For full C-Span coverage of the Water Symposium, please click here.

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute, the Federal Water Quality Association and the American Water Resources Association, National Capital Chapter, sponsored a symposium on growth and water infrastructure needs and financing in the 21st century. The goal of the symposium was to examine whether drinking water and wastewater infrastructure can continue to protect the public health and water resources of existing communities and accommodate the rapid expansion into new suburban and exurban areas characteristic of the prevalent sprawl development pattern. Symposium speakers discussed various aspects of the relationship between growth and water infrastructure planning and financing.

The keynote speaker was Representative Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), Chairman on the Water Resources Subcommittee of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. He addressed "The Need for Increased Federal Funding, Innovative Financing Options and Improved Management Practices for Water Infrastructure."

The first speaker panel discussed current studies that examine water infrastructure needs and various methods that could be used to meet them:

Steve Allbee, Project Director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s "Gap Analysis," discussed the preliminary results of this analysis of the nation’s drinking water, wastewater and nonpoint source infrastructure financing requirements over the next twenty years, relative to investment trends and funding sources. The study estimates funding needs in excess of $300 billion, or $15 billion annually, almost twice the current spending level, which has declined from $11 billion in 1990 to about $9.4 billion. The study indicates that the major predictable capital requirements will be for repair and replacement of aging existing pipes and infrastructure.

John Cromwell, a principal in Hagler Bailly Services, discussed a water infrastructure study he is conducting for the American Water Works Association. The study indicates that there is an extraordinary historical "hump" in water infrastructure capital needs today resulting from the demographic echo of the baby boom and post World War II construction binge and long neglect of investment in buried infrastructure. The study concludes that federal government intervention will be needed to get over this supernormal hump, and stresses that we should try to level the hump for future generations and return to sustainable financing through rate revenues.

Haydn Reynolds, a freelance consultant on infrastructure management, discussed the "Nessie Curve," which he developed to define infrastructure needs and which has been widely used by government and industry groups in his native Australia.

A second panel spoke more directly to the relationship between growth, especially sprawl, and water resources and infrastructure financing:

Former Democratic Congressman Lindsay Thomas, now President of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and presidentially appointed Federal Commissioner, Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint and Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa river basin compacts, spoke on "Growth, Development and the Tri-State Water War in the Southeast." With a rapidly growing population expected to double by 2050 and changing land-use patterns encouraging further development and suburban sprawl, the Southeast has seen the demand for drinking water, hydropower generation, irrigation, navigation and recreation outstrip finite water supplies, and increased degradation of water quality, according to Thomas. As a Federal mediator, he has been working with representatives from Alabama, Georgia and Florida for the past two years to negotiate an "equitable apportionment" of the waters from the two river basins. If the states cannot agree on an allocation formula, the issue will go to the Supreme Court. Whatever the outcome, the dispute suggests that, unless steps are taken to better coordinate watershed and land use planning, future water wars will not be confined to states west of the Mississippi.

Lee Epstein, Director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Lands Program, discussed a recent joint report by the Foundation and 1000 Friends of Maryland, entitled "Making Smart Growth Smarter." The report assesses implementation of the 1997 Maryland Smart Growth Initiative to date. Epstein emphasized their assessment of county compliance with state law and regulations regarding the conformance of water and sewer plans with designated smart growth areas, including appropriately sizing sewer service areas and capacity for planned future growth and available financial resources. The report concluded that, "In general, the counties are not making effective use of water and sewer plans as tools for guiding the development of water and sewer systems and as tools for guiding growth."

Dana Cooper, Counselor to the Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, U.S. Department of the Interior, discussed "How Federal Water Supply Agencies Can and Should Respond to Changing Demands for Water in the West." She highlighted the Bureau of Reclamation’s new conservation mission and its convergence with the trend toward urbanization of the West. She also drew upon the experience of CALFED, a cooperative federal-state-stakeholder program created to craft long-term solutions to the environmental, water quality and water supply problems that have plagued the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary for decades.