Aging US Water Systems Are No Match for Climate Change

Related:

https://www.awwa.org/beyond-the-replacement-era/

> To keep pace with climate risks and make needed upgrades, Berry estimates that US water systems would need an additional $140 billion a year for the next 20 years. The US Environmental Protection Agency has a more modest, though still significant, estimated price tag: $625 billion over the same period. Researcher Zia Lyle of the University of North Carolina estimates that 67 million American utility customers are served by water utilities with high climate risk, and that more than a quarter of water systems face high financial and climate vulnerability.

> According to the American Water Works Association, a nonprofit industry association, this need goes beyond simply replacing elderly pipes. To redesign and update municipal water systems to prepare them for contemporary conditions, between $2.1 trillion and $2.4 trillion will be required between now and 2050, the group estimates. If utilities didn’t get additional federal or state support and simply passed along this cost to consumers, that would increase drinking water bills by at least 126%, before considering inflation. Already, more than 10 million US households are “water burdened,” the AWWA says, with costs for drinking water exceeding 2.5% of income.

> And that doesn’t even factor in wild-card challenges like utility cyberattacks. AWWA surveys found that about a quarter of smaller systems say they have no way to implement proper cybersecurity.

> Roughly two-thirds of US water pipes are over 30 years old, said Charles Lowrey, a managing director with the advisory firm Alvarez & Marsal, and 17% of the pipes in the Northeast have been in use for more than a century. Upgrades are needed to comply with mandates to remove lead pipes and upgrade filtration systems to remove cancer-linked PFAS “forever chemicals.” An AWWA survey found just under 50% of the nation’s water utilities are funding any kind of asset renewal or rehabilitation effort.

(additional off balance sheet US debt)