New World Water

First draft, from March 16. Currently being edited:

With a host of other spending priorities to address, all too apparent what with the current Iraq spending legislation currently moving through the House, upgrading the nation’s water infrastructure may not exactly seem like an urgent priority for the federal government.

"If it flows out of taps, most people think there’s not a problem," Paul Schwartz, the National Policy Coordinator of Clean Water Action, said at a press briefing on March 16. "Most of our infrastructure is out of sight and out of mind."

But Schwartz and other environmental and consumer group representatives said that America’s water systems do not meet the health and safety standards the public expects them to meet. Just look, Schwartz said, to the disturbingly high levels of lead found in 2004 in Washington, D.C.’s drinking water, or the persisting high levels of arsenic found in rural drinking water systems.

The EPA has calculated a $22 billion annual shortfall in water infrastructure funding, noted Wenonah Hauter, the executive director of Food and Water Watch. The shortfall should be addressed March 21-23 at an EPA conference on "Paying for Sustainable Water Infrastructure" in Atlanta. The EPA will also likely emphasize plans to privatize America’s water.

The administration has said it "strongly opposes" both the Water Quality Investment Act and the Water Quality Financing Act, passed in the House with large margins of support on March 7 and March 9, respectively. The White House issued statements calling both bills "unrealistic in the current fiscal environment" and suggesting a move toward privatization.

Privatizing water infrastructure would have potentially disastrous consequences, Hauter said, such as "increasing prices, poor service and environmental problems."

She cited Atlanta as an example: When its municipal water system was handed over to the Paris-based water corporation Suez, it fell to pieces. The city faced broken hydrants, brown water and "boil-water" days, among other problems.

Privatization also consistently leads to higher rates, Hauter and Schwartz said.

"It’s a question of equity, a question of access, a question of fairness," Schwartz said. Higher rates would clearly have a larger impact on lower-income households.

"Are we going to set up a two-tier system?" he asks. "Healthy water for those who can afford it?"

The solution, Hauter and Schwatz said, lies in a federal trust fund for water infrastructure much like those that exist for highways and airports. They also would like to see a polluter-pay system in place.

But even as troubled water systems continue to make news—such as when intersex fish were found in the Potomac due to pollutants— the likelihood of increased federal funding for water systems seems unlikely in the near future.

"Even under the Bush administration and a Republican-lead congress, clean water funds were authorized," Schwartz said— but ultimately not appropriated. If you give more money to water infrastructure, where will you take it from, Schwartz asked.

"You’re looking at a declining range of options," he said. “It’s a zero-sum game."