The American Society of Civil Engineers recently issued its quadrennial report card, and gave the nation’s infrastructure an . That is the same as the grade given in 2013, but up slightly from the D given in 2005 and 2009.

“The quality of life of any society is tied to the quality of its infrastructure,” said Al Barkouli, chairman and CEO of David Evans and Associates Inc. “If you want an ‘A’ quality of life it can’t happen on a ‘D’ budget.”

Overall, infrastructure in Oregon isn’t as bad as in other states, according to the ASCE. While the group doesn’t assign letter grades to states’ infrastructure, it pointed out areas of particular concern – namely roads, bridges and levees.

Currently, 11 percent of Oregon’s roads are in poor condition, the ASCE reported – more than half of Portland’s roads are rated poor or very poor. Plus, the group labeled 5.3 percent of Oregon’s bridges structurally deficient. Meanwhile, area levees are undergoing structural analysis in order to stay accredited with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“Overall, big picture our levees are in pretty good shape,” said Jules Bailey, the interim convener for Levee Ready Columbia. “The assessment we are doing is to make sure they are up to snuff.”

Levee Ready Columbia is a partnership of more than 20 organizations committed to floodplain management. The current levee assessment has uncovered some needed repairs. So far, identified damage is manageable, Bailey said.

“The result (of the analysis) was there is some work that will need to be done,” he said. “It wasn’t as bad a picture as we might have feared. We had feared (levees) would need repairs in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It will probably be in the tens of millions. It’s still a lot of money.”

Yet that doesn’t come close to the amount of money needed to fix area roads. Portland has $141 million worth of unmet road repairs every year, according to Portland Bureau of Transportation Communications Director John Brady. In the city’s latest status and conditions report, 47 percent of the arterial and cluster streets are rated poor or very poor. Among local streets, only 6 percent are rated very good while 60 percent are rated poor or very poor.

“Unfortunately cities don’t have rich uncles,” Brady said. “We were very encouraged by the success of the (10-cent gas tax) fixing-our-street campaign. We are committed to spending that money efficiently and effectively where it is needed most.”

Between the fuel tax and a heavy vehicle use tax, the city will gain an estimated $74 million for road repairs.

“That is still a drop in the bucket,” Brady said.

One area where progress has been made is with bridges, according to Bailey, a former Multnomah County commissioner. The new Sellwood Bridge and Tilikum Crossing are open, and repairs are set for the Morrison and Burnside bridges this summer.

“The bridges are in pretty good shape,” he said. “They still need some seismic work. Hopefully the state Legislature will help by taking this up.”

Securing state and federal dollars to deal with these issues is high on the wish list of both engineering firms and local governments.

“Our elected officials have recognized the problem,” Barkouli said. “We hope this year something gets done.”

Portland isn’t alone in its need to deal with infrastructure issues. Nationally, ASCE tagged the nation’s inland waterways and transit infrastructure with its worst grades: a D- for both. Rail lines got the best score with a B, while ports and solid waste managed a C+.

The evaluations covered 16 categories of infrastructure. The ASCE put together a committee consisting of civil engineers from across the country who assessed capacity, condition, funding and public safety to assign each category a grade.

The group has released its report card since 2001 and has never given the nation’s structures better than a D. That has led publications from Forbes to the Washington Post to question how much credibility to put into a report from an organization that stands to benefit from more construction spending.

“I would say, from our perspective, this is credible,” Barkouli said. “We are not going to put something out that is not credible. It is important to our professional integrity to call it like we see it.”

The card relies extensively on reports performed by federal agencies such as the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency. A flurry of recent incidents such as problems with drinking water in Flint, Michigan, and damage at Oroville Dam in Northern California makes it harder to dismiss the group’s findings.

“In general, engineers are not very good salespeople,” Barkouli said. “We are more likely to bury ourselves in the work. We need to take (the grade card’s) findings seriously.”

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