Bridge, Phillips, Elam Drainage District News From the desk of Milton Sandy Jr
July 17 , 2011
Vol 2011-8
This newsletter is directed to friends and supporters of our efforts to get something done about the repetitive flooding in Corinth and Alcorn County which on May 2, 2010, caused loss of life, public and private property and threatened public health and safety by the massive release of raw sewage into flood waters. If you have news, questions or comments, please fire away.
Urban vs. Country- Which is Healthier? A rather intriguing story headline in the Wall Street Journal this Flood Threat for July week caught my attention. We all assume that living in a non-urban environment has to be healthier right? Everybody assumes from the news headlines that living in the big city puts you at greater risk for crime, pollution and other environment related diseases. Fortunately for Corinth and Alcorn county, the article did not include the risks of flooding. What I found so interesting about the article is the data source was a newly released national study of factors evaluating – How healthy is your your local county?
From the Wall Street Journal- July 12, 2011 ….For many urban dwellers, the country conjures up images of clean air, fresh food and physical activities. But these days, Americans residing in major cities live longer, healthier lives overall than their country cousins—a reversal from decades past. Many cities that were once notorious for pollution, crime, crowding and infectious diseases have generally cleaned up, calmed down and spread out in recent years, while rural problems have festered. Rural residents are now more likely than other Americans to be obese, sedentary and smoke cigarettes. They also face higher rates of related health problems including diabetes, stroke, heart attacks and high blood pressure, according to County Health Rankings (CHR), a research project that recently issued its second annual report of state-by-state comparisons of health measures in every U.S. county. To be sure, city dwellers live with more air pollution and violent crime. They also have higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases and low-birth-weight babies and are more likely to drink excessively. But overall, urbanites tend to rate their own health more highly and are less likely to die prematurely than rural Americans, according to the county rankings report....
The new set of reports released last week rank the health of nearly every county in the nation and show that much of what affects health occurs outside of the doctor’s office. For the second year, the County Health Rankings confirm the critical role that factors such as education, jobs, income, and environment play in how healthy people are and how long they live. This year, the Rankings allow people in more than 3,000 counties and the District of Columbia to compare the overall health of their counties against other counties in their state, and also compare their performance on specific health factors against national benchmarks of top-performing counties.
Contact: Milton Sandy Jr 662-286-6087 - Fax 287-4187 - E-mail mlsandy@tsixroads.com
Health Outcomes Length of Life Quality of Life
County Alcorn, MS Tishomingo, MS Lee (Tupelo), MS Prentiss, MS Madison (Jackson), TN Colbert (Florence), AL Shelby (Memphis), TN McNairy (Selmer), TN Tippah, MS Hardin (Savannah), TN Hardeman (Bolivar), TN
Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Note: The County Health Rankings were not intended to be a national report to identify the healthiest counties in the nation. Some of the measures used are state-specific and make comparisons across state boundaries difficult and the inclusion of counties outside the state of Mississippi are included for information purposes only and may not be as useful as comparisons between the 81 counties within the state of Mississippi.
Health Factors Health Behaviors- Tobacco, Diet & exercise, Alcohol Use, Unsafe Sex Clinical Care- Access to care, Quality of Care Social & Economic – Education, Employment, Income, Family & Social Support, Community Safety Physical Environment- Environmental quality, Built environment
County Lee (Tupelo), MS Alcorn, MS Prentiss, MS Madison (Jackson), TN Tishomingo, MS Hardin (Savannah), TN Colbert (Florence), AL Tippah, MS McNairy (Selmer), TN Shelby (Memphis), TN Hardeman (Bolivar), TN
Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Source: Local rankings compiled from data published on-line (2011) at www.countyhealthrankings.org by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
While the primary purpose of the study was to rank counties within states, I took the liberty of delving deep into the data to compare Alcorn County to all the counties surrounding us in Northeast Mississippi and a few counties nearby with larger cities as well- Jackson, TN, Memphis,
Page 2/6
TN, Florence, AL and Tupelo, MS. The rather surprising news is at least in Alcorn County, statistically we are blessed with very good health outcomes and our health factors rate pretty highly as well. For any of our elected officials that need to know where we could stand improvements to benefit public health and safety, this should be a valuable resource. I would also think it should be valuable data for economic development to illustrate some of the advantages of life in Corinth and Alcorn County. If this were data solely from local sources, you might raise an eyebrow and call it local bragging, but when it is developed independently on a uniform national basis by a major university research organization, it is a little more credible information.
Railroads, Safety and Drainage
Federal Railroad Administration inspection car DOTX 217 Corinth, MS 3/4/2011 Several weeks after I spotted this unusual and very eye catching rail car parked behind the historic Corinth railroad depot, I received a call and had an interesting telephone conversation with Mr. Kenneth Rusk, Staff Director, Track & Structures Division, Dept. of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration, Office of Safety, (202) 493-6236. Mr. Rusk was originally from Meridian, Mississippi where he worked for the Illinois-Central Gulf at the start of his railroad career and was Page 3/6
very familiar with Corinth which was part of his territory at the time. He now has the responsibility for the ATIP (Automated Track Inspection Program) with the Department of Transportation which operates the car I spotted in Corinth parked near our historic depot. FRA DOTX 217 is one of 5 cars operated full time on the nation's railroads by this agency, 3 of which are carrying out a comprehensive monitoring system of testing to insure railroad track is in compliance with railway safety standards. The other 2 cars are engaged in testing research to determine better and more efficient ways to accomplish the same objectives. Mr. Rusk said the cars usually are staffed with a crew of 4 people usually along with a representative of the rail lines being inspected. He was not on the car that visited Corinth but he said that it was just here on a regularly scheduled inspection trip. At the time I was speaking with him Mr. Rusk was behind a similar car being towed behind an Amtrak passenger train on the way to Los Angeles. While the cars are capable of being self-propelled, Mr. Rusk said they operated most often in towed mode, due to the reduced need for coordination with railroads for safety purposes. The car is equipped to make measurements of track geometry every foot while operating at speeds of up to 125 miles per hour. The track is tested, data captured along with GPS positional information and transmitted via a satellite-based internet system to a central Track Data Management System that is available to FRA inspectors the following day after it is collected. I had originally thought that some of the data being collected might be helpful in flood control planning. Mr. Rusk said that they had never collected any vertical elevation data which is what we would be most interested in. It is a commonly known historical fact that before the modern day concept of flood plains was developed, railroads were having to deal with drainage issues and plan for flooding. Many builders used the elevations of railroad tracks as a safe relative standard for new construction. Railroads had commonly been around before any other development and generally would respond to a flood by raising the level of their tracks to what was perceived as a safe height from future flooding. Other questions I posed involved the look ahead video system which the literature noted was recording video during the rolling inspections. Mr. Rusk informed me this was not a continuous video system like Google Maps but just a periodic video capture to give inspectors a visual reference to terrain associated with the data collected on the rails. Their data system is also not yet GIS integrated which is the system now being commonly adopted by many geographic based planning and mapping projects. I was impressed with the high-tech efficiency and comprehensive monitoring which this program seems to be delivering to our nations rail lines. Anyone who lives or works near rail road tracks as everyone in Corinth has done for the last 150 years or so, should be concerned about safety as hazardous material moves through Corinth by rail every single day of the week. We appreciate Mr. Rusk and his colleagues for the work they are doing behind the scenes so we can all sleep better at night.
Page 4/6
Further, I would wish that we had some similar type monitoring going on with our drainage and waterways. Early in my career as a drainage commissioner (now over one year) I recognized this and sought a way this could be accomplished. There is a company in France which manufactures a Catarob T-02 miniature catamaran boat, the Catarob T-02, for this type high-tech monitoring which has almost all the capabilities for water based monitoring that this rail car system has for the railroads. The former craft runs around $500,000 and the closest we have come to implementing this, unfortunately, has been my early R&D Redneck Explorer Experimental Craft efforts to build a low-tech example of this device from WalMart components for around $25. Unfortunately I have not had time to fully test and deploy this research device. Shortly after spotting the railway inspection car in Corinth, I saw the equally unusual looking equipment pictured below at the intersection on Parkway near City Park. Turns out it was a specially equipped maintenance train consisting of six maintenance cars and an engine manufactured by Loram Maintenance of Way, Inc., headquartered in Hamel, Minnesota. This company is one of the leading suppliers of track maintenance machinery and services in North America. With a little research, I learned this was high-tech rail grinding equipment used by most railroads today as a part of rail maintenance since the mid 1980’s. Initially used to correct and repair rail, today most railroads use a preventive maintenance program to detect rail surface defects. The grinding machines were pretty enormous and are outfitted with the most advanced dust control systems available- meeting California's stringent air quality specifications. To eliminate the environmental impact of a hydraulic oil spill, Loram's equipment utilizes waterglycol hydraulic fuel, which in addition to being environmentally-friendly, also is not susceptible to fire ignition.
Norfolk Southern railroad near City Park 7/2/2011
Page 5/6
LORAM maintenance equipment Norfolk Southern Corinth, MS 7/2/2011 For most railroads, their track is one of their most valuable assets. From my own experience and personal observations from living beside railroad tracks for a lifetime, I can say that the frequency with which I have observed railroad track being replaced has definitely gone down over the years. I am pleased to know that this observation is not just from neglect but from an enhanced maintenance program which has allowed extended life without the necessity of replacement. This is rather remarkable also because I have observed that the average size of railroad cars and consequently the weight they are carrying on these same tracks has probably more than doubled in my lifetime. The other major area of maintenance in which Loram specializes is drainage. They provide services for cleaning and maintaining the rock beneath the track (called ballast) and engineering ditches beside the tracks. Their literature summarizes the need for drainage maintenance pretty concisely and warns of the results of poor drainage“Water is the enemy. It can be costly.� No place is this warning more applicable than Corinth, Mississippi- to the railroads and to the people who live here.
Behind the Scenes Progress Major progress this week in eliminating some of the hidden dangers contributing to our flooding. My thanks to Mr. James Daniel with SMC Recycling which purchased the brick manufacturing plant property on Cox St. and is doing major cleanup which will facilitate access to Elam Canal for clearing work. We hope to have before and after pictures soon but in addition to access, this is a major reduction in one of the obstructions of water drainage along Elam Canal. Corinth is very lucky to have a major recycling corporate citizen with such environmentally responsible management and ownership. Also, Buddy Ayers, contractor for DLC Management Corp. which manages the K-Mart and Kroger shopping center was busy this week clearing the obstructions which have kept the storm water retention pond across from Kroger from draining. This will provide increased floodwater buffer protection to all property owners in the surrounding area including the Combs Court apartments. Stay tuned, hopefully more good news in the coming weeks.
Page 6/6