A crisis at the tap.

• Author: Lynch, Walter
• Position: Infrastructure

EVERY DAY, millions of people across the U.S. simply turn on the tap to access clean water, fulfilling basic household needs from drinking and bathing to watering the lawn. Few think about what it takes to deliver that water, and even fewer know that the future of their tap-ready water is at serious risk, as the demand of a growing population meets a deteriorating, historically underfunded infrastructure. This is a crisis we cannot afford to ignore. Water is essential to life itself. Just as the human body cannot survive without drinking water, virtually every aspect of society requires water in order to function. Without it, there would be no fire protection, agriculture, manufacturing, or power grid.

As a nation, we have taken the availability of plentiful supplies of clean water for granted. Yet, aging systems are discharging billions of gallons of untreated wastewater into our surface water every year. Leaking and broken pipes waste nearly two trillion gallons of clean drinking water each year. Every two minutes, somewhere in the U.S. a significant water line raptures, wasting this precious resource and causing severe economic losses. In the summer of 2011, for instance, the rapture of a century-old water main in the Bronx disrupted New Yorkers' morning commute, damaged two gas mains, shut down electrical service to 500 customers for several days, and put as many as 60 local businesses at risk of closing permanently.

Demand from a growing population is expected to result In water shortages in as many as 36 states by 2013. Due to their low rate of replacement, broken and leaking pipes currently result in 1.7 trillion gallons of water wasted every year. More than 20% of drinking water is lost annually, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Without renewal or replacement, water pipes that are classified as poor, very poor, or life-elapsed will grow to 44% by 2020.

The state of our water systems has earned an alarming D-minus grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers in its 2009 Report Card on Infrastructure. The fix will not come cheaply. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency projects that as much as one trillion dollars will need to be invested over the next 20 years in order to keep clean water reliably at the tap and wastewater safely contained and treated. Already, then, the cost of not maintaining the infrastructure has come at a staggering price tag. If we fail to adopt sensible solutions now and make the investments needed to bring the infrastructure up to date, it only will grow worse.

The massive network of pipes that...