Out of sight, out of mind—until of course, 2 million people are left wondering why they don’t have clean drinking water.

This weekend’s Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) water main break, which spilled millions of gallons of drinking water into the Charles River, should alert us to a larger and often hidden crisis of under-funded water infrastructure across the country. The underground pipes that provide our drinking water and that convey our sewage away from homes and businesses are typically hidden from sight, but are increasingly drawing attention through catastrophic failures.

While the cause of the MWRA pipe burst is not yet clear (officials report the pipe was only 7 years old), this incident signals that continued oversight and investment is needed to keep our water infrastructure working to protect health and the environment.

In 2009, New England spent around $113M in federal funds on drinking water and wastewater infrastructure (plus $2.2M or more in state funds and further expenditures by cities and towns).   The U.S. EPA has estimated New England’s needs at $11.5B for drinking water infrastructure and $8.5B for wastewater infrastructure over a 20-year period.  A national EPA “gap analysis” backed by the General Accounting Office found that unless rates of spending on drinking water and wastewater infrastructure increase substantially, we will come up short by about $500B for necessary upgrades by 2020.  Industry groups representing the operators of drinking water and wastewater systems agree, and the American Society of Civil Engineers has rated U.S. water infrastructure a “D-.”

Major upgrades are also required for our storm sewer systems (the pipes that channel rain water from street catch basins, parking lots, and driveways into nearby rivers and streams) to reflect modern pollution removal methods and to prevent sewage from mixing with the rain water. (Recall the sewage overflows that occurred during storms this past March.)

How to fill the investment gap?

The U.S. EPA and state environmental agencies provide funds for all of the above through loans and grant programs, but these won’t fill the gap entirely.  One proposal in Congress, introduced yesterday, would remove caps on private investment and could potentially create new jobs and bring in significant tax revenues.  Another would create a national trust fund supported by taxes on corporations.  Another option is for local water and sewer rates to increase to reflect “full cost pricing.”

In Massachusetts, a Water Infrastructure Finance Commission has been convened, and CLF will be involved in the discussions.

If there is any silver lining to this incident, it is that we have been reminded how much we rely on our water and wastewater systems – and how disruptive the consequences will be if we don’t make the investment to manage them proactively.

To learn more, check out the trailer for Liquid Assets, a documentary about America’s water infrastructure, or EPA’s web site.

The Massachusetts’ Water Resource Authority’s decision to release 15 million gallons of untreated sewage into Boston Harbor’s Quincy Bay during last weekend’s storm felt to many like a giant step backward in the decades-long fight to clean up Boston Harbor. The good news is that there are actions that can be taken today that could have kept MWRA officials from having to make that decision in the future—implementing green stormwater infrastructure to reduce the burden on our sewer pipes, reduce flooding and make communities more resilient to climate change.

Many of our state’s aging sewer systems become overwhelmed with a mix of rainwater and sewage during large storms. That’s why MWRA officials were stuck between a rock and a hard place, forced to choose between quietly releasing 15 million gallons of untreated sewage into Quincy Bay or letting the water flood the station and release that sewage into basements, but sparing the Harbor. The problem runs deeper than this one incident—during last week’s storm, there were equally damaging releases of raw sewage into neighborhoods and into the Mystic and Charles Rivers as well. (See video footage here).

Massachusetts can stop these incidents by investing in green stormwater management techniques to enable communities to better prevent sewer overflows and save money over the long term. Some of these techniques include the use of permeable pavement, green roofs, rain barrels, even gravel—anything that will absorb stormwater and diminish runoff from hard surfaces. These actions can be taken by homeowners in and around their homes, at the city scale by greening streets, parking lots, and alleys, and at the state level, by greening state highways and universities.  Massachusetts residents can urge their towns to adopt bylaws requiring green stormwater and green building techniques to be used in all new construction or infrastructure projects. Cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York are already rolling out these techniques and finding that they are both cost-effective and environmentally sustainable.

Fortunately, we have a chance RIGHT NOW to tell the state of Massachusetts how important it is to us to keep stormwater in check. The U.S. EPA is currently working on a stormwater permit that will govern the stormwater management of communities across Massachusetts for the next five years.

Help Massachusetts prepare for the next storm before it happens. Tell our government that we need a stronger stormwater permit to govern Massachusetts waterways and keep our communities pollution-free.