WASHINGTON — Cities need to consider digging themselves out of more traditional infrastructure to address water needs, and turn to smart infrastructure, water experts said Wednesday.
At an Infrastructure Week conference called “The Future is Now: Smart Water Infrastructure," panelists discussed innovations in smart water infrastructure and contrasted them with a more traditional approach.
Smart water infrastructure uses meters to quickly determine pressure and quickly detect leaks, among other advantages. Since it can monitor any issues that might occur, water treatment facilities can be more efficient and save money, some say.
Participants need to stop spending money on solutions that don’t make sense, such as traditional tunnels, said Albert Cho, vice president and general manager at Advanced Infrastructure Analytics, Xylem Inc. Smart water infrastructure can use sensing and analytics to find weak points and control where water flows. People feel like they have to do it the old way because they don’t want to disrupt the status quo, Cho said.
Smart infrastructure is also about maximizing tunnels municipalities already have, said Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells, chief executive of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. Her district treats 9 billion gallons of water annually at its three water treatment plants.
In 1969, the Cuyahoga River, in her district, caught fire. The river caught fire due to an increase in manufacturing paired with a lack of sewer and waste disposal regulation, according to the Ohio History Connection. Floating pieces of oil slicked debris were ignited on the river by sparks caused by a passing train.
When the district was formed in 1972, it had 9 billion gallons of combined sewer water overflow in a typical year. In the 1970s, they began using automated regulators, a form of smart technology that can maximize storage. In 2010, the district was down to about 4.5 billion gallons, she said, but they still needed to build eight tunnels.
“Sometimes you need tunnels because combined sewer overflow is a volume problem,” Dreyfuss-Wells said. “When you have a volume problem, you occasionally need a volume solution.”
Cities large and small are facing water challenges, so they want to innovate and make investments in their systems to make them more efficient, resilient and reliable, Carolyn Berndt, program director for sustainability at the National League of Cities, told The Bond Buyer.
“You can float a bond and build a big gray tunnel that costs billions of dollars or you can float a bond and make a smaller investment in infrastructure,” Berndt said. “Maybe it doesn’t solve the entire problem, but you get pretty close and get additional community benefits.”
Smart technology is eligible for funding under the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, as well as state revolving fund loans, said Andrew Sawyers, director of the Office of Waste Management at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. State revolving funds are administered by states to give low-interest loans for investment in water infrastructure.
He said some may think the EPA would not be geared toward innovation, but said the agency has had discussions about ways to move water technology forward. With WIFIA, he said he was wrestling with ways to find ways to finance projects while also including the private sector to advance smart technology.
WIFIA, created in 2014 under the Obama administration, provides low-cost loans and loan guarantees to eligible borrowers for water and wastewater projects. It is designed to work in conjunction with bonds and other funding sources and provide up to 45% of funding for a project.
Water funding could also come from a recent bill, introduced on Tuesday by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and John Katko, R-N.Y., the Water Infrastructure Trust Fund Act of 2019.
It would provide a small, deficit-neutral source of revenue to help states replace, repair and rehabilitate critical clean and drinking water facilities, according to a release. Businesses such as water-based beverages, pharmaceuticals and products disposed in wastewater could voluntarily buy a label that would contribute 3 cents per unit to the fund.
“As we’ve seen with the disaster in Flint, Michigan, and crises in my own community, this issue disproportionately impacts lower-income communities and puts them at serious risk,” Blumenauer said in the press release. “By finally establishing a dedicated source of funding for water infrastructure investments, the Water Infrastructure Trust Fund Act will improve public health, create family-wage jobs, and reduce pollution in communities across the country.”
Half of the trust will be distributed to local governments through grants and loans through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund for wastewater treatment construction, while the rest would be distributed through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund to finance projects to meet federal drinking water standards.
The bill also asks the EPA with states’ participation to conduct a study that would assess the affordability gap faced by low-income populations in urban and rural areas in getting clean water and drinking water systems. It would also find ways for programs to provide incentives in rate adjustments at the local level.
Steve Dye, legislative director for the Environment Water Federation, called the bill innovative since the funding would come from manufacturers and not localities.
A similar bill was introduced last year, but it did not receive consideration in the Senate.
