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Principles and Criteria for Water Infrastructure Funding Bill
Our nation is facing a crisis in dealing with aging and deteriorating wastewater and drinking water infrastructure.
According to a recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report, the funding gap between the projected needs and current spending on our nation’s wastewater and drinking water infrastructure could reach as high as $534 billion over the next 20 years. The report goes on to detail that, in the last 20 years, communities have already spent $1 trillion on water treatment, supply and disposal. Although this spending sounds impressive, the EPA believes it may not be enough to keep up with future demands.
The EPA states that 75 percent of the nation’s capital investment in water infrastructure is buried under ground. Much of this pipe was laid during the 1950s and 1960s, as suburban areas developed rapidly following the end of World War II. Now, 40-50 years old, this "new" pipe is connected to even older drinking water and wastewater pipes that date back to the early 1900s and late 1800s. Many of our older Northeastern cities have sewer systems that are made from wood or that used other designs that are technologically outdated.
By providing over $32.7 billion in total federal assistance, the Clean Water Act State Revolving Fund and the Safe Drinking Water Act State Revolving Fund have helped many state and local governments repair and/or replace much of this aging infrastructure like CSOs. However, enormous needs remain. Congress is considering legislation to increase the funding levels for the SRF.
The Sierra Club believes that the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act Revolving Funds should be expanded to deal with the problem of America’s aging water and sewer infrastructure. However, in any legislation being considered to expand these funds, the following principles and criteria must be applied:
PRINCIPLES
Safe and Affordable Drinking Water. The public has a right to safe, affordable drinking water, treated and delivered with reliable and safe collection, treatment, and distribution systems. Safe Water for Swimming, Drinking, and Fishing. The public has the right at all times to streams, lakes, and beaches that are safe for fishing, swimming, and protected as drinking water sources. Stop Sewage Pollution. Raw and inadequately treated sewage should not be dumped into our rivers, lakes, beaches, buildings, or streets. Only sewage that has been safely treated to secondary treatment standards – and to tertiary treatment standards where needed – should be released. Right to Know About Water Pollution. In order to honor our right to know, and to ensure public support for infrastructure improvements, the public should be promptly advised about the nature, location, and extent of every raw sewage discharge into surface or ground water, streets, or buildings, and about contaminants in and threats to our drinking water. Innovative, Effective Solutions. Stormwater and sewer control needs can and should be reduced through water conservation, efficiency, and re-use; source control; pollution prevention; low impact development; use of natural systems; and open space preservation. Control Pollution Sources. Source control should be the primary means to reduce sewer overflows and contaminated stormwater discharges, but can be complemented, where necessary, by treatment options. Community Solutions. The public should be given an opportunity for effective participation in selecting and making funding decisions for local clean and safe water strategies. Taxpayer and Ratepayer Protection. The funding for water infrastructure improvements should come from all users of these systems, and from those who cause significant pollution necessitating such infrastructure, not just from the taxpayer.
CRITERIA
Improve, Protect, Innovate. Funding should be only for:
- improvements in existing drinking water and wastewater infrastructure (treatment, collection, distribution systems);
- non-structural protection of source and surface water (buffer zones, easements, water conservation, water reuse, land acquisition for water quality protection, other innovative/alternative source/surface water protection projects that will obviate the need for structural solutions); or,
- innovative or alternative drinking water treatment or protection, sewage treatment, and stormwater management projects.
Dollars for Cleanup, not Sprawl Development or Environmentally Destructive Projects. Funding should be used to solve existing water problems, not to subsidize new sprawl or to cause new environmental harm. This funding should not subsidize new systems (unless it is shown that the new system would simply serve existing populations – new capacity should not be subsidized). In addition, environmentally sound principles for project design and siting should be observed. - Accountability. The program should assure accountability through the integration of meaningful public comment into priority setting, and clear, publicly disseminated national tracking of priorities, project purposes, and expenditures. No funding should be available for facilities that (a) do not have the financial, technical, and managerial capacity to ensure compliance; or (b) are in significant noncompliance, except as noted in #4 below. Existing protections in current law (e.g. SDWA restrictions on funding to states lacking approved programs for operator certification and to assure systems have the financial, technical, and managerial capacity to ensure compliance) should be preserved.
- Improvement. Facilities in significant noncompliance may be funded: (a) to restructure and consolidate the facility to achieve compliance; or (b) where consolidation or restructuring is impossible, if the facility has made a good faith effort to comply, is adhering to an enforceable compliance schedule, and where funding is necessary to avoid making water or sewer service unaffordable to a significant portion of the facility’s retail customers.
- Protect Health, Meet Community Needs, Help Small Systems. It should be mandatory that priority is given to projects that:
- address the most serious risks to health and aquatic environment;
- help systems with the greatest need, based on affordability criteria;
- help consolidate or restructure small systems with current or anticipated compliance or health/aquatic environmental problems.
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