NYC Steam Like No Pinto Beans

Further to the Mid-town Manhattan July 07 Steam Pipe Explosion
 
It’s business as usual with NY ConEd and their failure to provide more transparency on the state of affairs for deteriorating steam pipes and electric conduits underneath our city streets.  It remains a mystery for many what lies beneath the surface out there, but many of us are familiar with these explosions or someone, or their dog, electrocuted due to lines exposed just beneath the surface of any given water puddle.  It could be there are many a street corner out there, another accident waiting to happen due to the complexities of this matrix that makes up this crumbling underworld below our passing feet.

But more importantly, due to the billions of dollars it would take to clean up the infrastructure problems that exist down there, the city may be gambling on meeting the financial means of these disasters at the roll of a dice, as they happen, meaning - another one, you, me or some unwitting tourist, is bound to “bite the dust,” literally, before long. This logic, strategy, is a popular one Ralph Nader made steam on back in the 70’s with the Ford Motor Company and their infamous “Pinto” compact cars.  Ford was well aware of their manufacturing defect in the Pinto. They were well aware the positioning of the gasoline tank led the car to be vulnerable to violent explosions upon impact from the rear. But Ford gambled on the probability of these “accidents” waiting to happen, and theorized it would be cheaper to settle related accident cases later on, as they came down the pipe, as opposed to incurring costs related to a full recall on the vehicle.  When one litigant failed to settle and the case went to trial, subsequent appellate courts upheld the jury awards for hundreds of millions of dollars in punitive damages as not being too excessive.  Much of that was due to the “hubris” courts found in Ford management for blatantly and clearly having knowledge ahead of time warranted such sizeable amounts.  And before long, the line of litigants went shore to shore.

I can’t help but feel that the city and ConEd may be similarly gambling to the detriment and safety of both New Yorkers and tourist that visit here yearly. It will likely cost the city an astronomical amount of money to clean up the mess, bonds at the expense of the city and state tax payers, as well as inconvenience numerous city streets and businesses.  But as the tenure of these conditions reach their maturity, if not well overdue as such now, the city is likely to find itself well exposed other ways as Ford did decades ago.

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Further to this developing issue, please see
Adam Lisberg, Daily News staff article of Thursday, January 17, 2008.
An end to Con Ed's steam system?
BY ADAM LISBERG
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Thursday, January 17th 2008, 4:00 AM
Last summer's deadly midtown steam explosion
may spur state utility regulators to shut down
the steam system forever.