America's Water Crisis Is A Crisis Of Inaction

By Bob Hellman

After more than two decades of work, a coalition of southwest Missouri communities has secured a long-term water agreement intended to meet much of the region's future demand. It's an important achievement in a country where decrepit water systems, dwindling supplies, and out-of-control construction costs are strangling development. Unless communities can get the capital to build what they've spent years planning, even the best-laid infrastructure projects risk becoming another expensive chapter in America's endless cycle of studies, delays, and broken promises.

The Staggering Cost Of Doing Nothing

Americans have spent generations treating water as ubiquitous and practically free. We've allowed the systems that deliver it to be underappreciated, underinvested, underpriced, and undermanaged. Now the bill is coming due.

The country needs approximately $90 billion annually for drinking-water infrastructure. Current investment is closer to $34 billion. That's a $56 billion annual shortfall, and aging pipes aren't getting any younger while politicians debate how to pay for replacing them.

Consider the water main beneath Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard that ruptured in July. The 110-year-old pipe unleashed roughly 17 million gallons of water. Cars were damaged, buildings flooded, a sinkhole opened, and one of America's most famous commercial corridors shut down for eight days.

The 36-inch transmission line had been installed in 1916. The good news? A replacement was already in development. The bad news? Construction wasn't scheduled to begin until 2031, when the pipe would have been 115 years old.

The utility knew the line needed replacing. But a replacement scheduled for five years from now offers little consolation when a century-old pipe gives out today.

Missouri Has Already Done The Hard Work

For more than two decades, southwest Missouri's local leaders have undertaken the difficult work of preparing for future water demand.

Municipalities, utilities, and regional organizations worked across jurisdictional boundaries to identify supplies and pursue a common solution. Communities with different budgets and priorities recognized that working together better served their interests.

The Stockton Lake agreement gives participating communities a substantial new water source to help accommodate projected growth through 2060.

The coalition has examined a projected supply gap of 53 million gallons per day and developed plans for a regional delivery system. Conference estimates put the infrastructure cost at approximately $2 billion.

The regional agreement changes the financing prospects. Instead of municipalities pursuing separate answers to the same supply problem, lenders and investors can evaluate a coordinated undertaking with an identified water source and regional purpose.

That doesn't make the pipeline cheap or guarantee financing. It gives communities something concrete to bring to the negotiating table.

The Financing Problem Nobody Can Wish Away

Southwest Missouri's agreement highlights a question: How does a region pay for an extensive water system when its communities have different budgets and future needs? Municipal bonds, government grants, and State Revolving Funds (SRFs) remain essential. But traditional funding channels may not be enough.

The question is what it will take to begin construction: which portions can proceed, how communities will meet their obligations, and what financing commitments are needed.

Finding construction capital doesn't answer who ultimately pays. Whether money comes from public borrowing or private investors, revenues, or other funding sources must eventually support the obligations.

Private capital deserves consideration where it offers a practical advantage. Depending on the arrangement, investors might commit funding on terms that help coordinate construction spending with project schedules. Weigh that possibility against financing costs, conditions, and available alternatives.

Nor does private participation automatically transfer construction overruns or operating problems to investors. Those responsibilities, as well as the consequences of delays, depend on the contracts.

A municipality should be able to explain what it is buying with any financing arrangement, who bears which risks, and what customers will pay. Public authority over essential services cannot become an afterthought.

Financing also cannot substitute for permits, procurement, or public approvals. It can help make construction possible, but communities still must authorize the work.

Time To Finish The Job

A regional system this size involves numerous construction and financial decisions. Those decisions should reflect the work required, rather than assume one funding formula must govern everything.

Public borrowing may suit some investments. Others may warrant private participation. What matters is whether the arrangement delivers infrastructure at an acceptable cost while protecting affordability and accountability.

Southwest Missouri's communities have already demonstrated the willingness to make difficult decisions together. Their achievement deserves recognition because regional cooperation is hard, and securing a long-term source required more than another study.

Now comes a different test. The coalition must turn that agreement into a workable construction and financing program that participating communities and their customers can sustain.

America has no shortage of infrastructure plans. What it needs is more communities willing to confront the financial decisions those plans entail.

The Stockton Lake agreement settles an important question about southwest Missouri's water future. It also brings the next one into focus: Who will pay to build the system that delivers it? Financing and construction will determine what this regional achievement ultimately accomplishes.

Bob Hellman is the CEO and Managing Director of American Infrastructure Partners.