Engineering Responsibility

I recently read In the Shadow of the Dam http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-7432-2357-7, about a reservoir dam failure in Williamsburg, Massachusetts in 1874.  It told of the loss of life, property, and economy for the communities downstream from the dam, and the lack of responsibility and accountability of those who commissioned and built the dam. 

I have been in a correspondence with an engineer, who told me some 40 years ago, when he went through college, ethics and morals were not addressed in engineering. I am not surprised.

When I went through social work classes almost 40 years ago, we did not address ethics, morality, or cultural diversity, which are all big issues in the profession now.

These are my thoughts about engineering: I hate that we are such a litigious society, but I suspect, unless engineers and architects are sued and have to face the consequences of their failures, monetarily and legally, things will change slowly, if not at all.  As in the verdict of the Williamsburg Dam, when the blame is spread too thin, no one of consequence suffers.  Instead, the poor, unsuspecting public suffers. 

The sad truth is that corporations who erect dams, levees, power plants, railroads, public utilities, water plants on and on, whether public or private, are looking to the bottom line: profitability instead of community service. And with profitability comes cost cutting, shoddy workmanship, and design change in the interest of cost cutting. 

This is a list of dam failures

http://www.damsafety.org/news/?p=412f29c8-3fd8-4529-b5c9-8d47364c1f3e

It is instructive in a lot of ways. The biggest way being that dam failures still occur. They should not.

Hmm, why are engineers and architects not held to more responsibility?