The next administration should establish a National Water Technology (Pipeline) to spur the innovation and commercialization of water technologies. The Pipeline should be designed to:
A National Water Technology Pipeline would mobilize American entrepreneurs and manufacturers to lead on research and development of the next generation of solutions in water treatment, monitoring, and data management. The Pipeline would facilitate commercialization of later-stage water technologies by identifying innovative next-to-market solutions, proving technology through competitive demonstration projects, and deploying market-ready technology at full scale with federal funding support. An underlying objective of the Pipeline would be to improve water quality and access in the United States while addressing mounting infrastructure and maintenance costs. The Pipeline would also place an emphasis on training the next generation of technology-focused water professionals and strengthening community engagement and customer service. sewage recycling plant
Modernizing the water sector will require the federal government to renew its commitment to investing in water. In recent years, the water sector received only 4% of its funding from the federal government: a far lower fraction than other infrastructure sectors, such as highways (25%), mass transit and rail (23%), and aviation (45%). The funding injection from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) has provided a temporary step-change in federal investment, but the substantial gap in funding is still anticipated to grow. Increasing federal funding for water technology advancement even by a percentage point would have hugely beneficial impacts. By dedicating 1% of projected water infrastructure costs for a “good state of repair”—an estimated $12 billion over the next 10 years—the next administration can build a robust National Water Technology Pipeline, ushering in a new era of water and sanitation technologies. A similar scale of investment, $25 billion over 10 years for clean energy demonstrations, was authorized through BIL for the Department of Energy (DOE).
The next administration will inherit water and wastewater infrastructure that the American Society of Civil Engineers has given a C- and D+ rating, respectively in 2021, which is essentially unchanged from the prior D and D+ rating in 2017. Much of the water and wastewater infrastructure across the United States is more than half a century old. These infrastructure assets are showing signs of significant deterioration and displaying strong risks of failure as they approach the end of their service lives. Put simply, many U.S. water systems are not equipped to handle emerging treatment requirements and increasing severe weather challenges.
We cannot address our nation’s water infrastructure crisis without addressing water infrastructure funding for modern systems. One problem is that federal water infrastructure funding has simply dried up. In the 1970s and early 1980s, federal funding accounted for 15–30% of water infrastructure funding nationwide. This fraction has recently declined to a baseline of only 4%, far lower than other infrastructure sectors. Municipalities have been forced to raise local water rates to cover the funding gap. Access to adequate supplies of clean water is quickly becoming unaffordable for many Americans as a result, and recent polls show that the percentage of voters who find their water service unaffordable is on the rise. The inadequacy of current investment in water is both perception and reality.
A second problem is the growing cost of operating and maintaining water infrastructure. Nearly three-quarters of the public spending in the water sector supports operations and maintenance water systems, often legacy facilities. EPA conservatively estimates expenditures of $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years are needed just to maintain legacy drinking water ($625B) and wastewater ($630B) systems at current levels of service, without any modernization. Moreover, the U.S. water sector is large and complex, including over 50,000 community water systems and 16,000 sanitary sewer systems nationwide. Such a balkanized system makes it difficult to transfer innovative experiences and funding strategies across jurisdictional boundaries.
These challenges were exacerbated by the financial stresses and widespread supply chain challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic placed on municipalities. COVID-19 highlighted water treatment as an essential service. Serving as one of the most important tools we have for reducing the spread of infectious disease, clean water merits robust federal investment. COVID-19 also highlighted the usefulness of wastewater collection systems as early warning detection systems via wastewater-based epidemiology. Had there been investment in these wastewater based monitoring systems over the previous decade, the tracking of COVID-19 would have been significantly improved. The water industry is also vital to operations of other sectors essential to human health, environmental health, energy production, and transportation. Every dollar invested in drinking water and wastewater infrastructure increases GDP by $6.35, creates 1.6 new jobs, and provides $23 in public health-related benefits. Investing in the water sector is investing in the U.S. economy. The United States is lagging behind many other countries in dealing with issues as wide ranging as water-loss reduction, asset management, customer engagement, and customer service. It is past time to catch up.
The next administration should view these challenges as opportunities. Much has changed for the water sector in the last four years including the rise to prominence of artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, increased availability of low-cost sensors, widespread use of wastewater-based epidemiology as an early warning system for health risks, and rising challenge of malevolent cybersecurity threats from bad actors. Instead of propping up aging facilities, the next administration can incentivize investment into—and demonstration of—the most advanced and efficient water systems. Moreover, the next administration can incentivize the deployment of advanced monitoring and analytic technologies to proactively evaluate equipment health and develop a data-driven schedule for infrastructure replacement instead of ad hoc upgrades. The recent BIL funding provides an example of a historic $15B water infrastructure investment to replace lead pipes nationwide. While some innovative construction methods are being utilized, the water sector still lacks a suitable technology solution for the non-invasive identification of buried lead pipes, this is exactly the type of challenge a Technology Pipeline could address. Establishing a National Water Technology Pipeline will help unify our nation’s water sector and create pathways to expedite the installation of modern systems instead of maintaining outdated legacy technologies.
The next administration should empower the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the Department of Commerce to lead this Pipeline development. (Isn’t the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in charge of water quality for the United States? See FAQs.) With the recent expansion of capabilities afforded by the CHIPS and Science Act, NIST is better positioned now more than ever to facilitate validation of new breakthroughs in low-cost sensors, data management and analytics, internet of things (IOT), predictive analysis, and machine learning and other technologies that are proving capable of significant productivity gains for water utilities and can prevent catastrophic system failures. As an example, modern sensor and data solutions have been demonstrated to reduce the historical challenge of sanitary sewer overflows by optimizing existing sewer networks. Further advances could even enable real-time monitoring of lead, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and other contaminants. Operational and maintenance savings realized from these technological solutions can be directly reinvested into infrastructure needs and/or used to subsidize water costs for low-income customers. The growth of the semiconductor manufacturing sector and water-intensive microchip facilities are also closely linked to water and wastewater infrastructure and NIST can play a part in driving those solutions. NIST can also engage in interagency initiatives with the DOE to address specific water-energy nexus challenges
The next administration should set the United States on a path to build the most advanced water systems in the world by launching a new National Water Technology Pipeline initiative. The Pipeline would accelerate adoption of existing “market-ready” solutions from around the world while also fostering the development of next-generation technologies by American innovators. The Pipeline should be structured around three main goals:
Achieving these goals will require a multi-pronged approach, as described below.
NIST should lead a new collaborative effort aligned with the Department of Commerce’s mission to “promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness” in the water sector. Specifically, NIST should partner with industry leaders from utilities, vendors, equipment manufacturers, and system designers to develop a unified framework for deploying new technologies in the water sector. The framework would include verification and provisional standards to allow utilities to more easily adopt new technologies and to open the market for private investment in public water infrastructure. These efforts could be modeled after NIST efforts on the Manufacturing USA program or DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED).
Congress should appropriate 1% of the projected total water infrastructure costs each year for the next 10 years to support water innovation. Specifically, these monies would be used for competitive grants (administered by NIST) to assist “early adopter” water utilities in deploying improved technologies, to fund state-based water innovation councils, and to support small manufacturers innovating in the water sector. NIST would coordinate with state, county, and local utilities, industry associations and professionals, and manufacturers to facilitate identification, testing, validation, and adoption of viable technology solutions. A similar development and dissemination strategy has successfully accelerated innovation in the transportation sector. NIST can also help lower risk associated with technology piloting by borrowing from the emerging piloting models in the water sector including the Isle Utilities “Trial Reservoirs” and WaterStart “CHANNELS” programs
Innovation in theory cannot become innovation in practice without a well-trained, certified workforce to implement new solutions. Now more than ever, Americans are in need of well-paying jobs. A new water workforce will provide job opportunities in every county in the nation. The next administration can begin retraining workers into tech-savvy water professionals immediately through programs like the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education program and the Department of Defense’s SkillBridge program.
Over the last three decades, the federal government has abdicated its responsibility for funding the water sector, leaving states and local utilities to tackle new treatment challenges, deal with the impacts of climate change, and overcome catastrophic events like the COVID-19 pandemic. The next Administration can reinvest in U.S. water systems and bolster our economy by empowering NIST to spearhead a Pipeline to deliver modern solutions for modern water obstacles.
This action-ready policy memo is part of Day One 2025 — our effort to bring forward bold policy ideas, grounded in science and evidence, that can tackle the country’s biggest challenges and bring us closer to the prosperous, equitable and safe future that we all hope for whoever takes office in 2025 and beyond.
To meaningfully modernize U.S. water systems, the federal government should directly invest 1% of projected water infrastructure funding needs (about $12 billion over the next 10 years) into innovative water technology solutions. For comparison, recent investments into energy infrastructure such as DOE’s clean energy demonstrations have received $25 billion over the next 10 years. Federal spending on water infrastructure is nowhere near other peer infrastructure sectors and an order of magnitude lower than it is for the transportation sector.
The water sector is strongly influenced by federal regulations that maintain minimum drinking-water and wastewater treatment standards. Where existing treatment standards can be met with legacy technologies, there is little incentive for utilities to invest in newer, advanced systems. Furthermore, evaluation and approval of new technologies typically occurs on a state-by-state basis, where differing state regulatory requirements inhibit the dissemination of successful solutions across jurisdictional boundaries. These barriers mean that useful new technologies can take as long as a decade to see widespread deployment in the water sector.
Funding support allocated through the Pipeline will de-risk investment by individual water utilities and enable those utilities to adopt new technologies and upgrade to newer systems more easily and efficiently. The uptake of new technologies will in turn increase demand for new water innovations, creating market opportunities for U.S. start-ups and entrepreneurs. Overall, the Pipeline will increase public health protections through deployment of advanced treatment systems and monitoring solutions while also attracting additional private investment in the water sector.
The Pipeline will expedite development of new treatment technologies, monitoring systems, and cost-saving strategies, and will enable these solutions to be deployed at local utilities much more quickly. The Pipeline will support promising innovations and fund demonstration projects to increase the availability and visibility of vetted technology solutions for large and small utilities alike. Emphasis could and should be placed on accelerating technologies that solve challenges in rural communities, overburdened communities, communities with declining populations, and other underserved communities.
The Pipeline will require leadership and expertise from an agency focused on public-private partnerships and job creation. The DOC’s mission is “to promote job creation, economic growth, sustainable development, and improved living standards for all Americans by working in partnership with businesses, universities, communities, and workers.” NIST, within the DOC, is well positioned to support standards development, fund technology evaluations, support small manufacturers, and develop public-private partnership consortia. DOC would coordinate with EPA experts as needed to evaluate public health impacts and/or environmental compliance.
The Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds (SRFs) are designed to provide some funding directly to states – and then subsequently to utilities – to support local infrastructure projects through loans and grants. This process is not well suited for the funding of demonstration projects nor rapid sharing of solutions both regionally and nationally. The purpose of the Pipeline, by contrast, would be to identify new technologies that solve immediate and emerging broad challenges facing utilities across the nation, and to directly fund projects or consortia. Technologies identified through the Pipeline could ultimately be incorporated into SRF projects where appropriate.
A National Water Technology Pipeline would mobilize American entrepreneurs and manufacturers to lead on research and development of the next generation of solutions in water treatment, monitoring, and data management.
The federal government should designate “Receiving Cities” to which it will allocate funds and tax incentives aimed at producing and preserving affordable housing, in anticipation of population inflows.
FAS commends the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for clearing a historic 75 pieces of legislation, including multiple crucial bills to confront the wildfire crisis.
water treatment engineer The Federation of American Scientists supports H.R. 8790, the Fix our Forests Act, commends the House of Representatives for passing of the bill on strong bipartisan margins in September, and urges the Senate to consider this legislation.