We must continue investing in water infrastructure – River Network

The following op-ed was originally published on March 15, 2025 in BridgeDetroit.

The author, Erin Kanzig (she/her) is a resident of Detroit, MI. She is the Drinking Water Program Director at River Network, where she works on water infrastructure, affordability, and contamination issues nationally.

A water main breaks every two minutes in America. Think about enjoying swimming in a pool in the summer — and then imagine 9,000 pools being drained every day — that’s the estimated amount of treated water lost (about 6 billion gallons) due to aging infrastructure.

In Detroit, this type of disruption, loss of water and the lengthy repair time was dramatically brought into focus on Feb. 17, when a main transmission line that’s been in use since the 1930s ruptured, causing immediate flooding during single-digit temperatures. Residents in southwest Detroit woke up to their basements flooded, and many were trapped in homes surrounded by icy water up to their porches. Response teams evacuated people on boats. Over 400 homes were affected by the break, and displaced community members have been told they will have to wait at least six weeks to return home.

We don’t usually think about the underground pipes that deliver drinking water to our homes and those that carry wastewater away until something goes wrong. We might curse at a pothole as we drive and complain that our roads need more frequent repair, but the hidden nature of water infrastructure tends to keep it out of the public spotlight.

Nevertheless, it is vital that we shine a light on the urgent need for continued water infrastructure investment. Amidst recent and ongoing moves to cut federal funding, we must remember the direct, material impacts these decisions have on us, everyday people, whether we live in a major metropolitan area  like Detroit—where the regional water system (Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA)) supports access to water, wastewater, and stormwater services for eight counties and nearly 4 million people—or in a rural community whose water system serves fewer than a hundred people.

GLWA approved rate hikes immediately following the catastrophic February water main break. As Tiana Starks, Director of Communications at We the People of Detroit, explains, “GLWA has shifted the burden onto those least able to afford it, underscoring the urgent need for federal funding to rebuild a crumbling system that puts profits over people’s basic right to clean, safe and affordable water.”

Federal funding for water infrastructure is essential. Without it, water utilities are left with few choices, hiking up rates for customers and exacerbating the water affordability crisis. Investing in safe water and updating the infrastructure that keeps our water clean results in major health and economic dividends, creating jobs and lessening the chance that whole neighborhoods will be displaced, cars totaled, furnaces destroyed, and basements flooded due to century-old pipes bursting in the dead of winter like what recently happened in Detroit.

We all need affordable, clean, safe, and reliable drinking water. Sixty-three percent of voters say that drinking water and sewer systems should be priorities for US government spending, and 88% of voters prioritize addressing drinking water contamination.

When our water infrastructure doesn’t work as it should, or has outdated treatment capabilities, it can increase our risk of contamination and wreak havoc on the health of vulnerable groups, like young children and older adults. “One serious consequence of contaminated drinking water is harm to reproductive health, a cost that is borne disproportionately by women of color and their families,” explains LaTanya Bell, Co-Executive Director of Wisdom Institute, a Detroit-based organization which champions reproductive justice and maternal and child health.

With such strong bipartisan support, Congress needs to commit full funding levels for these well-established programs that provide necessary infrastructure upgrades across our communities. Our members of Congress have their attention pulled in a lot of directions these days – it’s important we remind them to invest in what we all want – clean, safe, reliable, affordable water and the
infrastructure necessary to deliver it.