WWEMA Window: Valuing Water

By William Decker

Everyone in the water industry is familiar with the Benjamin Franklin quote “When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.” We collectively also know the tremendous impact availability of pure water and efficient treatment of wastewater has on every aspect of our lives and livelihood. Water treatment remains one of the strongest contributors to public health and access to potable water unleashes both educational and commercial activities within communities. Some economists suggest that water is responsible for over 40% of the world’s GDP. Personally, I believe water contributes to 100% of the global GDP. Given the importance and impact of water and water treatment, as an industry, why do we have to go hat in hand every year looking for sustainable funding for our municipal water systems? I contend that the water industry has a branding and messaging issue.

Within the U.S., we have over 50,000 drinking water systems supplying 39 billion gallons of potable water daily and our collective wastewater systems treat approximately 32 billion gallons daily. The potable water is distributed by approximately 2.2 million miles of pipe with an average age of 45 years. Between 2012 and 2018, water main breaks increased by 27% approaching 300,000 breaks per year. These same water mains lose approximately 6 billion gallons of treated water daily. In 2022, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) rated the drinking water and wastewater infrastructure as C- and D+ respectively. While this is “improving,” no water professional believes this to be acceptable.

The water industry within the U.S. includes very skilled operations teams at most utilities, knowledgeable regulators, some of the best consulting engineers globally, along with best-in-class manufacturers delivering state of the art technology packages. Unfortunately, despite the U.S. EPA Environmental Justice office efforts for the past 30 years, all communities are not serviced equally and we still have over 2 million people within the U.S. who lack access to safe sources of potable water. Additionally, less than 25% of the utilities have a sustainable capital investment program. Across the country, estimates for pipe replacements range from one to 5% annually for assets that have already exceeded half of their planned service life. Despite our excellence of personnel within the industry, we are not moving the needle on sustainable funding quickly enough.

Demand for water throughout the U.S. is high with per capita estimates of 82 gallons per person per day. This is one of the highest levels of water use globally driven by municipal needs but also driven by agriculture and energy production. We have taken steps to reduce water consumption but we still have a long way to go to approach some of our European counterparts. While we are reducing the demand for water, given our current state of funding, we as an industry are simply not ready to meet current and future challenges. Our communities face an array of challenges including PFAS and other chemicals of emerging concerns, water scarcity, climate change, and other extreme weather events, physical and data security for the treatment plants, elimination of lead service lines, microconstituents, stormwater flow, failing septic tanks, treatment of non-point sources, and the list goes on and on. 

Under-investment in our water infrastructure could lead to a $2.9 trillion decline in our GDP by 2039. ASCE estimates that decline could be as high as $10 trillion with an additional $2.4 trillion in lost exports. It is estimated that failing water infrastructure could result in $7.7 billion in cumulative healthcare costs to households over the next 20 years and a loss of more than three million jobs. But yet, every year we continue to under invest and at some point, this bill will become due. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law made a historic investment to correct some of these trends. However, a one-time approach to infrastructure funding is not the answer. Investment in water infrastructure has been shown to unleash technological advancements and could create up to 800,000 jobs. As one former congressman remarked, water does not get the attention because it does not get the votes. At the recent Water & Wastewater Equipment Manufacturer’s Association Annual Meeting, one panelist was asked how we increase the awareness of our industry to non-water professionals. The surprising answer was “Stop talking to each other.” Yes, it is important that we collaborate and share technical advances to solve some of our pressing needs. But that alone won’t solve the funding or the labor challenges we face as an industry. We need to develop bipartisan support across all levels of government so that funding water is a top priority and our current messaging focusing on funding shortfalls is not breaking through.

In addition to protecting public health, the water industry offers well-paying blue- and white-collar jobs in both technical and non-technical fields. We continually conduct cutting edge research to remove contaminants at levels that were unimaginable a decade ago. For us to continue this work and solve future challenges, we need to attract more young professionals into the industry, both as a replacement for retiring workers but also to sustain technology development.  Attracting them follows the same path as attracting funding. We need to over communicate the value of water and communicate the facts that the water industry is essential and that we deliver on our commitments every day. We cannot limit this communication to just water professionals. The message is too important to be stapled on to our water bill. We need to develop better methods and better messaging that touches all customers but more importantly mobilizes them in a way that reaches into city, state, and federal governments as a call to action. As an industry, we need to coalesce around this message so that promote the great work being done, the impact we have and why we need to prioritize funding. As we prepare for water week in 2024, let’s leave make sustainable funding for water infrastructure as our legacy.

William Decker is the Vice President Water and Wastewater Treatment Technologies at Fuel Tech, Inc. He is also the current Chair of the Water and Wastewater Equipment Manufacturers Association (WWEMA).