As stated so eloquently by The Value of Water campaign, “…virtually all sectors of the economy rely on water.” In their report completed in 2017, water, wastewater and stormwater engineers associated with the campaign enumerated the vast number of business sectors that rely on sound water and wastewater infrastructure to successfully conduct and maintain their work, “from semiconductor manufacturing, to agriculture, to hotels and restaurants.”
But what happens when these profoundly significant resources begin to age and become unreliable, or even dangerous? What happens when the United States, and the world at large, does not allocate the proper amount of funds to crumbling water and wastewater infrastructures?
We are now seeing the consequences of poorly funded infrastructure due to our current unprecedented circumstances brought on by COVID-19. The Guardian cited a study in early March from the UN World Water Development report that expressed serious concern over “underfunding of water infrastructure around the world.” Such underfunding prevents access to clean water, which has become the first line of defense against COVID-19 as the CDC advises everyone to wash frequently with soap and water. However, even before and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, underfunded water infrastructure has led many communities to suffer challenges related to poor drinking water quality and the unaffordability of access to clean water.
In her address to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure within the U.S. House of Representatives, Angela Lee, director of Charlotte Water in North Carolina, explores the economic strain non-federally funded water infrastructure can have on low-income families. When the federal government does not support infrastructure projects, water and sewer rates soar, making it increasingly difficult for ratepayers with lower incomes to keep up. Lee states, “In many communities [in the U.S.] the lowest 20 percent of earners pay almost one-fifth of their income towards their water bill.” Drawing from her own observations in Charlotte, NC, Lee reveals, “Charlotte Water serves just over 285,000 accounts but provided 58,636 payment arrangements in 2018. Public Utilities may be forced to delay much needed projects to avoid overburdening customers.”
Luckily, in late April, members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works (EPW) John Barrasso and Tom Carper, released two bills, the America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2020 (AWIA 2020) and the Drinking Water Infrastructure Act of 2020 (DWIA 2020). The AWIA 2020, helpfully summed up here,
includes approximately $17 billion in new federal authorizations for infrastructure investments across the United States, which are intended to increase water storage, provide protection from floodwaters, deepen nationally significant ports, maintain the navigability of inland waterways across the country and repair aging wastewater and irrigation systems.
The DWIA 2020 includes an estimated $2.5 billion and, according to a memo released by the senate committee, seeks “to provide resources and technical assistance to communities facing drinking water emergencies that present substantial danger to health.” The bill will also provide “robust funding for grant programs to help water utilities invest in and deploy new and emerging, but proven, technology essential to improve water and energy efficiency, reduce emissions, and expand ratepayer affordability.”
The grant programs the DWIA 2020 could potentially support within New York State include the NYSEFC’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, which funds municipally and privately owned public water systems that provide drinking water; the Water Infrastructure Improvement Act (WIIA), which provides water quality protection across New York; the USDA’s Water and Waste Disposal, Rural Development Grant Program, a program that supports clean and reliable drinking water systems in rural areas; and the Community Development Block Grant, which funds water and sewer main improvements. Other funding programs available in NYS are the Engineering Planning Grant, which seeks to advance water quality projects to construction, and the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which finances wastewater and water quality improvement projects to municipalities throughout New York State. Follow the embedded links for more information on the benefits each grant provides, and how to apply. You can also follow this link for a comprehensive list of other grants offered in New York State.
What funding has already been included in NYS’s 2020 budget? The Executive Budget, as formally announced by New York State, includes $2.5 billion for clean water infrastructure, “beginning with a new $500 million appropriation to support drinking water infrastructure, wastewater infrastructure, and water quality protection” and $300 million for the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF), which includes funds allocated to water quality improvement.
p+d continuously strives to remain aware of all funding opportunities and assist the communities we serve through obtaining and administering grant funding. We have worked on a wide variety of grant-funded projects. For example, p+d assisted the Village of Cornwall-on-Hudson with obtaining $1 million in WIIA/IMG grant funding for improvements to the Taylor Road Well Field; these improvements were needed in order to increase resiliency and add additional capacity to the Village’s water supply. We similarly assisted the Town of Gardiner in obtaining an Engineering Planning Grant for an I/I study of their collection system. We’ve also administered Environmental Facilities Corporation (EFC) funding for the Village of Suffern’s Phase 2 Sewer Abatement, which addressed areas in the Village’s collection system that were found to have elevated levels of infiltration and inflow (I/I). Lastly, p+d has worked on a variety of projects associated with the Town of Wallkill’s EFC grant funding, which they received specifically for the development of several new projects within their wastewater collection system. p+d was tasked with managing these funds for the Town while designing the upgrades.