The best laid plans …
I often check on news at home and this LA Times article struck me as hilarious. It is the story of a project at Orange County International Airport, known by its modern name of John Wayne Airport 1 . The project is a classic example of how not to run a project. What was supposed to be a 3-4 year 11 million dollar project has now morphed into a 10 year 30 million dollar behemoth. This is without taint of corruption or scandal of any sort.
For one, the original cost estimate was simply the price of the equipment, without consideration of installing it. Then there is the issue of where to put it. Power plants are not small or trivial. No one on the original planning board considered that they would have to create a dedicated building for it (a 5 million dollar: Duh!) or have to upgrade to the most recent air quality standards (Oopsie!).
But by the time contractors started up the engines in late 2010, the county had to spend more than $1 million to refurbish the generators, which needed lubrication and had to be modified to meet new air-quality standards.
The whole thing is a classic example of how not to plan and that infrastructure costs can be many times more than the simple cost of equipment.
Having grown up in Orange County and knowing the local nuances and culture, I laughed at this story. The sad part is that at no time did the Board of Supervisors have the option of simply cancelling the project. It was both too large and cleaning up the resultant mess would be more costly than going forward; a classic example of what people mean when they reference “Mister Toad’s Wild Ride”.
- for your amusement
- Yes, not so modern. It shows my age, I guess. [ ↩]
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