The Senate is paying more attention to the weaknesses in the nation’s drinking water systems as Flint, Mich., deals with its lead-contaminated water. But the bipartisan deal reached between Michigan’s Senate delegation and prominent Republicans is seen as only the first step on a long road toward addressing those problems.
The $220 million deal is being funded through a Department of Energy program for advanced vehicles that Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., says has received one loan request in the past year. It would help communities dealing with a drinking water emergency, like Flint, get immediate help. However, it doesn’t do much for all the other cities with aging infrastructure, such as Chicago, and its ancient wooden water pipes.
Inhofe, who worked out the deal with Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said the federal government must support state governments in providing adequate drinking water.
“A majority of Americans, mostly in rural communities, are facing complications from aging water infrastructure,” he said. “Our fully paid-for solution is the fiscally responsible way forward in helping not only those in Flint, but communities across the nation.”
The deal would make $100 million available to states experiencing a drinking water emergency, provide $70 million to back low-interest loans to improve drinking water infrastructure, and set aside $50 million for health programs to mitigate the effects of lead exposure.
As many as 10 Senate Republicans filed holds on the deal, a procedural maneuver that blocks legislation from coming before the full Senate for a vote. Stabenow, Inhofe and the other bipartisan co-sponsors of the bill have been working with those objectors to resolve their concerns.
Stabenow said some GOP objections are based on misinformation about the situation in Flint, such as the contention that a federal emergency had not been declared. President Obama declared a federal emergency in January.
The eastern Michigan city of about 100,000 has been unable to drink tap water for months. The city began using the highly acidic Flint River as a water source in April 2014, and the river’s water caused lead to leach off the aging pipes and poison the drinking water.
Stabenow and other members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee want to make sure Flint’s crisis serves as the impetus to address other problems with the country’s aging water infrastructure.
“What we are doing now is creating a way to help water infrastructure and water-contamination projects across the country,” she said. “We’ve taken what’s happened in Flint, we will respond to Flint, but we’ve broadened it in a way as we’ve found out about more and more situations around the country.”
That is music to the ears of environmental groups in Washington.
Dalal Aboulhosn, senior Washington representative for clean water protections at the Sierra Club, said the Flint crisis is giving political momentum to updating water infrastructure.
However, Aboulhosn said the bill is the start of a conversation about infrastructure instead of a “silver bullet.”
“It’s a step forward,” she said. “It’s a step to address that and a step to provide some very much-needed resources, not only to Flint but to other places around the country.”
Communities in other states are also experiencing lead water crises, though the troubles in Flint suck up much of the issue’s oxygen. Sebring, Ohio, and Jackson, Miss., are grappling with aging water infrastructure that has poisoned water in their cities, too.
Infrastructure is not a sexy issue and doesn’t get lawmakers’ attention the way national security or healthcare does, and Aboulhosn said it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore needed upgrades. In many cases, kicking the can down the road on infrastructure improvements has caused the health problems, she said.
“The Flint crisis has really shone a light on our aging infrastructure,” she said. “This is something that has been decaying for decades now, and we are seeing the ramifications of not keeping up with it.”
The amount of money being considered in the Senate deal wouldn’t be enough to pre-emptively address infrastructure problems across the country. In Flint alone, it’s estimated that $55 million is needed to replace the city’s 15,000 lead pipes. The American Water Works Association estimates the country has about 6.1 million lead water pipes.
David Loveday, director of government affairs at the Water Quality Association, said the hardest part about updating the country’s water infrastructure is simply going to be deciding how to spend whatever money goes toward new projects.
While many communities would like to rip up all their lead pipes or address the chronic problems that lead to water contamination such as pollution from farm runoff, it’s simply too expensive to solve those issues, he said.
“Clearly there’s a need for fixing the infrastructure that we have, but we have to figure out what should be prioritized because there’s not enough money,” he said.
Loveday pointed to House-passed legislation that would require the Environmental Protection Agency to notify the public whenever there is a drinking water crisis. To assuage fears after those notifications are sent out, water filters need to be widely available, he said.
Simple solutions such as water filters and other “point of use” technologies can help bridge the gap between the immediate clean water needs and permanent solutions, Loveday said.
“There’s got to be a new paradigm, a new thinking on how you move forward with that,” he said.
