The combination of aging water infrastructure and declining federal assistance will lead to higher burdens for local ratepayers, a representative of DC Water told members of a Senate subcommittee during a hearing last week.
Testifying at a Senate Water and Power Subcommittee hearing on America’s aging water resource infrastructure, DC Water Assistant General Manager Charles Kiely explained the utility’s 10-year plan to spend $3.8 billion on capital improvements to the water system, including $1.7 billion for environmental projects to meet federal mandates and $1.2 billion to upgrade water and sewer infrastructure. The annual amount of federal State Revolving Fund (SRF) loans received by the city are small compared to these needs, he said, so ratepayers “will have to shoulder rate increases each year well into the foreseeable future.”
Also testifying was Lowell Pimley of the Bureau of Reclamation, who told lawmakers the Bureau has reduced its water infrastructure repair backlog to about $2.5 billion – down from $3.2 billion five years ago. Subcommittee chairman Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) also noted that despite tight federal budgets, aging water infrastructure “is something [members of Congress] have to appropriate federal dollars to help solve.”
Copies of all witness testimony delivered at last week’s hearing are available online.