Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
Money planned for Iraq, Afghanistan is an issue
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's proposal to spend more than $20
billion on reconstruction for Iraq and Afghanistan while there are so many needs
at home is becoming a lightning-rod issue.
America's infrastructure - water and sewer systems, power grids, roads, schools
and airports - is in such poor shape that it needs an additional $1.6 trillion
in repairs over the next five years, according to a report this month from the
American Society of Civil Engineers.
For example, the Environmental Protection Agency says local water and sewer
agencies need an extra $535 billion over the next 20 years to keep waterways
from growing more polluted.
Each year, more than 1 trillion gallons of raw sewage escapes aging treatment
plants and pollutes U.S. waters. Millions of gallons of raw sewage flowed into
America's lakes, rivers and bays during September's Hurricane Isabel and
August's electrical blackout.
But the Bush administration proposes to spend $3.7 billion in taxpayers' money
to rebuild Iraq's water and sewer systems, versus $1.8 billion on the EPA
programs that help upgrade local U.S. water and sewer systems, the main federal
programs devoted to this purpose.
"It is mind-boggling that the president can recognize the importance of water
infrastructure needs in Iraq, but is blind to our needs here at home," said Sen.
James Jeffords, a Vermont independent who's on the Senate Environment and Public
Works Committee. "As recent events have shown, we cannot keep ignoring our water
needs. Unfortunately, this administration's concern for clean water is murky at
best."
A top Republican has similar concerns.
"If we can spend $1 billion a week in Iraq, we should be doing the same type of
things in this country," said John J. Duncan Jr., R-Tenn., the chairman of the
House of Representatives Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee.
To be sure, in America most spending on water and sewer systems comes from local
taxes, but the federal government has always played a role, and a larger one in
years past: In 1980 Washington spent $9.7 billion on those systems, equivalent
to $21.7 billion in today's dollars.
Moreover, state and local governments are cash-strapped today after the bust of
the late `90s high-tech boom and the economic slowdown that followed, and if the
growing need is to be met, many experts think more federal money will be
necessary.
Local water and sewer problems will only get worse because the population is
growing, requirements for clean water are becoming more stringent and the
systems are aging, said Steve Allbe, the EPA official who wrote last year's
54-page report showing a dramatic need for increased spending.
But the amount of assistance the EPA provided to help build water and sewer
projects dropped from $2.6 billion in 2001 to $2.2 billion in the budget year
that ends Tuesday.
Trent Duffy, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget,
said it was unfair to compare one-time help for Iraq to longtime federal aid for
U.S. water and sewer systems, which totals trillions of dollars over time.
"The Iraq costs are one-time shots in the arm," Duffy said. "There is no
comparison. You can't compare one-time (spending) with recurring costs."
Moreover, Duffy argued, on balance the Bush administration does spend more on
American water and sewer programs than on Iraqi systems, because other federal
money helps in addition to EPA water and sewer grants. Duffy cited $1.7 billion
in proposed water supply spending by the Agriculture and Interior departments.
In addition, the Army Corps of Engineers spends $4 billion, much of it on flood
control.
But that spending isn't equivalent to rebuilding water and sewer systems, either
in America or Iraq, and is peripheral to the real U.S. problem, said Ken Kirk,
the executive director of the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies, the
lobby for U.S. sewer agencies.
Kirk agreed that America needs to rebuild Iraq, but said that didn't excuse
neglecting problems at home.
"They have critical needs over there, but at the same time we have critical
needs over here," he said. "If you're going to make an investment in Iraqi
infrastructure, then you should make similar investments in U.S. water
resources."
A majority of ordinary Americans feel similarly, judging by recent polls. Some
59 percent oppose the president's request of $87 billion for military operations
and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a Pew Research Center
poll last week.
Another survey commissioned by Kirk's group and conducted last spring by Luntz
Research, a Republican public opinion and consulting firm, found that 70 percent
of those polled said clean drinking water was a national issue and the federal
government should help states and localities pay for improvements.
"This issue is NOT going to go away," Luntz Research wrote in a May memo to the
sewer lobby.
It surfaced this past week on Capitol Hill.
When L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator for Iraq reconstruction, testified
before the House Budget Committee on Monday, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, said:
"Now, in my district of Toledo, Ohio, we need $400 million for a wastewater
treatment plant. ... So when we give this money to this (Iraq) effort, it means
we're taking it away from our own people."
Hurricane Isabel flooded Alexandria, Va., a city in the midst of a $325 million
sewer-system upgrade, and even that might not be enough to comply with the
tightening clean-water regulations, according to Jim Canaday, the
engineer-director of the Alexandria Sanitation Authority. Canaday's agency is
getting $18 million from the state of Virginia but nothing from the federal
government.
"One could talk about priorities. I suppose, given that we declared war on those
(Iraqi) people and conquered them, I suppose we should look over those basic
human needs," Canaday said. But, he added, "we're one of the most basic
infrastructures of this country."
The American Society of Civil Engineers, a nonpartisan professional society,
said water, sewer and power systems in the United States were getting worse.
"It's a persistent issue that needs to be addressed," said Casey Dinges, the
society's spokesman. "The systems are only getting older. I think we should be
advancing on the domestic front, also. It shouldn't be either-or" with Iraq.
RESEARCH
The Pew Research poll of 1,500 adults was taken Sept. 17-22, and has a margin of
error of 3 percentage points.
The Luntz survey, taken in May, involved 800 registered voters and has a margin
of error of 3.5 percentage points.