Where Has All the Money Gone?

February 29, 2008 | Stormwater & Sewage, Greening Water Infrastructure

Katherine Baer
Senior Director, Clean Water Program

Guess how much money is needed to fix our crumbling water infrastructure? Now guess higher. The Environmental Protection Agency's now estimates that we need over $202 billion to fix sewer and storm water systems to meet Clean Water Act goals. Guess how much money the President proposed in his budget for clean water. $555 million - talk about fuzzy math...

The decline in funding for clean water infrastructure is felt all over the country with more and more sewage spilling from old pipes into our local streams and rivers. We need more money at the local, state, and federal levels and it must be better spent, as American Rivers president Rebecca Wodder pointed out recently in the San Francisco Chronicle:

We can stretch those [federal] dollars even further with smart storm water management techniques such as rain gardens, permeable surfaces and by protecting our wetlands. These proven approaches capture rainwater before it becomes a problem, instead of allowing it to overwhelm the system and threaten public health and safety

Green infrastructure approaches are gathering momentum and create jobs that cannot be exported. Hopefully, this will be combined with the increased recognition that failing infrastructure is a national problem that will only worsen in the face of global warming forcing us to make smart investments in our water infrastructure for the future. Instead of promoting sprawl and creating more problems (as documented in a new report by Environmental Advocates of New York), federal money should be used to fix existing problems and fund infrastrcuture that can best adapt to emerging ones. As the Senate looks to reauthorize the federal clean water revolving fund and a new clean water trust fund is being proposed it will be key to keep sustainability at the forefront.

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