First thought when we arrived at the Crossness pumping station: Gross.
Second thought: Isn’t this supposed to be an inactive sewage center?
Third thought: Irrelevant, smell’s still there either way.
Once we crossed the barrier into “discontinued sewage center territory,” we were all hit by the “historical aroma” that inspired the above impressions. It got better though, especially once we entered the actual buildings of the pumping station and the smell subsided. Overall the excursion was informative; we were shown a brief slideshow about the station’s history, and the history surrounding the decision to construct it. We covered the great stink, which occurred during a period when the smell emanating from the muddy, sewage-covered banks of the River Thames became so intense that Parliament had to hang lime-soaked curtains in the House of Commons to try to block out the smell. They quickly decided on a sanitation initiative, though it took 7 years to get Crossness up and running after the start of that initiative; must have been an unfortunate waiting period. But it was eventually constructed, and a sewer system was erected thanks to one Joseph Bazalgette. Bazalgette, the chief engineer behind the construction of London’s sewer system, was a focus throughout our tour of Crossness. However, out of all the things we heard about him, I was the most surprised by and impressed with the following realization: After Bazalgette had come up with estimates for how large the sewer tunnels and pipes would have to be in order to deal with London’s sewage output, based on an already conservative estimate of London’s population at the time and of how much sewage that population would create, he decided to construct the pipes with twice the diameter that his estimations had deemed necessary.
Why did this surprise me so much? Well it strikes me as something that would most likely not occur today I guess. The Victorians seemed to uphold a philosophy of “better safe than sorry,” when it came to construction, a philosophy that I completely endorse. They didn’t want to do things half-assed and then have to waste more time and money fixing them later. Our tour guide mentioned that, since the Victorians had a limited knowledge of the different materials that were used in construction, they would often make structures 10 times as strong as they needed to be, just to be on the safe side. So what can we say about Bazalgette’s decision to double his estimates? He made the right call. He made something that worked, something that didn’t require a bunch of costly maintenance and burdensome repairs later on, and something that, well over 100 years later, still works and has been able to accommodate for an increased population and an increased demand on sewage relocation. He figured, as long as he had a job to do, he’d do it right the first time so he wouldn’t have to go back and pay for his mistakes later. What a concept.
Again, why is this impressive? Well it seems to me that we don’t really follow the Victorian philosophy, “better safe than sorry,” these days. It seems like our motto would be something more along the lines of, “better cheap and quick than costly and thorough.” We try to cut every corner, save every dime, and strive for the minimum standard in our projects today. Maybe we’re too competitive, and any little financial edge we can get over our competitors has become super important. Or maybe we’re lazy and have come to expect and accept a crappy job over one that’s well done but might take some planning and resources.
When does our infatuation with minimal standards get us into trouble? Well what kind of trouble would you like to hear about first? The kind that compromises human rights or the kind that upsets your investors? I remember watching a documentary on sweat shops set up by Wall-Mart in China in economy class in high school. Basically, what made them sweat shops was the lack of air circulation in the massive warehouses where the workers worked. The workers would suffer in mock green-houses thick with sweat-based humidity, toiling away for hours and hours in discomfort just because Wall-Mart was too cheap to install fans in their buildings. I remember asking my teacher, “as successful and lucrative as Wall-Mart is, why wouldn’t they cough up the little bit of money that would enable their already exploited workers to work in better comfort?” I mean, for Wall-Mart, it’d cost next to nothing to install a few fans right? You know what my teacher said to me? “Wall-Mart isn’t responsible for that sort of thing. They’re not obligated to provide their workers with better working conditions. And if they don’t need to, why should they? It’d be money spent that wasn’t “necessary.” That’s why Wall-Mart can afford to sell people things at such low prices, because they minimize expenses.”
I don’t shop at Wall-Mart. I also think my teacher’s an ass. He could have said all those things and qualified it with a, “but although Wall-Mart avoids unnecessary spending, I can see where you’re coming from, it seems like the right thing to do to install a few fans in a few buildings when you’re one of the most successful companies in the world and your workers are uncomfortable.” But he didn’t. And more and more, I’m not surprised he didn’t. But sometimes meeting minimum standards and making little savings here or there cause problems that are more conspicuous to the public, and get you into financial trouble to boot. You think BP could have built a better oil line? You think they could have developed a blowout prevention system for their oil well that… you know… worked? If you look up the causes of the now infamous deepwater horizon oil leak, you can find a whole mess of accusations: this wasn’t connected quite right, this control panel was unplugged, the cement casing wasn’t done properly, the proposed design for the well blowout preventer didn’t correspond to the actual prevention system that had been implemented, yada-yada-yada. The technical reasons behind why the most devastating oil leak in history occurred is not as important as the core reason: we have grown too accustomed to half-assery. I’m sure the job that BP did developing its oil well was cheap. I’m sure it was quick. Well guess what? Now it needs to be completely redone, and hundreds of miles of coastline and marine ecosystems have been destroyed. Plus the public and the investors are pissed. Yeah, that one stung a bit, huh? But BP was shooting for minimum standards right? How could this have happened? Well accidents happen, but sometimes we need to draw a distinction between accident and negligence. Sometimes we need to try to do the best job we can, not just the easiest. So when Bazalgette opted to do a good job, maybe even better than was necessary by anyone else’s standards, I say, “Wow, what a concept.”
No comments:
Post a Comment