Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - NACWA in the News
Open the Funding Spigot for Water
Byline: Paul Pinault
The 1972 Clean Water Act makes one truth clear - the quality of our nation's
water depends on a meaningful local-state-federal partnership.
The Clean Water Act created the Construction Grants Program, which provided
unprecedented federal funding to build a nationwide network of wastewater
treatment facilities throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1987, the grants
program was replaced by the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, a federal loan
program dedicated to helping local communities repair and replace aging
wastewater treatment plants and pipes. Since that time, the revolving fund has
served as the primary source of federal support for clean water infrastructure.
While these programs have been highly successful, much work remains.
In short, at the very moment that clean water faces its largest challenge, there
is a push to eliminate federal funding. The revolving fund has been the subject
of significant budget cuts over the past few years and, if approved, the Bush
administration's 2007 budget would further slash overall revolving fund support
to less than half of its fiscal year 2004 level - from $1.35 billion to $687
million.
Through independent analyses, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the
Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office estimate a
startling gap of $350 billion to $600 billion dollars over the next 20 years to
repair and replace aging pipes and treatment works. Also, more than 40 percent
of the nation's waterways remain impaired, and the EPA has predicted a return to
pre-Clean Water Act water quality if we do not bridge this gap now.
Given its magnitude, there are limited options to address this capital crunch in
a viable manner. Repeated cuts to clean water programs illustrate the
unfortunate breakdown of the Clean Water Act's historic federal-state-local
partnership. At the Narragansett Bay Commission, we believe that to continue the
success of the Clean Water Act, we must re-establish this partnership.
America has demonstrated the vital importance of infrastructure by investing
billions of dollars in recent years in foreign countries; it is time to do no
less for our domestic infrastructure. Ratepayers across the country have already
stepped up to do their part. In the Narragansett Bay Commission's service area,
ratepayers have already experienced increases of 100 percent to finance
unfunded, federally mandated infrastructure projects. And in our service area,
as in many older urban areas, these increases are borne by those who can least
afford to pay.
To ensure this happens, the Narragansett Bay Commission supports recently
introduced landmark legislation that would create a deficit-neutral, long-term
and sustainable trust fund that will guarantee a shared federal-state-local
investment in clean water.
The Clean Water Trust Act of 2005 (H.R. 4560), introduced in the House of
Representatives in December 2005, would establish a federal Clean Water Trust
Fund that would provide approximately $7.5 billion annually from 2006 through
2010, or total funding of nearly $38 billion, to local communities to address
clean water infrastructure needs. In addition to ensuring the viability of the
revolving fund by providing it with $1.5 billion per year, the bill targets $4.5
billion in grants for high priority projects to upgrade the nation's clean water
infrastructure.
This legislation would be a first step in addressing the looming funding needs
of the nation's water infrastructure. The Narragansett Bay Commission and
numerous other supporters believe H.R. 4560 offers the most realistic method of
addressing this funding gap and building on the success of the
local-state-federal partnership that was so successful under the Clean Water
Act. n
Pinault is executive director of the Narragansett Bay Commission in Providence,
R.I., and chairman of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies' Clean
Water Funding Task Force.