WASHINGTON — At a US Senate hearing today observing the 30th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act, the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies (AMSA) said the funding of water and wastewater infrastructure projects across the nation is one of the nation's most pressing challenges.
Paul Pinault, AMSA's president and executive director of the Narragansett Bay Commission in Providence, RI, testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee. According to an AMSA news release, he noted the clean water progress the nation's publicly owned wastewater treatment works have made over the past 30 years.
Pinault said there is a strong need for a renewed federal commitment to clean water infrastructure funding to continue the environmental and public health gains made to date under the Clean Water Act.
"The success of the Clean Water Act is due, in large part, to the hard work, ingenuity and dedication of local wastewater treatment officials," Pinault said. "From the early 1900s, municipal governments have provided the majority of financial support for water pollution control."
While more work needs to be done to clean up and restore the nation's waters, "the measurable gap between projected clean water investment needs and current levels of spending continues to grow, [and] local ratepayers will be unable to foot the bill for the costs associated with increasingly stringent requirements of the Clean Water Act," he said.
The US Environmental Protection Agency last week released The Clean Water and Drinking Water Infrastructure Gap Analysis that estimated that the gap between what is needed and what is allocated for infrastructure funding could be as high as $442 billion.
AMSA said the work of public treatment utility employees is slowed by declining federal financial commitment to clean water infrastructure. At the same time, municipalities face the cumulative burden of costly federal clean water regulations and the challenge that soaring security costs have posed to already tight local budgets.
"It would be short-sighted if Congress does not use this opportunity to recommit itself to ensuring the nation's public health and environment by developing a long-term sustainable solution to the nation's core water and wastewater infrastructure funding needs," said Ken Kirk, AMSA's executive director.
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