Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
Feds Pushed to Fund Solutions to US Infrastructure Woes
WASHINGTON — The Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies (AMSA) continued
to stress the need for a federally backed, long-term, solution to overcome a
funding shortfall preventing the nation from adequately refurbishing its aging
water and wastewater infrastructure systems.
AMSA participated Friday in the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA)
multi-stakeholder meeting, titled "Closing the Gap: Innovative Responses for
Sustainable Water Infrastructure."
The EPA, in its "Clean Water and Drinking Water Infrastructure Gap Analysis,"
has documented a water and wastewater infrastructure funding gap of as much as
$500 billion.
AMSA said in a news release that it believes the only viable solution is a
federally backed, long-term, sustainable funding source.
Paul Pinault, AMSA's president and executive director of the Narragansett Bay
Commission in Providence, RI, participated as a panelist during a session of the
EPA meeting.
"Municipalities are committed to being as competitive as possible; asset
management has become more routine and effective; and rates have been increasing
to deal with an aging infrastructure and ever-increasing federal regulatory
requirements," Pinault said, according to the AMSA release.
The bottom line, he said, is that the federal government can no longer turn its
back on clean and safe water
Billy G. Turner, an AMSA board member and president of the Columbus Water Works
in Georgia, also participated and echoed these municipal concerns, the
association said.
The Water Infrastructure Network (WIN), a coalition of over 40 organizations
representing drinking water and wastewater agencies, local elected officials,
labor, environmentalists, engineers and industry, jump-started the national
discussion on the existence of, and methods to address, the massive water and
wastewater funding shortfall and its daunting environmental, public health and
economic ramifications, said AMSA.
As local budgets continue to shrink, municipalities face soaring costs
associated with expensive federal regulations, such as wet weather requirements,
as well as heightened security costs. Municipalities cannot cover this massive
infrastructure bill alone.
AMSA said it is continuing to call on Congress and the President to act swiftly
on the issue and pass legislation to finance a long-term, sustainable, and
reliable source of funding for clean water, focusing on critical "core"
infrastructure needs.
AMSA is a national trade association representing hundreds of the nation's
publicly owned wastewater utilities.
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