Editor’s Comments: The Investment Drought

June 6, 2012

By Elizabeth Cutright

Did you know EPA now estimates that about a third of the nation’s water supply could be classified as unhealthy, and that 117 million US citizens currently get their water from sources that lack adequate protection? Another 3.5 million residents get sick each year after exposure to bacteria found in raw sewage from sanitary sewer overflows (http://bit.ly/Jrdhe2). About 20% of untreated water samples from public, private, and monitoring wells across the nation contain concentrations of at least one trace element, such as arsenic, manganese, and uranium, at levels of potential health concern (http://on.doi.gov/pGtZEV).

What this all means is that our current water resource management systems are teetering on failure. In 2009, the American Society of Civil Engineers assigned our water treatment plants a grade of “D-“.

Our crumbling water infrastructure is not just resulting in water waste and exponential water loss–it’s also becoming a major source of public health alerts and bacterial outbreaks. The various watchdog groups that regularly monitor bodies of water across the nation–from rivers to lakes to beachfronts–are warning that if something isn’t done, bacterial outbreaks will become increasingly common, and increasingly deadly. According to Riverkeeper, the water in New York’s Hudson River exceeds federal safe swimming guidelines over 20% of the time. And after it rains, that number jumps up to 56%. In New York City, 25% of the city sewage systems are “decades overdue for replacement and rehabilitation” (http://1.usa.gov/JjxxJW).

And it’s not just the cities that are besieged. According to the California Rural Legal Assistance organization, “residents of low-income, unincorporated communities spend up to 10% of their income on water”. Cash-strapped towns and districts are struggling to provide clean, affordable water to their rural customers. New Construction or rehabilitation of existing conveyance infrastructure is pricey, and most grants and bonds can only get the utility about halfway there. As Phoebe Seaton of the California Rural Legal Assistance organization points out, a common obstacle for these projects is not political will, but lack of funding.

Another significant part of the problem is water treatment. Water treatment can be tricky and expensive, and enforcement is arbitrary and ineffective. And while arsenic is the most noteworthy pathogen, the truth is that bacterial loads and chemical contamination must all be addressed and mitigated. Many states require that water utilities meet local and federal guidelines, but monitoring and enforcement of those requirements often falls short. Many water quality regulations lack the teeth to make good on the possible penalties and fines put in place to protect local water supplies. According to the New York Times, in 2009 more than 20% of water treatment systems in the US have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the previous five years.

Lack of investment in our infrastructure–including public wastewater treatment systems–has triggered what many call an “epic decline in conditions” at many of our water treatment plants (http://bit.ly/KxFb81). And it seems like every time the budget bludgeoning begins, it’s the water infrastructure and safety programs and protocols that suffer the deepest cuts.

Unfortunately, we won’t see real change until we get serious about investing in our infrastructure. We’re all familiar with the grand WPA projects of the 1930s. I just visited Hoover Dam last month and found myself awed not just by the structure itself, but by the manpower and political will that helped create it. The Hoover Dam cost $49 million to build and pays back the investment tenfold every month by delivering 4.2 billion kilowatts of energy and providing water to more than 25 million people.

Leaning over the dam’s mighty stone walls, I wondered…where are the great infrastructure projects of the 21st century? Certainly there’s a need, so why are our conveyance systems rotting beneath our feet while our water quality devolves to preindustrial levels? In the 1970s and 1980s, the federal government invested over $60 billion in our wastewater treatment systems at a time when infrastructure costs hovered around $80 billion. In the past 20–30 years, those costs have exploded to over $250 billion (http://bit.ly/lVCsbH). And yet funding allocations are still stalled, and we find ourselves staring down the barrel of a 20-year funding gap.

We are facing a very real crisis, and while the sirens have been blaring and foretelling disaster for years now, the truth is that ignoring the problem will not make it go away. We need to consolidate our forces and exert our political influence. We must demand action before it’s too late, and find a way to end our infrastructure funding drought before we find ourselves lost in a desert of dirty water, leaky pipes, and a failed conveyance system.


Author’s Bio: Elizabeth Cutright is a former editor of Water Efficiency magazine.