Jean-Pierre Bardet, chair of the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, was in Washington, D.C., from March 23-25 meeting with legislators about their support on bills for water infrastructure and dam rehabilitation and repair.

Bardet, who is also the director of the USC Center on Megacities, was asking Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to support a bill on financing water infrastructure. “I talked about the problems with the water main breaks that plagued Los Angeles during the summer of 2009, but can be prevented in the future” by passage of the bill, he said.

He talked with staffers from Rep. Brad Sherman’s office about dam safety and how the San Fernando Valley had a history of unsafe dams, which prompted the evacuation of 80,000 people after the 1971 earthquake.

During his visit, Bardet also served on the committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers, which drafts policies on infrastructure and research in civil engineering.