When it comes to infrastructure, Kentucky isn't quite making the grade.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has released its report card, the grade states on roads, bridges and other critical systems.

The group gave Kentucky an overall grade of C, minus the head of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Kentucky section says aging systems, underfunding and a new category are behind the low grade.

The big thing that the report card really highlights is that our infrastructure across the state is aging.

Obviously, most of the infrastructure that's in the ground or we use every day is either approaching, meeting or exceeding its expected design life.

We have bridges that are on average about 49 years old, which is the life expectancy is about 50 years old.

That's the design life.

So the overall grade of a C minus is actually a cumulative score of all 11 chapters that we created for the state of Kentucky since 2019.

Two of those grades that go up and those were both in transportation.

So that was our roads and bridges categories.

These categories were really influenced that that upward trend was really influenced by recent investments through the I, J or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The overall grade for the state actually stayed the same, and that is partly because we only had the two grades go up.

But we also added a new chapter and that is stormwater.

And so stormwater actually received the lowest grade on the report card with a D minus.

One of the biggest reasons there is such a low grade in stormwater is because we lack a comprehensive inventory of our stormwater assets throughout the state and truthfully, throughout the nation.

What happens is, is that if we don't know what's in the ground, then it's really hard to plan for things like extreme weather events or shifts in population.

I don't think there was anyone that was able to predict a hurricane hitting the mountains of North Carolina and eastern Kentucky.

However, we're seeing it more often, and so we can use things like predictive modeling and asset management and just speaking through what are the the breaking points or the pinch points in a system so that we can better prepare.

And so investment is really important when we talk about that kind of infrastructure to ensure that we are properly maintaining and operating the infrastructure.

And just like when you're operating a car on a car or a home, the older the technology or piece of equipment is, the more expensive it is to maintain.

So understanding that, you know, we may not want to immediately replace the infrastructure, but we do have to be able to invest in extending the life of that infrastructure.

So just like your home or your car, investment consistently is key.

Telling your story to your legislators is huge.

They want to hear from you.

So if there is a, you know, there's a road that is a part of your commute every day and the bridge is failing or there's a load restriction on that.

So that means the bus can't go over it.

These are the stories that your representatives need to really understand impact you every day.

And that helps prioritize where we want to do even that, that inspection and planning inside of the house to ensure that we can then plan for and budget for bigger capital investments.

Another area of concern workforce shortages across infrastructure sectors, retirements, less competitive wages and declining enrollment in civil engineering programs are creating the shortages.

The report says Stem education, strengthening training partnerships, improving access to higher education, along with recruitment and retention programs will be essential to building Kentucky's infrastructure workforce.