The Critical Role Of Asset Management In Leveraging Historic Infrastructure Funding

The EPA puts it bluntly: “The nation has underinvested in water infrastructure for too long.” This underinvestment has negatively impacted Americans’ health, weakened the U.S. economy, and increased risk to national security – while making the work of water and wastewater utilities exceptionally difficult. But help is arriving.

The Biden administration recently announced over $5.8 billion for states, Tribes, and territories to invest in drinking water and clean water infrastructure upgrades. Similar funding announcements from the EPA for projects in Wyoming, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands came last week. This funding is part of the over $50 billion investment in water infrastructure upgrades from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Made law in 2021, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), also known as the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act (IIJA),  is providing more than $50 billion by 2026 to improve the nation’s drinking water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure - the single largest investment in water the federal government has ever made.

The BIL followed the groundbreaking America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 (AWIA). The AWIA made the most significant changes to the Safe Drinking Water Act since the 1996 Amendments, with over 30 mandated programs aimed at improving drinking water and water quality, deepening  infrastructure investments, improving public health and quality of life,  creating jobs, and invigorating the economy. Effective asset management features prominently in many of the mandated programs.