Experts throughout the United States agree that our nation's drinking water and wastewater systems face increasing infrastructure replacement challenges over the next several decades. There is no scarcity of evidence of the many problems, including collapsed storm sewers, trillions of gallons of water that overflow every year from sewer systems that commingle stormwater and wastewater, and an estimated 20-percent loss from leakage in many drinking water systems.
So where do you get the money to fund all the necessary improvements to our nation's water infrastructure?
That's the question a diverse group of experts from public and private water utilities, government water-quality and water-resource bodies, corporations, water advocacy groups, and national nongovernmental organizations thought we would be answering when we convened for the year-long Aspen Institute Dialogue on Sustainable Water Infrastructure in the U.S.
As the discussion progressed, however, it became clear among the participants that the key water infrastructure questions should not just be aimed at identifying sources of funding, as they so often are. Instead, a new question arose: What should we be doing with our financial resources and, more importantly, our natural resources?
The common discourse surrounding water infrastructure improvements in the U.S. tends to stop at pipes, reservoirs, water mains and treatment plants. We often forget about the natural systems -- the rivers, lakes, streams, aquifers, wetlands and watersheds -- that are equally important to the quality of our drinking water and wastewater systems.
The Aspen Institute's report, Sustainable Water Systems: Step One - Redefining the Nation's Infrastructure Challenge, takes on years of conventional thinking and seeks to reframe the often-discussed water infrastructure investment gap by replacing the "crisis-driven" investment gap approach to one in which a "sustainable path" guides water management decisions at all levels and in all forms of policymaking, funding and implementation.
The bottom line, dialogue participants determined, is this: The most reliable and efficient path toward providing adequate and safe water and wastewater services is to look beyond bricks and mortar infrastructure and embrace a 21st century definition of water infrastructure that includes rivers, lakes, aquifers, wetlands and, ultimately, a watershed-oriented and more holistic approach to water resource management.
While the sustainable path and its constituent elements are presented as an ideal that we should strive toward and benchmark against, the Aspen report is not mere "happy talk," lofty ideals and fuzzy goals. Contained in it are concrete policy recommendations directed toward utilities, governments and regulators at all levels, as well as detailed descriptions of potential obstacles and suggested remedies.
The overall goal is simple: to ensure all Americans have equal access to safe water. The only way to do that is to challenge conventional thinking and begin reframing the traditional discourse. The Aspen Institute Dialogue on Sustainable Water Infrastructure has done just that, and has achieved truly precedent-setting work that has already begun to change the face of our nation's water-infrastructure debate.
Michael Deane, a participant in The Aspen Institute's Dialogue on Sustainable Water Infrastructure in the U.S., formerly served as U.S. EPA associate assistant administrator for the Office of Water and is currently executive director of the National Association of Water Companies, which represents all aspects of the private water service industry. A copy of The Aspen Institute report can be accessed here.