“America's Critical Infrastructure Has Suffered Politicians Have Instead Focused on Climate Change” Guest Post by Duggan Flanakin of CFact. THOMAS J SHEPSTONE

“ These systems are now well over 100 years old, and some piping is closer to 150 years old. Even much of the infrastructure installed in the 20thcentury is also well past its design life.”

America's Critical Infrastructure Has Suffered Politicians Have Instead Focused on Climate Change

THOMAS J SHEPSTONE

OCT 26

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Guest Post by Duggan Flanakin of CFact.

Systems often fail because of a lack of maintenance, and maintenance budgets are frequently robbed to finance pet projects. The electric grid is no longer being ignored, but another major segment of America’s infrastructure needs a closer look.

According to a 2023 article in Nature, much of the U.S. water infrastructure was first installed in the late Victorian period when the influx of workers to cities fostered an enormous housing boom. These systems are now well over 100 years old, and some piping is closer to 150 years old. Even much of the infrastructure installed in the 20^thcentury is also well past its design life.

Sewer Plant - Source: Google Earth

The Bipartisan Policy Center reported in 2019 that the nation’s 15,000 publicly owned treatment works and 52,000 community water systems provide vital services, but their value was not reflected in the nation’s priorities. Major portions of the 1.2 million miles of water supply mains and an almost equal number of miles of sewer pipes needed repairs or even replacement.

The real problem is even greater. Nationwide, there are more than 148,000 independent public (and privately owned) water systems, most of which service communities of under 10,000 people. Many of these systems are old, and in many areas (including central Texas) customers are told not to flush even toilet paper down aging pipes. About 80% of Americans are serviced by about 13,000 larger systems, many of which are quite old.

A new report by the Council on Foreign Relations says that America’s water and sewer systems are under stress from growing populations, aging infrastructure, extreme weather patterns, and regulatory failures. While authorities focus on public health hazards, water utilities face budget squeezes, rising consumer costs, and unmet investment needs.

On top of those issues, a recent study by the National Institutes for Health found, while testing only 32 of the 12,000-plus types of per- and poly-fluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS), at least one of these chemicals was found in 45% of U.S. drinking water samples.

And a British study found that rivers in nearly every nation contain concentrations of medicinal drugs that exceed safe levels – and that the Trinity River in Dallas, Texas, which supplies some of the city’s drinking water, ranks in the top fifth with the highest concentrations of these drugs.

Columbia University hydro climatologist Upmanu Lall and his colleagues found, in a study of 17,900 water utilities and other community drinking water systems, that violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act more than doubled between 1980 and 2015 and that in 2015 drinking water systems serving nearly 21 million people were cited for water quality violations – a direct result of the failure to replace aging piping.

The American Society of Civil Engineers gave America’s drinking water infrastructure a “C minus“ grade. A U.S. water main breaks every 2 minutes, resulting in an estimated loss of 6 billion gallons of treated water every day. Pipe breaks and leaks also reduce water pressure, potentially causing back-siphoning of bacteria and other contaminants into water systems.

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The report also said that unlined cast iron, typical in older systems, can be plagued by biofilms that can harbor pathogens if not carefully maintained, and there are still 9.2 million lead service lines nationally, according to the EPA. Without a major, and widespread, response to the challenge of aging water (and sewer) systems, vulnerable populations will continue to be at risk.

In 2020, a study by water utilities, engineers, and advocacy groups estimated that making all the needed investments in U.S. water infrastructure would add $4.5 trillion and 800,000 jobs to the U.S. economy by 2039.

A year later, President Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), the nation’s largest federal investment in clean water, allocating $60 billion over five years for clean water and drinking water projects and other water protection programs. But the May 2024 CFR report suggests that the federal response has only scratched the surface of the growing problem.

Lall agrees, He says that, while the BIL enables replacement of some lead service lines and addresses the PFAS issue, the legislation is at best a band-aid. Congress instead needs to pay attention to the fact that the entire infrastructure system with water and wastewater is failing.

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Apparently, that job is too big for lawmakers focused entirely on reelection and too difficult for pampered federal employees whose job security has little to do with quality of service. Lall says that water and wastewater issues can be divided into three components – storage (reservoirs and dams); conveyance (water and sewer pipes and associated pumps); and treatment systems.

Lall notes that the median age of U.S. dams is 60 years, yet most were designed to last only for 50 years. The state of dam maintenance is so bad that about two-thirds are unrated and their status unknown. As for conveyance, about 850 water mains fail every day in North America. Increasing pathogens in drinking water have led to more frequent boil water notices.

While larger cities have their own issues with aging water and sewer systems, many smaller communities no longer have the financial or technical resources to determine the condition of their systems, let alone come up with workable plans for system upgrades. In every year, many of these systems exhibit failure, creating local crises that may require help from neighbors.

One reason, says Lall, that nobody is addressing the big picture regarding our failing water and sewer systems is that there is no central planning (or advisory panel) for water and sewer investments in the U.S. By contrast, the U.S. Energy Information Administration and Department of Energy, and for that matter, multiple nonprofits and think tanks, focus on the nation’s energy needs and spark often raucous public debate that keeps the energy issue at the forefront.

Instead, we have seven or eight federal agencies with some sort of jurisdiction over water, plus state and local agencies, each of which has its own agenda. The BIL was the first major legislation to address water and wastewater infrastructure since 1980, and it was at best a piecemeal approach. The EPA’s regulatory framework addresses violations of standards but does little to address the infrastructure needs of local water and sewer systems.

All in all, says Lall, the challenge is not just throwing money at individual system failures. It is to create some group that is focused on what should be the 21^st century architecture for the U.S. water system. In other words, it is well past time to create a national focus on water quality and to set national and local goals for system upgrades that will last for the next 50 to 60 years.

The U.S. Water Alliance believes that fully funding the needed upgrades to America’s water and wastewater infrastructure will bring benefits that far exceed the costs. Yet even that study, which predicted a $4.5 trillion upside and 800,000 jobs, does not include the associated public health benefits from cleaner drinking water and cleaner rivers and streams that can only result from vastly improved wastewater treatment systems.

But these benefits will only be possible if the U.S. put the same level of effort into fixing its water and wastewater systems that politicians have put into climate change.

Duggan Flanakin (duggan@duggansdugout.com) is a senior policy analyst at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow who writes on a wide variety of public policy issues.

#ClimateChange #Sewer #Water #Grid #Infrastructure