The US drinking water is one of the world’s safest and most reliable, but its aging infrastructure can disrupt supplies and threaten water quality.
Extreme weather events due to climate change also push these systems beyond their capacity, causing them to break with cascading impacts on other systems and the community.
In the US Southeast, aging water supply systems and stormwater infrastructure are placing communities at risk as extreme weather events such as storms and droughts become more frequent and intense.
The severe storms that swept through the South on April 10-11, 2024, have overwhelmed the pumps in New Orleans and caused the water line to break in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Other communities had power outages and boil water advisories for safety.
Significant droughts have hit northern and central Alabama in the past decade. Wells that have been dug have run dry due to droughts and over-extraction. In 2023, droughts harmed New Orleans in another way. They slowed the flow of the Mississippi River, allowing saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico to move farther up the river than usual.
At the same time, rainstorms have swamped stormwater systems and jeopardized drinking water supplies. As temperatures rise, the atmosphere holds more water, which fuels these powerful storms.
Jackson, Mississippi’s aging water system, has been plagued with leaks and pipe bursts for over a decade. The 2022 storm was the nudge it needed to collapse, leaving many residents without drinking water for days.
The American Society of Civil Engineers’ US Infrastructure Report Card in 2021 grades the US municipal water systems overall a C-minus. The report estimates a water break every two minutes in the US, leading to the loss of 6 billion gallons of treated water daily, demonstrating the fragility of aging water infrastructure in many areas across the country.
The ASCE estimates that infrastructure investments of all types were around $3 trillion in 2021, with an annual gap for just drinking and wastewater investments of $434 billion by 2029.
The federal government has made significant strides in providing aid in recent years. Under the leadership of the Biden-Harris administration, three key pieces of legislation have been enacted: the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the American Rescue Plan, and the Inflation Reduction Act. Together, these laws have allocated over $1.2 trillion in federal funding.
This investment aims to rebuild and repair essential infrastructure like roads, bridges, and railways, expand access to high-speed internet, ensure safe drinking water, combat climate change, and support underserved communities.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, passed in 2021, authorized $55 billion for drinking water, wastewater, water storage, and water reuse projects. The Inflation Reduction Act, passed the following year, included $550 million to assist disadvantaged communities with water supply projects.
For the first time in a long time, thousands of cities and municipalities in the US can access this Federal funding infusion to fix their infrastructure woes and enhance their prosperity.
Although federal funds are accessible, securing these grants and financial resources can be challenging. Many local governments and municipalities urgently need this support but often lack the capacity to obtain it.
A recent Time article highlights how a dedicated team at Bloomberg Philanthropies reached out to small towns and their leaders to assist them in accessing federal funding. They established a Local Infrastructure Hub to facilitate this process, bringing together national organizations and experts specializing in guiding municipalities.
Over eight months, they coached more than 1,300 small—to mid-sized towns, helping them navigate the complexities of federal grants. This initiative aimed to provide these communities with the resources needed to modernize and finance their infrastructure projects.
As the article outlines, discussions with these municipalities uncovered concerning insights. First, there is a significant demand for their services. Second, most of these municipalities experience poverty rates that exceed the national average. Third, navigating the process of obtaining federal funding is an unfamiliar challenge for them.
Most have never accessed such funding and lack the resources to pursue it effectively. Only a limited number possess internal teams or essential partners capable of formulating comprehensive plans and advancing proposals, a prerequisite for securing federal funding.
The partnership between Bloomberg Philanthropies and small municipalities has yielded positive outcomes. Participating cities have received over $2 billion and are three times more likely to win education grants than those that did not. On average, participating cities have also been granted more federal dollars than those that did not.
The exercise revealed that many municipalities across the United States desperately need to modernize and fix their infrastructure but cannot obtain crucial federal funding. They need technical support and expertise from sifting through hundreds of federal grants, developing project plans, assembling data, and developing financing strategies. They must also engage civic groups, stakeholders, and elected officials to generate more ambitious proposals and forge durable coalitions to ensure the projects’ completion.
The article notes the capacity challenges many US municipalities face—not all are equally positioned to effectively apply and deliver for their residents, which the federal government must be mindful of.
Technical assistance and support for local innovation, data, and project management muscle should be built into the federal investment to ensure that municipalities, especially those most in need of these infrastructure investments, can avail of these funds.
Source:
Fisk, J., Morris, J, & LaFormbois, M. (2024, April 12). The South’s aging water infrastructure is getting pounded by climate change – fixing it is also a struggle. Prevention Web. Retrieved from https://www.preventionweb.net/news/souths-aging-water-infrastructure-getting-pounded-climate-change-fixing-it-also-struggle
Anderson, J. (2024, May 15). Why America’s Infrastructure Is So Hard To Fix. Time. Retrieved from https://time.com/6977919/america-infrastructure/
Yang, J. & Young, K. (2024, June 9). What frequent water main breaks say about America’s aging infrastructure. PBS. Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/what-frequent-water-main-breaks-say-about-americas-aging-infrastructure
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