On February 20, 2024, it was announced that Vice President Kamala Harris and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, Michael Regan, will travel to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as part of the Administration’s Investing in America Tour to announce $5.8 billion in funding for clean water infrastructure from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda.
The press release states, "President Biden and Vice President Harris are committed to ensuring a future where every child and family has access to clean, safe water, and today’s announcement brings the total amount of clean water funding announced by EPA from the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to $22 billion. The Infrastructure Law invests a total of over $50 billion to upgrade America’s water infrastructure, the largest investment in clean water in American history."
The announcement "delivers funding to every single state and territory in the country to expand access to clean drinking water, replace lead pipes, improve wastewater and sanitation infrastructure, and remove PFAS contamination in water."
It is important to note that the money will be available in the form of grants or forgivable loans to disadvataged communities as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The following is a direct quote of the goals included within the annoucnement along with case in point examples.
Delivering clean drinking water
- Today, EPA is announcing over $3.2 billion through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund to expand access to clean drinking water across the country, bringing the total amount of funding announced under this category to $8.9 billion. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests nearly $31 billion in funding for a wide range of drinking water projects, including upgrades to water treatment plants, water distribution and piping systems, PFAS treatment, and lead pipe replacement.
- One community benefitting from this funding is Ridgway, Colorado, where over 50,000 people rely on a single water treatment plant that is vulnerable to failure, putting their drinking water supply at risk. Through a $50 million investment from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the community will be able to build an additional treatment plant and extend service to additional communities, helping to ensure safe, reliable drinking water for the region.
- The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation is investing $1 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to construct seven major Rural Water Projects to deliver new supplies of clean drinking water to rural communities. In addition, the Department of the Interior has awarded $160 million for the Arkansas Valley Conduit, a planned 230-mile water pipeline that will deliver clean water to 50,000 people in southeastern Colorado whose groundwater supplies may be contaminated with radionuclides. The project was initially authorized by President John F. Kennedy in 1962 and has now finally accelerated construction under the Biden-Harris Administration, with the first pipeline breaking ground and construction contracts awarded for multiple new segments in the past year.
- The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative – the largest investment in the Great Lakes in two decades – received $1 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help provide healthy ecosystems and safe drinking water for the 20 million Americans who rely on the Great Lakes. The program will completely restore eleven highly contaminated sites in the Great Lakes, three of which have already broken ground. Projects include the Milwaukee Estuary in Wisconsin and Cuyahoga River in Ohio, which have received a combined $415 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding to clean up millions of cubic yards of contaminated sediment.
Replacing lead pipes
- The general-purpose drinking water funding announced today can also be used to replace toxic lead pipes, accelerating progress towards the President’s goal of replacing every lead service line in the country.
- The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also includes a historic $15 billion in dedicated funding for lead pipe replacement. To date, EPA has announced $6 billion of this funding, which will help replace hundreds of thousands of lead pipes. EPA will announce additional lead pipe replacement funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure for 2024 in the coming months.
- Since Vice President Harris last visited Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in June 2022 to highlight the importance of replacing lead pipes and securing clean water access, the city has received $42 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for lead pipe replacement, helping Pittsburgh towards its goal of replacing 100% of its lead pipes by 2026.
- In November 2023, EPA proposed updates to the Lead and Copper Rule [called the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements] that require water systems to replace lead service lines within 10 years. EPA is also financing major lead pipe replacement projects through its WIFIA (Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act) loan program. EPA announced low-interest loans of $340 million to the City of Philadelphia and $336 million to the City of Chicago to replace tens of thousands of lead pipes while creating thousands of jobs.
- The Administration’s Get the Lead Out (GLO) Initiative – launched in November 2023 as a part of the President’s goal of replacing all lead service lines within a decade – establishes a partnership with 200 underserved communities nationwide to provide the technical assistance they need to access federal funding and remove lead service lines from their communities. This initiative builds on EPA and the Department of Labor’s partnership with 40 underserved communities to support lead pipe replacement.
Improving wastewater and sanitation infrastructure
- Today, EPA is announcing over $2.6 billion through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund for a range of projects to improve wastewater, sanitation, and stormwater infrastructure, bringing the total funding announced for this purpose to $7 billion. Inadequate wastewater or sanitation systems put communities’ health at risk, and in total, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests nearly $13 billion in wastewater funding to expand and upgrade these critical systems across the country.
- Last week, EPA announced an expansion of its successful Closing America’s Wastewater Access Gap Community Initiative to help an additional 150 underserved communities plan wastewater projects and access funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Through the pilot of this initiative, EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have been assisting 11 communities since 2022.
- One member of the Wastewater Access Gap initiative is Lowndes County, Alabama, where roughly 90% of households have failing wastewater systems and many children and families are exposed to raw sewage in their own backyards. Through the program, EPA and USDA have worked with the Lowndes County community of White Hall to secure over $500,000 in federal funding for wastewater projects to date. In the Lowndes County community of Hayneville, EPA has awarded a 100% forgivable $8.7 million loan to address failing or non-existent wastewater systems in 650 homes.
- Since President Biden took office, the Indian Health Service in the Department of Health and Human Services has allocated $1.4 billion in funding from the Infrastructure Law to over 650 projects to build sanitation infrastructure in Tribal communities.
Cleaning up PFAS pollution in water
- The funding announced today includes over $1 billion dedicated to addressing emerging contaminants like PFAS, bringing the total funding announced for emerging contaminants to nearly $5 billion. PFAS “forever chemicals” can be present in drinking water or wastewater and contribute to a variety of harmful health impacts, including developmental challenges in children and increased risk of cancer. In total, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests $10 billion to help communities build new treatment systems to remove PFAS pollution. Additionally, thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, 100% of funding to remove emerging contaminants like PFAS will be provided as grants or forgivable loans, greatly reducing barriers for all communities with PFAS contamination.
- One community benefitting from this funding is the city of Tucson, Arizona, where drinking water supplies have been stressed by both drought and the pollution of drinking water wells by harmful PFAS and other chemicals. Through a $33.5 million forgivable loan, the city will build a new drinking water treatment facility to eliminate these contaminants and restore clean drinking water for the community.
- In March 2023, EPA proposed the first-ever national drinking water standard for PFAS under President Biden’s plan to combat PFAS pollution and EPA’s PFAS Strategic Roadmap. Expected to be finalized in 2024, these drinking water standards will establish legally enforceable levels for six PFAS chemicals, a major step to protect public health from PFAS pollution.
