Addressing the Issue of Deteriorating Water Infrastructure in D.C. and Nationwide

By Jerome Muys, Jr. and Paul Tetenbaum

Posted on 2/26/2019

In his book titled Water – Towards a Culture of Responsibility, Antoine Frérort asserts that “water is essential for an acceptable way of life, and without it there can be no health, no education, and no development.” Almost every sector of the U.S. economy depends on water systems, many of which are in poor health after operating continuously for over a century. Specifically, water utilities serve approximately 86 percent of the population and provide an estimated 50 percent of the freshwater utilized by commercial and industrial businesses. In order to supply our nation’s water needs in the years to come, water and wastewater infrastructure will require extensive and continuous capital investment.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that a total investment of $600 billion would be required to update domestic water and wastewater infrastructure nationwide. Furthermore, the Value of Water Campaign estimates that an annual investment in water infrastructure of $123 billion every year for the next 10 years would be required to reach an adequate state of repair. Despite these projections, aggregate investment in water infrastructure at the local, state, and federal levels totals only $41 billion annually. The Federal Government’s investment in water infrastructure has substantially declined in the past 30 years. In 1977, 63 percent total federal spending was allocated towards water infrastructure; however, by 2014 federal spending on water infrastructure had declined to a mere 9 percent.

It is evident from this disparity that the Federal Government is unable to independently address the water infrastructure issues that our nation faces. To properly allocate the necessary resources to appropriately remedy this issue, private investments in water infrastructure are imperative. In the past, there has been a long-standing view that the privatization of water assets is detrimental to accessibility and equitable allocation of water resources. For example, the Trump administration’s proposal to sell the Washington Aqueduct in order to fund additional infrastructure projects received a tremendous amount of public backlash and was ultimately scrapped.

While some of the concerns pertinent to privatizing water infrastructure are warranted, it is worth exploring the economic benefits of its implementation. First, it is expected that if the annual investment in water infrastructure projected by the Value of Water Campaign ($123 billion/yr.) were met by the private sector, an additional $220 billion would be added to the U.S. economy. This would translate to approximately $2.22 trillion over 10 years. Secondly, it is projected that 1.3 million jobs would be created as a result of these private endeavors. Third, private sector investments in water infrastructure will provide cost-saving opportunities for businesses in the future as droughts become more prevalent as a result of climate change.

Climate change has resulted in an increased frequency of unusual weather patterns, including, but not limited to droughts. The increased frequency of such declines in average precipitation, primarily in the Mid-West and West Coast, have resulted in varying degrees of crises for individuals and businesses alike. For example, over the past several years, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming have been in the process of developing a Drought Contingency Plan in response to 16 years of drought that has decreased the capacity of many of the major reservoirs in the region (e.g. Lake Powell is currently at approximately 50 percent capacity). These four states and seven others have been deemed by the U.S. government as “primary natural disaster areas” as a result of drought. These climate change disasters coupled with gross overuse of freshwater reserves provide some dismal insights as to what the future may hold if no major changes are made. Specifically, some projections indicate that the demand for freshwater will exceed supply by approximately 40 percent by 2030 if the current trajectory is maintained. 

Not only would these projections, if met, be catastrophic for human health, they would also decimate both the agricultural and energy industries, thus threatening a complete societal collapse. According to a 2005 study by the U.S. Geological Society (USGS), domestic farming and irrigation makes up approximately 30 percent of freshwater usage. To put this into perspective, U.S. households make up less than 10 percent of domestic freshwater consumption. Because the population (both domestic and globally) has grown exponentially since this study was conducted, these estimates have most likely risen substantially. The U.S. energy sector makes up approximately 10 percent of domestic water consumption, which can primarily be attributed to fracking and nuclear power plants. Fracking requires 1 gallon of water to extract 1 mmbtu (unit of measurement for natural gas). This ratio translates to approximately 1.5 million gallons - 16 million gallons of water used per fracking well. Aggregate annual water consumption for U.S. nuclear power plants is over 300 billion gallons.

Public-private partnerships (P3s) are potential middle ground that would alleviate the concerns surrounding the privatization of water infrastructure projects by simultaneously supplementing federal funding with injections of capital from the private sector. P3s are cooperative agreements between the public and private sector that are very beneficial for completing projects in a timely and cost-effective manner. D.C. has been at the forefront of P3s in recent years after it created the Office of Public-Private Partnerships (OP3) in November of 2015. OP3’s purpose is to assist local public agencies in finding interested investors from the private sector to assist in funding their projects.

In a 2016 infrastructure assessment conducted by the American Society of Civil Engineers, D.C. received a C+ rating for its drinking water supply. The assessment stated that the city’s “distribution pipes have a median age of 79 years old, with some pipes dating back to the American Civil War. The District has 400 to 550 water main breaks per year, with 459 breaks in 2014.” This appears to be an ideal area for OP3 to operate within. By creating P3s for drinking water infrastructure the D.C. metro area may be able to replace its aging system at a lower cost and in a shorter time period than if it were to rely entirely upon utilizing a fraction the budget approved by Congress that it receives each year to chip away at the issue. If D.C. elects to spearhead such initiatives, it may galvanize other states to do the same, thus mitigating domestic water infrastructure issues and potentially generating thousands of new jobs.

Jerome Muys, Jr. is of counsel and Paul Tetenbaum is a paralegal with Muys & Associates LLC