Today’s column (gift link) is about water infrastructure. One of civilization’s greatest secrets is that we, as individuals, are much more necessary to its continuation than we might think.
Have you ever seen the show “Life After People” on the History Channel? It uses digital effects to imagine what would happen to cities and other human constructions if all the people suddenly disappeared. The viewer quickly realizes that a lot of important things quickly fall apart. As power plants fail, so do heating and cooling systems. Any place where something bad is contained suddenly releases its nastiness into the world. Nature heals, but slowly.
What prevents this from happening? All the people whose job it is to maintain and monitor all the pipes, wires and doo-hickeys. That’s what keeps everything going.
In this way, even a person who finds it difficult to leave the house due to paralyzing ennui is doing a marvelous service to the world by keeping their pipes from freezing and their septic tank from giving out.
Now scale that up to a hardscrabble mining town, wondering about its place in a changing world, and you see the challenge that many rural water professionals face each day. But it’s not just small towns. Chronically underfunded and long ignored infrastructure problems affect all municipalities in Minnesota. The solutions require time, money and collaboration like we haven’t since, well, back when we built all this stuff.
Read “The quiet crisis gurgling beneath our feet,” in the Sunday, March 1, 2026 edition of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Minnesota Star Tribune. His new book about Hibbing Mayor Victor Power and his momentous fight against the world’s largest corporation will be out soon.
