Congress’s Stealth Water Infrastructure Deal

Frank Picozzi, the mayor of Warwick, Rhode Island, wants $10 million to replace water and sewer pipes.
In Louisiana, Gov. John Bel Edwards floated the idea of $300 million for water and sewer infrastructure.
Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky is putting $250 million into upgrading his state’s water systems and connecting rural residents to clean drinking water.
These potential investments are made possible by the American Rescue Plan Act, a coronavirus relief package that includes substantial sums for public works.
Even as President Biden stumps for a multitrillion-dollar standalone infrastructure bill — a proposal that includes $111 billion to remove lead pipes, upgrade rural water systems, and clean up toxic PFAS chemicals — the American Rescue Plan is a windfall of its own.
The act authorized several ways these state and local funds could be spent, including premium pay to essential workers, aid to businesses and households, and covering expenses incurred during the pandemic. The act also stated that funds can be used for “necessary investments in water, sewer, or broadband infrastructure.” But what is necessary?
In guidance released on May 10, the U.S. Treasury Department clarified that term. By doing so it opened the door for state, local, and tribal governments to use the funds to improve their water and sewer systems.

The Central California Town That Keeps Sinking

In California’s San Joaquin Valley, the farming town of Corcoran has a multimillion-dollar problem. It is almost impossible to see, yet so vast it takes NASA scientists using satellite technology to fully grasp.

Corcoran is sinking.

Over the past 14 years, the town has sunk as much as 11.5 feet in some places — enough to swallow the entire first floor of a two-story house and to at times make Corcoran one of the fastest-sinking areas in the country, according to experts with the United States Geological Survey.

Subsidence is the technical term for the phenomenon — the slow-motion deflation of land that occurs when large amounts of water are withdrawn from deep underground, causing underlying sediments to fall in on themselves.

Already, the casings of drinking-water wells have been crushed. Flood zones have shifted. The town levee had to be rebuilt at a cost of $10 million — residents’ property tax bills increased roughly $200 a year for three years, a steep price in a place where the median income is $40,000.

The main reason Corcoran has been subsiding is not nature. It’s agriculture.

HotSpots H2O: Israeli Airstrikes Intensify Palestine’s Water, Humanitarian Crises

After more than a week of air and artillery strikes that began on May 10, the damage in the crowded coastal enclave of Gaza is immense. Three of Gaza’s few crucial desalination plants, necessary for making potable the tainted supply, are off line because of the bombings. Underground pipe networks, which reach 800,000 people in Gaza, have burst. Officials estimate a 40 percent deficit in the already weak water supply.

What’s Up With Water – May 24, 2021

Featured coverage from this week’s episode of What’s Up With Water looks at:

This week, Circle of Blue looks at how the U.S. government’s recent coronavirus relief package is serving as a stealth infrastructure investment.

In Broad Strokes, Biden Infrastructure Plan Sketches a Future for Federal Water Spending

President Joe Biden unveiled a wide-ranging jobs and infrastructure plan, asking Congress to support a $2 trillion investment in the built and natural systems that sustain American life, from trips to the grocery store to a glass of water from the faucet.
The administration is calling the proposal the American Jobs Plan, and among its many parts it includes $111 billion for water systems. A month after winter storms crippled water and electric providers in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, the plan also calls for $50 billion to prepare the country’s infrastructure for an era of severe floods, droughts, wildfires, and hurricanes.
Like much of the plan, the $111 billion in water systems funding is described in broad strokes and headline numbers that sidestep, for now, details on how the money would be allocated. As part of that total, the plan offers $10 billion for monitoring and cleaning up toxic PFAS chemicals and investing in rural water systems, household wells, and septic units. The plan includes $56 billion for modernizing drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater conveyance and treatment.

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