Opinion: The water crisis demands the attention and finances of the government

 Water dominates 71 percent of the Earth’s surface and 60 percent of the human body. People consume water daily to maintain happy, healthy bodies. We are constantly surrounded by water, but this fact is often overlooked. 

When we turn on our faucets, we do not often stop and think about where our ready supply of water comes from. However, we should be taking a much closer look at where exactly our water has been and what steps our government is taking to regulate it.  

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the important responsibility of monitoring water conditions across the U.S. However in Trump’s latest budget announcement for 2020, it was proposed that the EPA’s budget be reduced by 31 percent. With this, the EPA may find it more difficult to perform its job of keeping the U.S. water supply free and clear of contamination. 

“While many of the nation’s water sector systems have been working hard to move toward greater infrastructure sustainability, the level of renewal and reinvestment in the water sector has not kept pace with the need,” the EPA said. “This has resulted in a gap between the amount of spending needed and money available to support those needs.” 

One potentially dangerous substance has been causing some concern lately: lead. Until the early 20th century, lead pipes were widely used in the water-supply systems. In 1986, lead-containing components were banned from the new U.S. plumbing systems. However, these lead-containing components still remain throughout the U.S.’ water infrastructure because much of it contains parts pre-dating the ban. 

Water traveling through these pipes could potentially expose consumers to small doses of lead. Lead can have concerning side effects such as increased blood pressure, kidney damage, and cognitive decline which include changes in memory or mental processing speed. 

Pregnant women are one of the biggest groups vulnerable to lead exposer. Low-level lead exposure could potentially affect their child’s cognitive function. 

One of the most well-known examples of this real problem is the Flint Water Crisis. In order to cut spending, the city of Flint, Michigan, decided to switch its drinking water supply from Detroit’s system to the Flint River. Because of inadequate water treatment and testing, many of Flint’s residents encountered major water quality and health issues. 

Residents complained the water was foul-smelling, discolored and off-tasting, and it was causing skin rashes, hair loss and itchy skin. However, it seemed the local government dismissed these complaints for some time. 

There were significant levels of lead found in the water coming from the Flint river. One pediatrician in Flint found that elevated blood-lead levels in children citywide had nearly doubled (and tripled for some) since 2014. For 18 months, nearly 9,000 children in Flint had been supplied lead-contaminated water. 

Unfortunately, the problems didn’t end there for Flint. Shortly after the city’s water switch, it experienced an outbreak of Legionnaires’ Disease, the third largest outbreak in U.S. history. The Flint River had also been used as an unofficial waste disposal site for some time. It had received raw sewage from the city’s waste treatment plant, agricultural and urban runoff and toxics from landfills. 

Sometimes, budget cuts seem good on their face, they save the taxpayers money, but sometimes they also have unintended consequences, much like
Flint, Michigan. 

Sadly, that’s not all. An analysis conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council found that in 2015, there were more than 80,000 reported violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act by community water systems. Additionally, more than 18,000 of those systems served nearly 77 million people. The violations included failing to properly test water contaminants, exceeding health-based standards and failing to report contaminations to state authorities or the public. 

Maura Allaire, a water economist at the University of California, compiled a national assessment of long-term water system violations using data from EPA. She found in 2015, nearly 21 million Americans (about 6 percent) were getting water from systems that violated health standards. 

Washington, D.C., Oklahoma, Idaho and Nebraska were found to be the highest ranking in water system violations over the years. When it came to counties, researchers found low-income, rural counties had it the worst, especially in Oklahoma and in parts of Texas and Idaho. 

The biggest downside to water regulation and safety in the U.S. is the wide diversity of the systems and the varying degrees of renovation they receive. This means there is no simply one-size-fits all approach to regulating the
nation’s water. 

Some have suggested a way to approach this is for the small water systems to merge with larger systems to have more consistent, widespread regulation. In the meantime, experts say spreading awareness is the best course of action. People can take easy steps such as buying water filtration systems for their homes and remembering to change them out regularly. 

Citizens in America should never be faced with a disaster like in Flint, and they have the right to know that their water is safe to drink. Rather than cutting budgets on water infrastructure, the government should try to find new solutions focused on restoration of the outdated pipes used to transport American’s drinking water and updating the water treatment plants. 

Undoubtedly, it will be expensive. Some analysts project that it could cost the U.S. as much as $1 trillion over the next two decades, but if anything in the country is worthy of that money, it’s the necessity of clean water.