WASHINGTON, DC - The Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, chaired by Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), today held a hearing to examine Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) issues related to small and rural drinking water utilities. Many smaller and rural communities face significant challenges in replacing, maintaining, and upgrading aging and drinking water infrastructure along with added costs and burdens of meeting new regulatory requirements.
Chairman Shimkus commented, “It’s ironic that these communities, where residents work hard to support their families and their local governments, while often earning wages below those of their counterparts in the more urbanized areas, face per customer compliance costs and demands that are disproportionate to many larger communities. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of having the ability to keep up with the red-tape."
Bobby Selman, testifying on behalf of the Mississippi Rural Water Association, described the difficulties of providing access to drinking water and sanitation in small towns. “Many small community water systems only have a few hundred homes that have to fund their operations, infrastructure, testing, treatment chemicals, and personnel for both a water and sewer supply. Further, many of these systems were built in the 1960s and are reaching the end of their lifespans resulting in pipe breaks, tanks and pumps needing replacing, old wells failing, and the list goes on," said Selman.
Joseph Keegan, Mayor of Castleton On Hudson, New York, added, “All of us small community water and sewer utilities have to comply with the same regulations, testing, and certifications as the biggest cities - but with only our very small rate-payer base. And we have to operate, maintain, and update our water infrastructure with very small budgets." He pleaded for help, stating, “We do need help; most everything from financing, regulations, compliance, and the various programs is very complicated for small communities. We don’t have financial professionals on staff and often don’t understand many of the funding processes. Consequently, small communities often fail to exploit some of the funding programs like the state revolving funds. Currently, my community does not have any financing through these funds."
Alfredo Gomez, Director of Natural Resources and Environment at the Government Accountability Office, testified on the findings of a recent GAO report that identified a number of issues affecting the ability of rural communities to fund water and wastewater infrastructure. He explained, “Unlike larger, urban communities that can issue their own public bonds to pay for major water and wastewater infrastructure improvements, it can be difficult for rural communities to independently finance such major improvements. In many cases, rural communities had limited access to financial markets, restricting their ability to issue bonds to raise capital. As a result, these communities depended heavily on federal and state grants and subsidized loan programs to finance their water and wastewater infrastructure projects."
Gomez concluded, “Federal agencies, with states, have long played a role in assisting local communities and will likely continue to do so. As they do so, they can and should consider how to ease communities’ efforts to obtain funding. In addition, technical assistance and better coordination of federal efforts could help communities’ address these challenges."
Subcommittee Vice Chairman Greg Harper (R-MS) added, “Like many Members of Congress, I represent a rural district where a great number of my constituents get their drinking water from smaller cities, towns, and water associations. I look forward to continuing my support for rural water and I thank Chairman Shimkus for his sincere interest."
