The Buried Threat to Our Water Supply Isn't from Terrorists or Climate Change

There is a silent, pervasive threat to our water supply, and it's not terrorists or drought brought about by climate change. It's our own infrastructure.

Most of us give little thought to the pipes that bring water into our homes, unless they break. But a crisis is looming, as these pipes give in to old age and normal wear. The oldest ones are the thick cast-iron mains from the early 1900's, which were expected to last 100 years or more. Metal pipe from the 1920s through 40s was thinner and expected to last about 75 years. And the pipes that most areas of the country currently use, made of thin steel or "transite" are from the 50s and 60s, were designed to last about 50-75 years.

"Do the math - all that pipe is going to wear out about the same time," said Jack Hoffbuhr, who heads the American Water Works Association.

All over the nation, broken and leaking pipes have many poor rural communities facing health threats and economic hardship. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s Infrastructure Gap Analysis report (http://www.epa.gov/safewater/gapreport.pdf) estimated nation-wide funds needed for for drinking water between 2000 and 2019 would be up to $446 billion; this is not counting sewage and other water infrastructure needs. The EPA study concludes that the funding gap for infrastructure replacement will likely disappear if spending for clean water and drinking water increases by three percent per year above the rate of inflation. So brace yourselves for ever-increasing water and sewer bills.

Large cities have the tax base to come up with the money needed. Small towns cannot. Small communities do not have the population or the income to support millions of dollars in improvements, and must rely on federal grants and loans.

Breaks in pipes cause contamination; even after patches are applied to keep a system running, for safety reasons consumers must then boil water for a period of time. Another problem with old pipes is leakage, which wastes a massive amount of our increasingly precious drinking water. There is fierce competition for state and federal money, but in the end, there isn't enough of it to go around. Since 9/11, security imperatives are adding to the already high bill for capital investment.

We have read the reports about the threat of drought from climate change, and we have enforced tighter security on our water storage and treatment plants for fear that terrorists will poison our water supply, but this threat has literally been buried for decades, and threatens to catch us off-guard .... and cost us a bundle.