
past 50 years? Or might we want to
instead take a cue from Engineering
Better Readers: Put the STEM people
– starting with engineers and geopro-
fessionals, if you don’t mind – in the
limelight. After all, Messrs. Presidents,
if engineers and geoprofessionals are
so important, where’s the Engineer of
the Capitol? Where’s the President’s
Engineering Advisory Board? Where’s
the Department of Infrastructure?
Where are the engineers who should
be in the Cabinet?
“They need to get there on their
own,” some might say, because –
when all is said and done – the world
is run by those who show up. Well,
let us submit that, in this case, after
decades of extraordinary accomplish-
ments while working in the shadows,
STEM folks need some help. They
need a national, political leadership
that says, in essence, “We’re going to
make you show up. We’re going to put
you guys in the limelight, for everyone
to see, learn, and appreciate, so young
Americans make the connection: You
really want to be a big wheel in the
USA? Get involved in the geoprofes-
sions; get involved in engineering.”
You deserve that helping hand. More
to the point, those like me who rely on
you for so much need for you to have
it.
ISI Envision checklist available
Become familiar with the sustainabil-
ity aspects of infrastructure-project
design – and help your clients become
familiar with them, too – by using the
new Institute for Sustainable Infra-
structure (ISI) Envision Checklist
available on the ISI website. Use the
checklist as a free-standing assess-
ment tool for comparing sustainability
alternatives, or to prepare for a more
detailed sustainability assessment.
Structured as a series of Yes/No ques-
tions, the checklist is organized into
five categories:
• Quality of life
addresses a project’s
effect on surrounding communi-
ties, from the health and well-being
of individuals to the well-being of
social fabric as a whole.
• Leadership
encourages and rewards
the communication and collabo-
ration effective leaders apply to
produce a sustainable project that
contributes positively to the world
around it.
• Resource allocation
focuses on the
quantity, source, and characteristics
of resources needed to build infra-
structure and keep it running, and
their impact on overall project sus-
tainability.
• Natural world
considers the way in
which a project is located within
natural-world systems – includ-
ing habitats, species, and nonliv-
ing natural systems – and it can
be adjusted to interact with natural
systems in a positive manner, while
reducing negative effects.
• Climate and risk
considers tech-
niques for minimizing emissions
that could contribute to increased
short- and long-term risks, and en-
suring that infrastructure projects
are resilient in terms of their ability
to withstand short-term hazards or
altered long-term future conditions.
Checklist users can determine how
their project’s concepts and designs
are sustainable on a smaller scale and
their potential infrastructure perfor-
mance. ASFE is a charter member of
the ISI.
EPA releases stormwater and
wastewater planning approach
framework
The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) has
issued Integrated
Municipal Stormwater and Wastewa-
ter Planning Approach Framework
to help local governments meet their
Clean Water Act obligations. The
new framework helps EPA regional
offices, states, and local governments
develop voluntary stormwater- and