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Increasing Innovation in America’s Water SystemsAugust 2017
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Steve Bartlett Former U.S. Representative Former Mayor
Henry Cisneros Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Former Mayor
Patrick DeckerPresident & CEO, Xylem, Inc.
George Heartwell Former Mayor
Aldie Warnock Senior Vice President, American Water
StaffMichele Nellenbach Director of Strategic Initiatives
Sarah Kline Fellow
Andy Winkler Senior Policy Analyst
Jake Varn Policy Analyst
Bryce Campanelli Intern
Executive Council on Infrastructure Water Task Force
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Introduction Condition of Water Infrastructure in the United States Water Sector Is Starved for Innovation
Realizing the Benefits of Innovation Create Efficiency Meet Regulatory Requirements Adapt to Emerging Pressures
Barriers to Innovation Risks Costs Regulations Fragmentation
Recommendations Increase Regional Collaboration Incentivize Performance Directly Support Research and Development Reduce Regulations That Unnecessarily Deter Innovation
Endnotes
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Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThis report was supported by the Executive Council on Infrastructure and a grant from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. For more information, visit www.mott.org.
DISCLAIMERThe findings and recommendations expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s founders or its board of directors.
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IntroductionAmerica leads in producing cutting edge technologies in nearly every field, from self-driving cars to advanced medical treatments. But the water sector struggles to maintain the status quo, let alone innovate. The infrastructure that collects, treats, and distributes drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater is aging. Meanwhile, affordability concerns have hit a critical juncture. If current trends continue, by 2022, an estimated one-third of American households may find water unaffordable.1 As the BPC’s Water Task Force explained in a recent paper, “Understanding America’s Water and Wastewater Challenges,” inadequate water systems and services or mismanagement and lack of oversight, as seen in Flint, MI, can quickly turn into a dangerous threat to public health and wellness.2
The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that the water and wastewater sectors require a combined $105 billion in additional funding by 2025.3 While direct financial investment is needed, increasing the adoption of innovative technologies and processes will be fundamental to fixing our nation’s water infrastructure. However, existing barriers—risks, costs, regulations, and fragmentation—impede the development and adoption of innovative solutions.
In May 2016, BPC’s Executive Council on Infrastructure released a report outlining a “New American Model for Investing in Infrastructure.” Implementing this new model in the water sector requires: enabling all options to finance projects and their delivery, streamlining regulations, developing life-cycle asset inventories, promoting regional coordination, building technical capacity, enhancing financing tools that transfer risk, and providing a reliable, long-term federal source of funding. This paper applies these recommendations to the water sector, while exploring how to break down barriers to innovation, reduce costs, and improve health and environmental outcomes.
Condition of Water Infrastructure in the United States
For drinking water alone, there are more than 151,000 public water systems, which include 50,300 community water systems and 100,700 non-community water systems such as schools and hospitals.4 These systems drastically vary in size, though the top 8 percent of water systems serve 82 percent of the population.5 Across the size spectrum, the average age of these systems continues to climb, with most nearing or at the end of their useful lifecycle.6 As a result, disruptions like water main breaks are occurring with alarming frequency. An estimated 240,000 water main breaks occur each year. In total, through a combination of breaks, leaks, and systemic failures, the United States annually loses 1.7 trillion gallons, or the equivalent of $2.6 billion worth of treated drinking water.7 Across the United States and especially in the western states, water scarcity plagues communities as severe droughts dry up previous lifelines. In 2014, 80 percent of state water managers anticipated some water shortages to occur within their states in the next decade.8
As recently seen in Flint, MI, contaminants and mismanagement of water treatment systems continue to endanger health and safety. In 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identified 51,573 public water systems with some form of violation, including over 4,000 systems designated as “serious violators,” or those with the most significant noncompliance.9 In 2011, the EPA classified 2,252 small community water systems in serious violation, 193 of which required immediate public notification. After 3 years, only 22 percent of those 193 systems had achieved compliance.10 On the wastewater side, of the 7,052 major
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water discharge facilities, 66 percent are in non-compliance with polluting standards, and 20 percent are in serious violation.11 According to the EPA, 55 percent of the nation’s rivers and streams do not support healthy populations of aquatic life due to pollution, with 23 percent containing heightened levels of bacteria (specifically Enterococci) that could endanger public health.12 The EPA estimates that between 1.8 million and 3.5 million people per year become ill from recreational contact, such as swimming, with water contaminated by overflows of sanitary sewers, which carry sewage to wastewater treatment plants.13
Water Sector Is Starved for Innovation
Innovation is a fundamental ingredient for any sector to become more efficient and productive. Broadly speaking, when innovations are promoted and implemented, new solutions can propel growth and create new markets. In terms of infrastructure, innovation aims to deliver a better product or reduce costs. Within the water sector, innovations are typically characterized as either a new technology (as in the physical devices that collect, distribute, and treat water); a new process, at any point in the many stages that water passes through; or an improvement in the operation and financing of the system. These innovations can lead to cleaner drinking water and wastewater, as well as lower operating costs. Despite the potential benefits, innovation in water infrastructure has lagged behind other sectors due to a failure, or an inability, to adopt more efficient technologies and processes.
Notably, many innovations already exist or are in development that can be incorporated at points across the various stages of water collection, treatment, and delivery, to substantially improve efficiency and reduce costs.14 Yet, with heavy state and federal regulatory oversight due to the intrinsic connection between the nation’s drinking water and public health, the industry is naturally risk-averse. If a new technology or process does not work, lives can be endangered and the provider can be penalized. Innovation can also be expensive to implement, both in terms of the budgetary costs of a new technology, and in the capacity and training of the operators.15 Thus, the primary driver for innovation has been reaction to critical system failure. For example, the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority, known as DC Water, is today seen as a leader in the United States utility sector, but was only created following a series of health violations between 1993 and 1996 that required issuing boil-water advisories.16 The City of Philadelphia’s Water Department has implemented a series of innovative green water initiatives including a green stormwater system, but only did so as a result of an agreement with the EPA after the city’s combined sewer overflows violated the Clean Water Act.17
The scarcity of innovation in the water sector did not emerge overnight. Over the past several decades, federal investment has fallen short of meeting the growing needs of the country’s water infrastructure. Meanwhile, as shown in Figures 1 and 2, states and localities bear an increasingly large responsibility to fund water infrastructure through rate structures that are often set below the levels needed to meet long-term capital needs.18 Without the necessary funds, utilities struggle to cover the cost of water infrastructure, and maintenance and replacement schedules are perpetually pushed back. According to a Government Accountability Office study, one-third of water utilities have deferred maintenance needs as a result of insufficient funding. Of those utilities with deferred maintenance needs, 20 percent or more of their pipelines are nearing the end of their useful life. For some, the problem is even worse. Ten percent of utilities are faced with at least half of their pipes at the end of their useful life.19 With this insufficient funding and a tendency for risk-aversion, the diverse and fragmented water sector has been unable to develop and adopt innovative strategies or technologies.
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Figure 1. Federal, State, and Local Spending on Drinking Water and Wastewater Utilities (In 2014 Dollars)
Source: Congressional Budget Office, 2015.
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Figure 2. Total Infrastructure Spending, By Sector
Source: Congressional Budget Office, 2015.
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Realizing the Benefits of Innovation Solving this innovation scarcity will be a necessary component of fixing America’s water infrastructure. Water innovation brings several tangible benefits, including creating efficiencies, helping water systems meet regulatory requirements, and enabling better adaptation to emerging pressures. In addition to federal, state, and local government entities, there are many stakeholders within the water sector that contribute to an innovative ecosystem, from private sector companies and entrepreneurs, to foundations, research centers, and trade associations. Through a variety of models, several of these actors have been able to make progress toward reversing this innovation scarcity despite inherent challenges.
Private Partners:
Partnerships with the private sector are an underutilized tool in the water sector for meeting regulatory demands, making system improvements, and bringing new efficiencies and technologies to system operations. Public-private partnerships (P3s) can take many different forms. For example, a public agency might contract with a private company for the design and construction of a new infrastructure asset. In other cases, the private party might also handle the operations and maintenance of that facility for a contracted period. A public agency may also fully transfer a water facility or system to the private sector, relieving the local government of the burden of long-term operation and maintenance costs and allowing the private company to collect fees from taxpayers. Figure 3 highlights three examples in the water sector where public agencies pursued P3s, in part, because of the innovation and expertise they could bring to these projects. Private water companies also make significant investments in researching and developing new technologies to maintain their competitive edge and reduce costs. For example, American Water, a member of the BPC Water Task Force, operates 370 water systems and devoted $4 million to research and development in 2016.20 In 2009, they also launched an Innovation Development Process that has examined over 600 different technologies, and is supported by a central laboratory and testing facility in Belleville, IL. Similarly, Xylem, Inc., a leading global water technology company and member of the BPC Water Task Force, invested $110 million in the research and development of new products and applications.21 There are also more localized innovations occurring in private, closed systems, such as the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium, soon to be the home of the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United FC, which will capture stormwater and use the water in the facility’s cooling towers to irrigate plants throughout the complex. With numerous barriers plaguing the public sector, private companies have become a leading source for investments in innovative solution.
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Public Programs:
Publicly led efforts to increase innovation do exist and are beginning to grow, with 70 percent of the existing utility innovation programs launching within the past decade.25 Notably, these burgeoning utility innovation programs vary widely in size, structure, and focus. Some rely on an informal process, while others have a developed a standard operating procedure to advance innovative solutions. Despite this variance, the programs have generally reported an impact in avoiding capital costs, reducing operational expenditures, and enhancing revenue through new or expanded services.26 At the federal level, the EPA has also attempted to directly increase innovation by funding two National Research Centers, with a combined total of 13 affiliate universities for 3 years: the Design of Risk-reducing, Innovative-implementable Small-system Knowledge Center, based at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and the Water Innovation Network for Sustainable Small Systems, based at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. These centers also coordinate with the Canadian RES’EAU-WaterNET Center to improve the effectiveness and sustainability of small drinking water systems through the implementation of new technologies. The U.S. Department of Agriculture also provides annual funding for technical assistance for rural utilities ($41 million in 2016), as well as funding for special initiatives such as creating sustainable management plans and energy efficiency assessments.27
Regional Coordination:
Nonprofit organizations such as the American Water Works Association, the Water Research Foundation, and the Water Environment & Reuse Foundation are actively promoting innovation in the water sector through research, workshops, and collaboration. Regional water clusters that connect utilities with private partners and entrepreneurs have also been in
Project Type Summary
Clean Water Partnership,
Prince George’s County, MD
Stormwater
Prince George’s County used a Design-Build-Operate-Maintain approach to tap into private sector expertise in meeting environmental standards and furthering local economic and community goals. The project invests in decentralized stormwater management installations covering 2,000 acres (with possible expansion).22
Fairview Township, York County, PA
Wastewater
The small community of Fairview Township sold its wastewater treatment system to a private company. This sale ensured that urgent repair needs of the system serving 4,000 customers could be met without the municipality taking on additional debt.23 New projects taken on by the private water provider include the construction and installation of nearly 40,000 feet of new water and sewer mains, six new sewer pump stations, two new water pressure reducing stations, and 48 new fire hydrants.
Tampa Desalination Plant, FL
Drinking Water
Using multiple service delivery methods, the Tampa Bay Region contracted with private partners for the construction of one of the nation’s largest seawater desalination plants. The primary purpose behind pursuing an alternative delivery approach was to develop new technology and transfer risk under complex circumstances. Tampa’s private partners are responsible for the operation, management, and maintenance of the new plant.24
Figure 3: Examples of Water P3s that Increased Innovation
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development. For example, the Chesapeake region and the Ohio River Valley region (Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana) have developed regional water clusters that have helped to promote innovation by developing cooperative agreements, facilitating collaboration between state regulators, and creating a reciprocal testing system for new technologies.28
Each of these models—private sector developments, public programs, and regional collaborations—has proven that advancing innovative solutions can create efficiencies, help meet existing regulatory requirements, and give water systems the flexibility needed to adapt to emerging demographic and environmental pressures.
Create Efficiency
Innovative technologies can create efficiencies that generate new forms of revenue, lower operational costs, and enable data-driven system management. These efficiencies have been demonstrated throughout the water treatment and delivery process by the different types of water sector stakeholders. In the wastewater treatment process, there are ample opportunities for systems to generate new streams of revenue. For example, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) has created a new revenue producing product by partnering with Black & Veatch and Ostara to install advanced nutrient recovery technology to turn excess phosphorus and nitrogen into a marketable fertilizer.29 MWRD estimates that after accounting for the costs of operating the facility, the sale of this fertilizer could annually generate $2 million.30
Water and wastewater systems are often the largest users of energy in any given community, consuming 30 to 40 percent of a municipal government’s total energy consumption. Reducing energy costs is among the best opportunities for lowering operating costs.31 For example, DC Water’s Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant is using an innovative thermal hydrolysis
Confluence – Water Technology Innovation Cluster Ohio River Valley Region
Stemming from a 2011 EPA initiative to remove barriers to innovation and promote regional solutions, Confluence is a technology cluster that connects Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. The cluster promotes strategic partnerships between universities, the private sector, entrepreneurs, government agencies, and economic development associations. By facilitating these public-private partnerships, Confluence aims to identify, test, develop, and spread innovative water technologies.
In 2015, Confluence created a Regional Utility Network, to promote collaboration among the various water utilities in the region. The network allows utilities faced with similar challenges and needs to share resources and collectively voice their needs in order to connect with innovative solutions.
Learn more at: https://www.watercluster.org.
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system to produce energy from the system’s wastewater, which will annually result in $10 million in energy savings, $2 million in treatment savings, and $11 million in disposal and transportation savings.32 Many more systems can benefit from these types of improvements. In fact, just by implementing technology advancements that exist today, researchers at Xylem, Inc., found that the entire wastewater sector could reduce electricity-related emissions by nearly 50 percent and do so almost entirely at a zero or negative cost.33
Digital technology’s role in the water sector is on the rise and promises to create several new efficiencies. New sensors and monitoring systems are being developed and can drastically improve water operations. Data collection and analysis can help systems monitor water flow, improve planning and maintenance, and drive down costs. The City of Syracuse, NY has incorporated two innovative solutions to improve the city’s water infrastructure. One is the adoption of an algorithmic data system created at the University of Chicago to predict water main breaks, and the second is an acoustic water main sensor technology to monitor the condition of pipes.34 In combination, these technologies allow the city to replace aging pipes before they crack, reducing construction costs (by allowing preventative plans to be incorporated into a “dig once” policy), removing the commercial impact of a disruption, and lowering the costs associated with water loss.35 In 2016, three “dig once” projects, which combine road repair with an assessment of the underlying water infrastructure conditions, saved the city of Syracuse over $400,000.36
Smart meters are another example of an innovative technology that can create efficiencies. By installing meters that can record and transmit volumetric consumption, a utility can both lower operational costs and improve the detection of customer leaks, allowing for corrective action that will generate savings for both the utility and the user.37 Currently, the EPA estimates that 10 percent of households have water leaks that waste 90 gallons or more per day.38 Without smart metering, these leaks often go undetected. From a conservation standpoint, the direct visualization provided by smart meters can also help customers to better track, manage, and ultimately reduce their own usage. Flint, MI has included smart meters in its plan for using federal resources to address the lead contamination crisis.39 A smart meter pilot program at the East Bay Municipal Water District found that households receiving smart meter reports reduced water usage by 5 percent.40
Meet Regulatory Requirements
Enforcing the Clean Water Act requires nearly 800 communities to take steps to reduce sewage runoff. Nationwide, almost 10 trillion gallons of untreated water is released into local waterways due to combined sewer systems, in violation of EPA standards. The cost of bringing systems into compliance is often seen as directly competing with funds required for developing new technologies, but some cities are finding innovative solutions to accomplish both. For example, innovative financing tools, through P3s, can enable utilities and governments to shift the existing risks, including construction, operation, maintenance, and performance risks, onto a private partner. Typically, these agreements also build in incentives and benchmarks for efficient, high-quality practices by the private partner.
As previously mentioned, Philadelphia is using innovative green infrastructure solutions (rain gardens, green roofs, porous pavement, etc.) to meet these environmental standards.41 Philadelphia has incentivized investment in these innovative solutions
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by implementing a new storm water fee structure for nonresidential property owners that includes subsidies for owners that install green infrastructure.42 Similarly, DC Water, faced with an EPA mandate to invest $2.6 billion dollars, issued the nation’s first environmental impact bond in 2016. The proceeds of this bond will be used to construct environmentally-friendly stormwater infrastructure, essentially creating a pilot program to test the effectiveness of green infrastructure in reducing stormwater runoff.43
On the drinking water side, EPA’s most recent survey identified $42 billion, or approximately 11 percent of the country’s drinking water needs, as directly attributable to the cost of complying with the Safe Drinking Water Act.44 Of that $42 billion, 88 percent is needed for compliance with existing regulations and the remaining 12 percent is needed for compliance with proposed and recently promulgated rules. Continued investment in innovative treatments and detection systems can lower the cost of meeting existing regulations while allowing utilities to stay ahead of the regulatory curve by monitoring emerging contaminants.
Adapt to Emerging Pressures
In addition to regulatory demands, environmental changes have placed new pressures on water providers. As the frequency of severe droughts increase, water shortages are estimated to occur in 40 states over the next 10 years. This poses a significant challenge to water systems, as traditional volumetric rates can conflict with efforts to conserve water.45 Santa Fe, NM is one example of a city that grappled with this tension between budgets, affordability, and conservation. In 2001, the city adopted a tiered rate structure, charging seasonally-adjusted low rates for basic water consumption and increasingly higher rates for additional consumption.46 This innovative rate structure promotes conservation while maintaining revenue to meet existing capital needs. Since 2001, Santa Fe’s total water consumption has dropped by 20 percent, despite an increase in the city’s population of more than 10 percent.47 Modernizing the process financing, building, and operating water infrastructure will be necessary in order to solve the infrastructure problems that exist today. There are several steps that utilities and local leaders can take that will result in healthier systems, and could also attract new sources of private financing.
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Figure 4. Examples of Water Sector Innovations48
Acoustic Inspection Technology Monitoring systems that transmit sound waves to detect blockages and leaks within pipes. These systems allow utilities to minimize water loss and increase efficiency.
Partial Nitritation/Anammox An innovative process to remove nitrogen from municipal wastewater while producing a significant energy resource in the form of biogas, lowering operating costs, and meeting a regulatory requirement.
Smart Devices An array of sensors, meters, and devices that can transmit data, detect leaks, and remotely enable/disable the flow of water. These technologies promote sustainability at both the utility and customer level, while increasing efficiency.
Further Examples Acoustic Inspection Technology Advanced Metering Infrastructure Advanced Oxidation Process Aeration Efficiency Anaerobic Digestion of SolidsAsset Management Biogas Reuse Biomimetic Membranes Biosolids Drying Carbon Dioxide Injection Co-digestion Computerized Maintenance Management System Continuous Online Water Quality Sensor Network Deep Tunnel Sewage SystemDigital Platform to Track Water Use Electrodialysis Reversal Fish Activity Monitoring Geographic Information Systems (GIS)Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) TechnologyGreen Infrastructure Groundwater Recharge Heat Recovery
Hydraulic Monitoring Ice Pigging In-line Turbine Power Generation Magnetic Flux Pipeline Testing Mainstream AnammoxMembrane Bioreactors Microbial Electrochemical Sensors One Water Planning Online Corrosion Monitoring Network Phosphorus Removal Predictive Data AnalyticsPressure Reducing ValvesRecycled Water Root Chemical Application Sewage Recycling Smart Devices Smart Energy Grid Stormwater Harvesting Stormwater Retrofits Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System Laboratory Information Management System Underdrain DesignWaste to Energy FacilityWater Loss Management
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Barriers to InnovationThough successful innovations have been implemented in select instances, these innovations remain absent from most systems. Overall, the water sector in the United States has several enormous barriers that combine to create a stifling environment for innovation. Water utilities are often faced with seemingly insurmountable political and technological risks that are often combined with an evaporating budget and a dearth of technical support. This combination results in a climate that neither allows for nor incentivizes innovation within a public water utility. On the private side, regulatory barriers and a lack of risk sharing mechanisms have hampered the growth and adoption of technology. Meanwhile, the extremely fragmented and variable nature of America’s water system compounds each of these issues.
Risks
Water utilities are naturally risk averse, and typically for good reason. As a water provider, the greatest risk of applying new, innovative methods or technologies is creating an inadvertent disruption to the treatment or distribution of water. At the federal level, the EPA regulates the quality of water by setting baseline standards. Violation of those standards will result in penalties from state and federal environmental agencies. Therefore, utilities are hesitant to try new approaches to treatment unless they are certain that the new technology will achieve the desired goals. The costs of failure are just too great—not just to the utility’s bottom line but also to the public. Look no further than Flint, MI, which did not change technologies but did change water sources, and then failed to adjust their treatment process accordingly. The result was widespread lead poisoning of Flint’s children. Given this risk, if the technology a utility is currently using is capably treating the water to the required standards, why risk a change, even if doing so could mean lower costs or more efficient processes? Public health and safety must remain the paramount priority of a water provider; but as a result, local leaders tend to avoid innovation.
Essentially, this risk manifests as a series of unknowns. Will new equipment integrate with our current system? Is there a guarantee of water quality? Depending on the technology or process in question, utilities may need to devote precious time and resources to vetting. For larger-scale innovations, especially those revolving around the treatment of either drinking water or wastewater, utilities often do not have the capacity to run full-scale demonstrations. Without an immediate incentive to purse a new technology or a new process, these associated risks are a powerful barrier to innovation, leaving utilities to continue to rely on traditional methods and existing infrastructure, thus capping productivity.
A lack of formal or widely adopted risk-sharing and risk-transfer structures further reinforces this barrier to innovation. Within the broader infrastructure sector there is a growing shift toward performance-based contracts that establish benchmarks for a particular asset to achieve in order for a private sector partner to receive payment.49 These contracts essentially transfer the risk held by the public provider onto a private partner, and create direct incentives to meet and monitor those standards. If these partnerships gained traction within the water sector, they could help alleviate the performance risks that are preventing utilities from adopting innovative solutions.
As the importance of data collection, data analysis, and digital technology grows within the water sector, cybersecurity and privacy risks have emerged.50 Following an executive order by President Obama in 2013, a voluntary framework for the
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cybersecurity standards of infrastructure systems has been created by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.51 This framework “enables organizations – regardless of size, degree of cybersecurity risk, or cybersecurity sophistication – to apply the principles and best practices of risk management to improving the security and resilience of critical infrastructure.” However, because of this inherent security and privacy risk, the digitization of water infrastructure faces additional barriers.
Costs
Insufficient funding can often be a prohibitive barrier to innovative solutions. Adopting new technologies often requires an upfront capital infusion or dedicated resources for technical capacity and research. As previously stated, the water and wastewater sectors require a funding increase of $105 billion by 2025 just to maintain the current infrastructure. When budgets are already falling short, investments in innovation would come at the expense of existing expenditures.
The energy sector is often seen as relatively comparable to the water industry, in that both provide vital services and both require additional resources to support the development and adoption of innovations. However, the operation and outputs of the sectors have diverged in several notable areas. For example, while 90 percent of water systems are publicly operated, the energy sector is the opposite, with 90 percent of electric utilities operating through a private company. Between the water and energy sectors, a productivity gulf has also emerged—the output of the water sector remains relatively unchanged, while the energy sector grows more efficient.52 Recently, federal and private investments in innovative technologies have increased in the energy sector, while no such transformative infusion has occurred for the water sector. In terms of direct investment, between 2000 - 2013, the United States energy sector received roughly $8 billion in public investment to spur innovation, while only $28 million went to the water sector.53 As demonstrated in Figure 5, far more patents have been filed recently in the clean energy sector than the water sector—a proxy for the level of innovation in each industry.
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Figure 5. U.S. Patents Filed for Clean Energy and Water Purification, 1999-2011
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Drinking water and wastewater systems, including pipes and the facilities themselves, are funded through a combination of service charges/user fees, federal and state grants, or, in some jurisdictions, local taxes. The federal government primarily funds water systems through the Department of Agriculture Rural Utilities Service programs, the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program and the State Revolving Funds (SRFs), one for wastewater (Clean Water SRF) and one for drinking water (Drinking Water SRF). Each state maintains an SRF intended-use plan which includes every project in the state that is in need of a loan from the fund. Each SRF has a list of eligible projects and uses, including the approved servicing mechanisms that can be offered under the SRF: loans, refinancing, purchasing or guaranteeing debt, and insurance. Within the Drinking Water SRF, states also have the option to set aside up to 31 percent of their grant for a variety of targeted uses, which include program administration, technical assistance, or loans for specific conservation and protection measures.55 However, as each state is faced with different needs, each SRF is managed differently.
Through SRF and local funding sources, utilities are able to take on loans or issue bonds to cover some of their costs. Approximately 80 percent of a water utility’s costs are fixed, such as debt service. However, about 80 percent of a utility’s revenue is generated from rates based on water consumption, which varies depending on individual needs. Thus, utilities face a mismatch between fixed expenses and variable revenues, a dichotomy that can create long-term budgeting challenges. The National Association of Clean Water Agencies surveyed its membership of wastewater utilities, and found that more than 80 percent of funding for operations and maintenance is from user charges and taxes.56 According to the American Water Works Association’s 2016 survey, only 21 percent of utilities are confident the existing rates can fully cover the cost of service, let alone allow for investment in innovative solutions.57 For most utilities, and especially smaller systems, water rates are set too low to pay for the full cost of the service, including annual operation, maintenance, and capital expenses.
George Hawkins, CEO and General Manager of DC Water describes the process of adopting an innovation as five increasingly expensive steps.58 First, there is the initial assessment of a utility’s existing service, followed by the necessary market research. This is followed by the procurement process, including submissions of Requests-For-Information and Requests-For-Proposals. Each of these procurement steps must be completed, analyzed, and approved prior to the design and building phase. Finally, there is the cost of fully adopting an innovation, which includes planning, training, and the development of standard operating procedures. Each of these five steps, as shown in Figure 6, represent upfront expenses.
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With most utilities currently unable to meet their existing costs, they certainly cannot afford to embark on this process and the associated risks of a new technology, despite the potential for long-term savings. Though increasing rates would allow for funding of much needed programs and maintenance, without the appropriate structure, water could become unaffordable for low-income populations. Existing water rates are already unaffordable for 12 percent of the population.60 Local leaders will need to adopt structures that protect citizens that are unable to pay more, while still meeting the budgetary responsibilities that are necessary for a utility to maintain its assets, plan for long-term costs, and innovate. BPC has devoted a separate paper to analyzing this challenge of affordability (the paper can be found on BPC’s website at bipartisanpolicy.org).
Regulations
One of the most frequently cited barriers to water innovation is the regulatory environment.61 As noted above, the EPA regulates the quality of water by setting baseline standards. Though outside of the requirement to use the “best available technology” that is economically achievable for managing pollutants, the EPA does not necessarily prescribe how those standards should be met.62 Instead, these standards are adopted and administered at the state level, with the option for any state to apply additional regulations as long as the federal regulations remain intact. For drinking water, these standards are aimed at protecting public health, and on the stormwater and wastewater side, the regulations include discharge permits and pollution protections.63
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Figure 6. Five Cost Steps to Innovation
Source: George Hawkins, DC Water59
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These state-specific rules and regulations can make it difficult (or impossible) for systems to adopt new technologies. They also complicate the landscape for entrepreneurs and innovators looking to bring their products to market. For example, federal standards do not address the performance of materials used in the water delivery process, providing very little in the way of guidance for utilities. As such, states and localities have established their own requirements, including prohibitive restrictions on the materials that can be used. Notably, the most cost efficient material is not always the best fit for a given project. For example, when selecting the type of pipes to use, the soil conditions, as well as a thorough analysis of a product’s performance under varying conditions, can be important factors to take into consideration. However, an estimated 78 percent of municipalities and most states have a closed or constrained bidding process that stipulates which materials may be considered for a water infrastructure project, despite the innovative options that may be available.64
Restrictions on allowed project delivery options and financial tools and structures are another great example of regulatory barriers to innovation. While P3s are being used to upgrade and modernize infrastructure around the world, several states directly prohibit P3 agreements from forming, or lack legislation that broadly enables public agencies to negotiate all types of partnerships with the private sector. Currently, 22 states lack P3-enabling legislation. Of the 33 states with such legislation, nine states have large limitations on allowed types of P3s, while others often restrict P3s to transportation projects.65
Between the rigorous federal regulations and the varied regulations that exist at both the state and local level, adopting innovative solutions is a lengthy and complex process, if it is allowed at all.
Fragmentation
Underscoring each of these barriers is the pervasive fragmentation of the water sector. First, as previously discussed, each state’s water management, infrastructure funding, and regulatory policies are unique. These structures can differ within each state and even within the same county. These competing standards and practices form a disjointed network that frequently prevents companies from establishing or spreading a new innovative product.66
Second, when each utility operates autonomously, without an overarching and unifying body, any innovation must be independently tailored for each utility. By comparison, in the United States there are just 3,200 electric utilities, but there are 7,450 stormwater systems, more than 16,000 publicly owned wastewater treatment systems, and more than 50,300 community water systems. Thus, achieving widespread adoption of any innovation in the water sector is a monumental task.
For example, though nonrevenue water loss is a $2.6 billion problem that persists across the country through water main breaks, leaks, and lapses, currently there is no national standard or policy for auditing and reporting water loss.67 While the American Water Works Association has produced and maintained a manual on how systems of all sizes can measure water loss since 2003, only some states have instituted such policies; though several utilities have tasked themselves with these requirements (as shown in Figure 7).68 For the states and utilities without a policy to track and manage this information, available innovative solutions are often overlooked and water loss continues to syphon money undetected.
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Third, most of the nation’s community water systems serve fewer than 10,000 people with 55 percent serving fewer than 500 people.70 These smaller systems often struggle to meet their existing obligations, and therefore lack the capacity to participate in funding opportunities, the bond market, or innovative financing options to explore technological improvements. According to a survey, only 5 percent of small systems frequently consider new technologies, citing the cost and associated risk as the primary barrier.71 This fragmentation of the water sector, in terms of both size and policy, is a fundamental barrier to innovation, but is especially damaging to rural communities that would benefit the most from a cohesive system.72 Addressing the various barriers posed by fragmentation will be fundamental to reducing the effects that risks, costs, and regulations have on the development and adoption of innovative solutions.
No ActionAnnual Water Loss reporting with AWWA standards requiredRudimentary Water Loss reporting is requiredSystem-specific, volume based performance benchmarking required
River basin agencies or other organization where water lossreporting is being specifically addressedWater suppliers for which validated water audits are completeand available
Figure 7. Water Loss Reporting Standards in the United States
Source: Natural Resources Defense Council69
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RecommendationsEach of these barriers—risks, costs, regulations, and fragmentation—hamper innovation and factor into the current condition of the nation’s water infrastructure. Reducing these barriers and advancing the ongoing innovative efforts will require adopting regional collaborative solutions and creating an environment that is more conducive to innovation.
Increase Regional Collaboration
The regionalization of water systems can help provide the economies of scale and the technical, managerial, and financial capacity necessary for the development and adoption of water innovations. According to a report by the Appalachian Regional Commission, whose service jurisdiction includes huge swaths of rural areas throughout the region’s 13 states, “Increasing the number of regional water and wastewater systems (or decreasing the number of small providers) is one of the few measures that almost all national advocacy organizations and state and federal government agencies endorse as a strategy for improving service and reducing cost.”73
Though innovative solutions are enacted at the local level, a first step in overcoming the fragmentation in the water industry and accelerating the adoption of best practices is the alignment of technical experts, research institutions, and innovators regionally. For example, as BPC’s Executive Council on Infrastructure has previously recommended, regional coordination through research centers or a network of city and state innovation offices can improve infrastructure modernization by reducing the barriers of fragmentation and risk, while fostering innovative solutions.74 In 2014, the EPA released a blueprint similarly outlining how creating connections between research centers, universities, utilities, private companies, and entrepreneurs can increase innovation.75 In the energy sector, as demonstrated by the Electric Power Research Institute, this structure of a collaborative cluster has led to substantial advancements. By creating partnerships, best practices can be shared, financial barriers can be more easily met, and the risk of adopting a new technology can be lowered.
AccelerateH2OTexas
The BlueTechValleyCentral and Southern California
International Center for Water Technology
Fresno
Los Angeles Cleantech IncubatorLos Angeles
Maritime AllianceSan Diego
Colorado Water Innovation ClusterColorado
Nevada Center ofExcellence in Water
Nevada
Oregon Water Tech Innovators Portland
Urban Clean Water Technology ZoneTacoma
Southwest Water Cluster InitiativeSouthwestern United States (Primarily Arizona)
Akron Global Water AllianceAkron
New England Water Innovation Network
New EnglandWater Technology
Innovation Ecosystem Philadelphia
Michigan Water Technology Cluster Initiative
Michigan
Milwaukee Water CouncilMilwaukee
Cleveland Water AllianceNortheast Ohio
CurrentChicago Confluence Water
Technology Innovation ClusterSouthwest Ohio/ Kentucky/ Indiana
H2OTECHSoutheastern United States
Colorado Water Innovation ClusterColorado
Nevada Center ofExcellence in Water
Nevada
Milwaukee Water CouncilMilwaukee
CurrentChicago
Michigan Water Technology Cluster Initiative
Michigan
Confluence Water Technology Innovation Cluster
Southwest Ohio/ Kentucky/ Indiana
Figure 8. Current Water Clusters in the United States
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There are currently 19 “cluster” organizations that foster connections between research centers, universities, utilities, private companies, and entrepreneurs to increase water innovation within their regions. At the federal level, the EPA’s Environmental Technology Innovation Clusters Program currently takes an advisory role in the creation and collaboration of these clusters. The Water Council, located in Milwaukee, WI, capitalized on the region’s existing brewing industry and is one of the leading models for a successful innovation cluster.76 By creating a hub for research, innovation, education, and business development, the Water Council aligns the work of regional water research community and water-related industries and forges partnerships with local water agencies. Another water innovation cluster, Confluence, created a regional utility network. This group brings together source, storm, drinking, and reclaimed water utilities to promote regional efficiencies and accelerate technology development.77
Nonprofit organizations, such as the Water Environment and Reuse Foundation and the Water Environment Federation, have also helped address the barriers to innovation by creating a network of testing centers through their Leaders Innovation Forum for Technology (LIFT) initiative. This network of around 50 facilities across the country serves to help innovators test new technologies at various scales.78 Networks and organizations, such as the San Francisco-based Imagine H2O, aim to accelerate the adoption of new technologies by connecting emerging innovators with utilities, corporations, investors, and academic institutions through a rigorous screening process.
• The Federal Government should maintain and expand both the mission and resources of EPA’s Clusters Program. This program has played a vital advisory role in facilitating the creation of the current water technology clusters, which allow public agencies, private partners, universities, and entrepreneurs to collaborate and advance innovative water solutions. But further support and a broader mission is required to strengthen both the existing developments and create more clusters across the country. Through the cluster model, federal and state funding should be directed to enable pilot programs and a formalized network of test beds, where new technologies can be implemented and tested on a large scale before being introduced to the public. Without targeted support toward the creation and enhancement of cluster programs, many utilities will remain unable to independently vet and develop new innovations.
• States should establish infrastructure innovation offices, that are tasked with providing technical assistance and acting as a unifying statewide body in order to encourage innovation across infrastructure, especially within the water sector. These offices should build on or replicate the success found in the existing water clusters, and make it a mission to coordinate across all jurisdictions in order to develop regional solutions and share best practices. Existing P3 offices, such as those in Virginia and Washington D.C., have proven the utility of having a centralized resource for the evaluation and development of infrastructure projects with innovative financing mechanisms. States that already have dedicated P3 offices should expand their directives to explicitly include tools to promote innovative water infrastructure.
• Encourage state adoption of regionalization tools. The sheer volume of water systems—151,000 public water systems, more than 16,000 publicly-owned treatment works (POTWs), and 7,450 stormwater systems—is economically inefficient and restricts the spread of innovation. While the cost savings of regionalization strategies may be difficult to quantify, it is undeniable that building partnerships and collaboration among local systems can help to improve the management of those systems, lead to better service, and ultimately reduce costs. There is a wide range of policy options to promote regionalization, including:
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• Assessing the fiscal capacity of communities and promoting regionalization options when systems appear financially unsustainable;
• Adding requirements for new systems to assess interconnection options;
• Prioritizing regional projects in the distribution of SRF funding;
• Incentivizing consolidation feasibility studies; and
• Implementing a “good neighbor” grant program by allocating a portion of SRF funding to larger water systems willing to extend service to a neighboring system that faces difficulty meeting EPA standards.
Incentivize Performance
Better performance is one of the primary results of successful innovations, but achieving that result will require cultural changes to systems and their responsible governing bodies. Rewarding positive results and increasing the access to innovative solutions will help spur the development and adoption of innovative practices. Access to innovation can be improved by adopting practices that fully account for the conditions and needs of systems, improving the financial management of water systems, enabling partnerships and innovations, and providing technical expertise.
This fundamental shift must begin with every water system developing asset inventories. A key recommendation of BPC’s Executive Council on Infrastructure was this: each state, municipality, and local government should develop a life-cycle asset inventory that includes a complete list of all infrastructure assets that they own.79 Asset inventories are vital to creating a comprehensive asset management plan, which should be a primary driver in forecasting investments and setting rates.80 By cataloging each infrastructure asset and accounting for all costs of its lifecycle, public agencies will be enabled to strategically conduct maintenance schedules, identify deteriorating assets that are most at risk of failure, and find new ways to both create efficiencies and generate new revenues.
These asset inventories will be especially pertinent to water infrastructure, where the information on the age and condition of pipes is often insufficient. As shown by the City of Syracuse, aggregating this information is a fundamental step to incorporating any digital monitoring systems or data analysis. In 2004, the Portland Water Bureau adopted a modern asset management program with an inventory of the city’s $7 billion in water infrastructure assets. Through this program, the Portland Water Bureau maintains 14 asset management plans which describe the condition of the various assets, recommend maintenance and replacement strategies with a cost-benefit and risk-management analysis, and provide a forecast for future expenditures.81 Within 7 years, these plans produced a list of 325 recommended strategies and reallocated $52 million to improve service. For example, rather than following the traditional protocol of replacing a $600,000 storage tank, the asset management plan’s analysis recommended using only $100,000 to install a bypass connection and pressure regulator.
Importantly, modernizing the planning and management process also has indirect benefits. Though far from the only metric, a more data driven and efficient process can increase a system’s favorability of credit ratings for future bonds. These initial
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process investments can also lay the groundwork for attracting private investment. Innovative delivery methods, including P3s, can deliver better projects by aligning incentives and connecting each phase of a project’s design, construction, operation, and maintenance. Attracting additional private investment should be one of the goals in creating a modern water infrastructure process and increasing the public’s access to innovative systems.
Increasing performance also includes enabling utilities to have access to all delivery options. According to survey from the American Water Works Association, 78 percent of respondents indicated that their utility was not considering a P3.82 Currently, the United States’ market has underutilized the potential of P3s, in part due to a lack of a project pipeline that displays a full account of risks and needs, and allows projects to connect with private partners. Developing life-cycle asset inventories can help create a pipeline of projects and open avenues for bundling multiple assets across jurisdictions.83 While not the solution to every challenge facing the water industry, P3s in their many forms should be an option for communities to help reach their goals. Too often, water and wastewater utilities do not even consider alternative management and delivery approaches or P3s despite the performance improvements, cost savings, and other benefits that can be gained.
• Condition applicants for SRF, WIFIA, and other federal support to adopt asset management best practices. In a constrained fiscal environment, it is critical that taxpayer dollars are targeted to projects most in need and those most likely to effectively use federal funds. In the past, Congress—on a bipartisan basis—has recognized the many benefits of asset management. For example, the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2014 required that applicants seeking Clean Water SRF loans for some water treatment projects develop and implement fiscal sustainability plans that include: an inventory of critical assets; an evaluation of the condition and performance of those assets; and plans for maintaining, repairing, and replacing them.84 As part of required certifications for federal infrastructure funding or financing—including the Clean Water and Drinking Water SRFs, USDA rural development grants and credit support, WIFIA, and other programs—applicants should demonstrate that they are using best practices in asset management. For systems with limited resources, states can prioritize the use of SRF for such technical assistance. For example, CWSRF loan recipients in Maine can access up to $50,000 in principal forgiveness to develop and implement fiscal sustainability plans.85
• Increase SRF funding and prioritize state intended-use plans by a set of performance-based metrics. Once state and federal support is aligned to the development of asset management practices, data should be collected on the current performance of each system, including their energy efficiency. Based on this comprehensive database, metrics to evaluate increases in performance should become a fundamental part of determining the allocation of each SRF, in order to directly incentivize innovation. Performance-based funding strategies have been installed in other state and federally-funded sectors, including higher education, and the lessons learned from these systems should be fully considered, including: determining the appropriate level of funding that should be affected by the performance metric to best incentivize results; developing tiers of standards to account for the variety of system sizes; establishing clear metrics that reward both progress and success; ensuring that performance goals are aligned and not in conflict with quality and affordability standards; and incorporating targeted technical assistance to avoid condemning already struggling systems.86
• Remove barriers to P3s in water infrastructure. As BPC’s Executive Council on Infrastructure has previously recommended, increasing the collaboration between the public and private sectors is essential to promoting innovation. While creating a modern infrastructure system that applies asset management practices can help attract private
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investment, currently there are state and federal policies that directly restrict the formation of P3s and engagement with private sector water providers. States and the federal government can remove barriers to P3s by:
• Adopting broad enabling legislation, which enables P3s for all types of infrastructure, at all levels of government, through a process that promotes transparency and community engagement;
• Encouraging utilities to leverage performance-based contracts for individual technologies;
• Giving states the option to make private utilities eligible for CWSRF funding;
• Removing constraints to asset sales/leasing, including tax defeasance rules on assets financed with tax-exempt debt; and
• Removing state volume caps on private activity bonds (PABs) for water projects and alternative minimum tax (AMT) applicability.
• Provide EPA’s Water Infrastructure and Resiliency Finance Center (WIRFC) with sufficient staff and resources. With area expertise and stable funding, WIRFC can be a valuable clearinghouse for best practices on P3s, assist localities and states on innovative projects, and serve as a one-stop shop for information on building financial capacity. With so many water systems lacking either the technical expertise or appetite to pursue P3s, WIRFC can promote lessons learned from around the country and elevate practices that put the public interest first and deliver modern, efficient water infrastructure at lower costs.
Directly Support Research and Development
Any sector that wants to create a culture of innovation, must tolerate the risk of failure; however, the traditional risk of failure in the water sector is intolerable. Establishing a regionally focused and thriving proving ground of pilots, test beds, and clusters will foster the conditions for innovation while protecting the public.
• Create a federal “Advanced Research Projects Agency – Water (ARPA-W)” to directly support high-risk, high-rewards technology development. In 2007, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) was founded by Congress as an independent department to fund transformative energy technologies, based on similar agencies that foster innovative technologies for the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. Within just 6 years of operation, ARPA-E funded 535 projects with an average award size of $2.7 million, which has, so far, resulted in 44 percent of the funded projects publishing results in peer-reviewed journals and 13 percent obtaining patents.87 Due to ARPA-E funding, 45 projects secured an average of $28 million in private sector funding, 36 companies have been founded based on the original project, and crucial advancements have been made in materials, efficiency, clean energy, grid operations, and energy storage.
As has been previously recommended by water advocates, an “ARPA-W” program should be created and modeled after the successful programs in the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. Importantly, due to the highly local and
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regionalized nature of the water sector, a successful ARPA-W program would likely need to be tailored to work in conjunction with SRFs, private companies, and other ongoing regional efforts, such as in the cluster programs.88
Reduce Regulations That Unnecessarily Deter Innovation
The regulatory environment is considered one of the primary barriers to innovation, but it plays an important role in protecting public health. Maintaining this layer of protection while reducing duplicative overlaps and any unnecessarily burdensome regulations should be a key consideration for policymakers.
• Create a national commission to identify and address barriers that prevent the implementation of digital water innovations. Some of the most groundbreaking and efficient innovations that are emerging in the water sector are centered on data collection and digital monitoring. However, security and privacy concerns have prevented these innovations from spreading. Robust national commissions and advisory boards, such as the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, have previously studied and advanced similar topics, including cybersecurity, climate change, online courses in higher education, and forensic science.
• States and localities should conduct an audit of their existing regulations and look to eliminate or modify those that are hampering opportunities for innovation. The nation’s fragmented regulatory structure prevents new innovations from being developed and can prevent proven innovations that are being effectively implemented in a different jurisdiction from spreading. Specifically, overarching state and local regulations have been implemented to restrict specific contract structures, materials, and technologies from being analyzed and deployed, despite their potential benefits.
• Create an industry approved gold-standard for evaluating water technology and maintain a “whitelist” of technologies that have gone through the sector approved process. From 1995 to 2014 the EPA operated the Environmental Technology Verification Program (ETV), a public-private partnership with five nonprofit testing organizations to voluntarily evaluate and verify the performance of innovative environmental technologies. Over two decades, ETV evaluated nearly 500 technologies, including advances in waste-to-energy technology and treatment technology for drinking water systems.89 Expanding upon this work by creating a standardized and unified list of technologies that have been publicly evaluated would help to promote the widespread adoption of innovation and remove unnecessary replication and fragmentation that exists between the various standards. Building on the successful evaluation standards that have been developed by local and regional efforts, the current trade associations should reach an industry-wide consensus, similar to the standardization of water loss practices. Once the industry’s approval process is agreed upon, it will be up to states and localities to adopt supportive legislation.
• States should establish a shared permitting and certification platform. Though a specific technology permit may be approved for one utility, the process remains unchanged for the applications of other utilities in the same state and is essentially inapplicable across state lines, drastically limiting broad adoption. As has been recommended by National Association of Clean Water Agencies, the Water Environment & Reuse Foundation, and the Water Environment Federation, if states agreed upon a set of common standards, a technology that has qualified and been approved in one state would be able to enter an expedited approval process in a reciprocal state.90 In other sectors that require permitting and licenses,
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states often have reciprocal programs to avoid this problem. In the medical field, physicians are required to gain state licenses in order to practice. However, for the 18 states that have adopted the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact (an agreement that unifies the state-level requirements), qualified physicians receive an expedited approval process to operate across state lines.91 This agreement to essentially share a united regulatory structure has encouraged the adoption of medical innovations, including the use of telehealth in rural areas.
America’s fragmented and deteriorating water infrastructure is in desperate need of innovation. In combination, these federal, state, and local recommendations would help lower the existing risks and costs associated with adopting innovative solutions.
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Endnotes1 Elizabeth Mack and Sarah Wrase, A Burgeoning Crisis? A Nationwide Assessment of the Geography of Water Affordability in the United States, PLOS ONE,
January 2017. Available at: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169488.
2 Bipartisan Policy Center, Understanding America’s Water and Wastewater Challenges, May 2017. Available at: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/library/understanding-americas-water-and-wastewater-challenges/.
3 American Society of Civil Engineers, “Infrastructure Report Card,” 2017. Available at: http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/cat-item/wastewater/.
4 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Inventory,” 2016. Available at https://obipublic11.epa.gov/analytics/saw.dll?PortalPages.
5 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Clusters: Overcoming Barriers to Water Innovation in the US, March 2016. Available at: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-03/documents/overcoming_barriers_to_water_innovation_in_the_unitest_states_of_america.pdf.
6 American Water Works Association, Buried No Longer: Confronting America’s Water Infrastructure Challenge, 2012. Available at: http://www.awwa.org/Portals/0/files/legreg/documents/BuriedNoLonger.pdf.
7 D. J. Murray, “Aging Water Infrastructure Research Program: Addressing the Challenge through Innovation,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, (brochure) 2007. Available at: https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_report.cfm?dirEntryId=185093.
8 U.S. Government Accountability Office, Freshwater: Supply Concerns Continue, and Uncertainties Complicate Planning, May 2014. Available at: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-430.
9 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Analyze Trends: Drinking Water Dashboard, 2016. Available at: https://echo.epa.gov/trends/comparative-maps-dashboards/drinking-water-dashboard.
10 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Drinking Water: EPA Needs to Take Additional Steps to Ensure Small Community Water Systems Designated as Serious Violators Achieve Compliance, Report No. 16-P-0108, March 2016. Available at: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-03/documents/20160322-16-p-0108.pdf.
11 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Analyze Trends: State Water Dashboard, 2017. Available at: https://echo.epa.gov/trends/comparative-maps-dashboards/state-water-dashboard?state=National&view=performance.
12 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Rivers and Streams Assessment 2008-2009, March 2016. Available at: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-03/documents/nrsa_0809_march_2_final.pdf.
13 The Johnson Foundation at Wingspread, Financing Sustainable Water Infrastructure, January 2012. Available at: http://www.johnsonfdn.org/sites/default/files/reports_publications/WaterInfrastructure.pdf.
14 Xylem, Inc., Powering the Wastewater Renaissance: Energy Efficiency and Emissions Reduction in Wastewater Management, 2015. Available at: http://poweringwastewater.xyleminc.com/images/Xylem_Wastewater_Renaissance_2015_Report.pdf.
15 George Hawkins, “Moonshot: How to Drive Innovation in Water,” May 30, 2017. Available at: http://georgehawkins.net/moonshot/.
16 Natural Resources Defense Council, What’s On Tap? Grading Drinking Water in U.S. Cities, June 2003. Available at: https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/washington.pdf.
17 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Green Infrastructure: Enforcement - Examples of settled Clean Water Act enforcement cases that include green infrastructure,” 2014. Available at: https://www.epa.gov/green-infrastructure/enforcement.
18 Value of Water Campaign, The Economic Benefits of Investing in Water Infrastructure, 2016. Available at: http://thevalueofwater.org/sites/default/files/Economic%20Impact%20of%20Investing%20in%20Water%20Infrastructure_VOW_FINAL_pages.pdf.
19 GAO, Water Infrastructure: Comprehensive Asset Management Has Potential to Help Utilities Better Identify Needs and Plan Future Investments, GAO-04-461, 2004. Available at: http://www.gao.gov/assets/160/157528.pdf.
20 Water Research Foundation, Fostering Innovation Within Water Utilities, 2017. Available at: http://www.waterrf.org/PublicReportLibrary/4642.pdf.
21 Xylem, Inc., Annual Report, 2016. Available at: http://investors.xyleminc.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=247373&p=irol-reportsannual.
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22 Jeff Hughes, “Prince George’s County Urban Stormwater Retrofit Public Private Partnership,” University of North Carolina Environmental Finance Center, 2016. Available at: https://efc.sog.unc.edu/sites/www.efc.sog.unc.edu/files/2017/Prince%20Georges_Final_WEB.pdf.
23 Bipartisan Policy Center, “Understanding America’s Water and Wastewater Challenges, May 2017. Available at: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/library/understanding-americas-water-and-wastewater-challenges/.
24 Jeff Hughes, “Tampa Bay Water Desalination Plant,” University of North Carolina Environmental Finance Center, 2016. Available at: https://efc.sog.unc.edu/sites/www.efc.sog.unc.edu/files/2017/Tampa%20Bay%20Water_Final_Web.pdf.
25 Water Research Foundation, Fostering Innovation Within Water Utilities, 2017. Available at: http://www.waterrf.org/PublicReportLibrary/4642.pdf.
26 Water Research Foundation, Fostering Innovation Within Water Utilities: Case Studies, 2017. Available at: http://www.waterrf.org/resources/Lists/PublicCaseStudiesList/Attachments/38/CS-4642-1.pdf.
27 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Water & Environmental Programs Annual Progress Report, 2016. Available at: https://www.rd.usda.gov/files/WEP-AnnualProgressReport2016Final.pdf.
28 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Clusters: Overcoming Barriers to Water Innovation in the US, March 2016. Available https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-03/documents/overcoming_barriers_to_water_innovation_in_the_unitest_states_of_america.pdf.
29 Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, Press Release: Nutrients recovered by MWRD lead to new resources and cleaner environment for the Mississippi River Basin and Gulf of Mexico, June 2016. Available at: https://www.mwrd.org/pv_obj_cache/pv_obj_id_0F296DAE8C09D1659B8D86B870CEA3C5007A1E00/filename/16_0606_Nutrient_Recovery.pdf.
30 Editorial “Clean water: Chicago takes a leap,” Chicago Tribune, May 24, 2016. Available at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-chicago-river-water-ostara-mwrd-stickney-phosphorous-edit-md-20160524-story.html.
31 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Sustainable Water Infrastructure: Energy Efficiency for Water Utilities,” 2017. Available at: https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-water-infrastructure/energy-efficiency-water-utilities.
32 Katherine Shaver, “D.C. Water begins harnessing electricity from every flush,” Washington Post, October 7, 2015. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/poop-flush-power/2015/10/07/d0c9c6de-6c3a-11e5-9bfe-e59f5e244f92_story.html?utm_term=.57503d200e2b.
33 Xylem, Inc., Powering the Wastewater Renaissance: Energy Efficiency and Emissions Reduction in Wastewater Management, 2015. Available at: http://poweringwastewater.xyleminc.com/images/Xylem_Wastewater_Renaissance_2015_Report.pdf.
34 City of Syracuse Innovation Team, Infrastructure Final Report, August 2016. Available at: http://www.innovatesyracuse.com/blog/infrastructurereport.
35 Debra Bruno, “How Mathematicians in Chicago are Stopping Water Leaks in Syracuse,” Politico, April 20, 2017. Available at: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/20/syracuse-infrastructure-water-system-pipe-breaks-215054.
36 City of Syracuse Innovation Team, “Infrastructure Week 2017,” May 2017. Available at: http://www.innovatesyracuse.com/blog/infrastructureweek2017.
37 Taylor Goldenstein, “Smart water meters help users, agencies gauge usage” Los Angeles Times, May 5, 2015. Available at: http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-smart-meter-explainer-20150505-story.html.
38 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Fix a Leak Week,” 2017. Available at: https://www.epa.gov/watersense/fix-leak-week.
39 City of Flint, MI, “Water Meter Replacement Program,” July 2015. Available at: https://www.cityofflint.com/public-works/utilitieswater/meter-replacement-program/.
40 East Bay Municipal Utility District, “New technology reduces home water use by 5 percent,” January 2014. Available at: http://www.ebmud.com/about-us/news/press-releases/new-technology-reduces-home-water-use-5-percent/.
41 Matt Bevilacqua, “Report: Green the City, Deal with the Stormwater,” Next City, March 7, 2013. Available at: https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/report-green-the-city-deal-with-the-stormwater.
42 National Resource Defense Council, Creating Clean Water Cash Flows: Developing Private Markets for Green Stormwater Infrastructure in Philadelphia, January 2013. Available at: https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/green-infrastructure-pa-report.pdf.
43 Andrew Winkler, “Water Week Spotlight: D.C.’s Environmental Impact Bond,” Bipartisan Policy Center, March 2017. Available at: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/water-week-spotlight-d-c-s-environmental-impact-bond/.
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44 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “EPA’s 2011 Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and Assessment,” April 2013. Available at: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-07/documents/epa816f13001.pdf.
45 GAO, Freshwater: Supply Concerns Continue, and Uncertainties Complicate Planning, May 2014. Available at: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-430.
46 Western Resource Advocates, Water Rate Structures in New Mexico, February 2006. Available at: http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/hearings/cachuma/comments_rdeir/pacific_institute/4otherreports/wra_nm_waterrate2006.pdf.
47 Nelson Schwartz, “Water Pricing in Two Thirsty Cities: In One, Guzzlers Pay More, and Use Less,” The New York Times, May 6, 2015. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/07/business/energy-environment/water-pricing-in-two-thirsty-cities.html.
48 Water Research Foundation, Fostering Innovation Within Water Utilities, 2017: 114. Available at: http://www.waterrf.org/PublicReportLibrary/4642.pdf.
49 Bipartisan Policy Center, Bridging the Gap Together: A New Model to Modernize American Infrastructure, May 2016. Available at: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/library/modernize-infrastructure/.
50 U.S. Department of Homeland Security, The Future of Smart Cities: Cyber-Physical Infrastructure Risk, August 2015. Available at: https://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/documents/OCIA%20-%20The%20Future%20of%20Smart%20Cities%20-%20Cyber-Physical%20Infrastructure%20Risk.pdf.
51 National Institute of Standards and Technology, Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, February 2014. Available at: https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cyberframework/cybersecurity-framework-021214.pdf.
52 World Economic Forum, Energy for Economic Growth: Energy Vision, 2012. Available at: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_EN_EnergyEconomicGrowth_IndustryAgenda_2012.pdf. Malcom Abbot and Bruce Cohen, Productivity and efficiency in the water industry, Utilities Policy, Volume 17, Issues 3-4, 2009. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957178709000241.
53 The Hamilton Project and Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, The Path to Water Innovation, October 2014. Available at: https://woods.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/files/path_to_water_innovation_thompson_paper_final.pdf.
54 Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, The Path to Water Innovation, 2015. Available at: http://waterinthewest.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Woods%20H2O%20Innovation%20Research%20Brief%20v05.pdf.
55 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “How the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Works.” Available at: https://www.epa.gov/drinkingwatersrf/how-drinking-water-state-revolving-fund-works.
56 National Association of Clean Water Agencies, Opportunities & Challenges in Clean Water Utility Financing and Management, February 2015. Available at: http://www.nacwa.org/docs/default-source/Legal-Resources/2015-07-31finsurvey-execsum.pdf.
57 American Water Works Association, State of the Water Industry, 2016. Available at: https://www.awwa.org/resources-tools/water-and-wastewater-utility-management/state-of-the-water-industry.aspx.
58 George Hawkins, “Moonshot.” http://georgehawkins.net/moonshot/.
59 George Hawkins, “Moonshot.” http://georgehawkins.net/moonshot/.
60 Elizabeth Mack and Sarah Wrase, Michigan State University, A Burgeoning Crisis? A Nationwide Assessment of the Geography of Water Affordability in the United States, January 2017. Available at: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169488.
61 Michael Kiparsky, et al., Barriers to Innovation in Urban Wastewater Utilities: Attitudes of Managers in California, Environmental Management, June 2016, Volume 57, Issue 6. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00267-016-0685-3.
62 Vanessa Speight, Innovation in the water industry: barriers and opportunities for US and UK utilities, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: WIRE Water, 2015. Available at: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/86988/.
63 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Regulatory Information by Topic: Water.” Available at: https://www.epa.gov/regulatory-information-topic/regulatory-information-topic-water.
64 BCC Research, Special Research Study Nationwide Pipe Length and Cost Savings Evaluation, February 2017. Available at: https://www.americanchemistry.com/BCC-Research-National-Study.pdf.
65 Bipartisan Policy Center, Public-Private Partnership (P3) Model State Legislation, December 2015. Available at: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/library/public-private-partnership-p3-model-legislation/.
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66 Ernst & Young, Global Cleantech Center, The US water sector on the verge of Transformation, 2013. Available at: http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Cleantech_Water_Whitepaper/$FILE/Cleantech-Water-Whitepaper.pdf.
67 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Control and Mitigation of Drinking Water Losses in Distribution Systems, November 2010. Available at: http://www.awwa.org/portals/0/files/legreg/documents/waterlosscontrol508.pdf.
68 Will Jernigan, “State of the States: Emerging Water Loss Regulations in the U.S.,” Water Online, May 2014. Available at: https://www.wateronline.com/doc/state-of-the-states-emerging-water-loss-regulations-in-the-u-s-0001.
69 Natural Resources Defense Council, “Cutting Our Losses,” March 2017. Available at: https://www.nrdc.org/resources/cutting-our-losses.
70 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Inventory,” 2016. Available at: https://obipublic11.epa.gov/analytics/saw.dll?PortalPages.
71 Deanna Ringenberg, Steven Wilson, and Bruce Dvorak, State Barriers to Approval of Drinking Water Technologies for Small Systems, American Water Works Association, August 2017. Available at: https://www.awwa.org/publications/journal-awwa/abstract/articleid/65512892.aspx.
72 Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, Overcoming Fragmentation in the Water Sector to Promote Water Innovation: State-level “Offices of Water Resources Innovation and Development,”2015. Available at: http://waterinthewest.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Brief-H20SectorFragmentation-Web.pdf.
73 Appalachian Regional Commission and the University of North Carolina Environmental Finance Center, Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure in Appalachia, July 2005. Available at: https://www.arc.gov/assets/research_reports/DrinkingWaterandWastewaterInfrastructure.pdf.
74 Bipartisan Policy Center, Bridging the Gap Together: A New Model to Modernize American Infrastructure, May 2016. Available at: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/library/modernize-infrastructure/.
75 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Promoting Technology Innovation for Clean and Safe Water; Water Technology Innovation Blueprint—Version 2, April 2014. Available at: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-04/documents/clean_water_blueprint_final.pdf.
76 The Water Council. Available at: https://thewatercouncil.com/.
77 Confluence Water Technology Innovation Cluster “Regional Utility Network.” Available at: https://www.watercluster.org/regional-utility-network/.
78 Water Environment & Reuse Foundation, “Facilities Accelerating Science & Technology (FAST) Water Network by LIFT.” Available at: http://www.werf.org/lift/LIFT_Test_Bed_Network.aspx.
79 Bipartisan Policy Center, Bridging the Gap Together: A New Model to Modernize American Infrastructure, May 2016. Available at: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/library/modernize-infrastructure/.
80 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Asset Management: A Best Practices Guide, April 2008. Available at: https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi/P1000LP0.PDF?Dockey=P1000LP0.PDF.
81 Portland Water Bureau, Asset Management Planning at the Portland Water Bureau, June 2013. Available at: https://www.portlandoregon.gov/water/article/473693.
82 American Water Works Association, “2017 State of the Water Industry Report,” April 2017, Available at: https://www.awwa.org/resources-tools/water-and-wastewater-utility-management/state-of-the-water-industry.aspx.
83 S&P Global Ratings, Bundling: a Growing Trend as Stakeholders Look to Unlock the Potential of the Infrastructure Asset Class, February 2017. Available at: https://www.spglobal.com/our-insights/Bundling-a-Growing-Trend-as-Stakeholders-Look-to-Unlock-the-Potential-of-the-Infrastructure-Asset-Class.html.
84 The Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014, Public Law 113-121, 113th Congress. Available at: https://www.congress.gov/113/plaws/publ121/PLAW-113publ121.pdf.
85 Maine Department of Environmental Protection, “Clean Water State Revolving Fund Federal Fiscal Year 2016 Final Intended Use Plan,” August 2016. Available at: http://www.maine.gov/dep/water/grants/SRF/2016/Final%202016%20IUP.pdf.
86 National Conference of State Legislatures, “Performance-Based Funding for Higher Education,” July 2015. Available at: http://www.ncsl.org/research/education/performance-funding.aspx.
87 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, An Assessment of ARPA-E, 2017. Available at: https://www.nap.edu/catalog/24778/an-assessment-of-arpa-e.
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88 National Association of Clean Water Agencies, the Water Environment & Reuse Foundation, and the Water Environment Federation, The Water Resources Utility of the Future ... A Blueprint for Action, 2013. Available at: http://www.wef.org/globalassets/assets-wef/direct-download-library/public/03---resources/waterresourcesutilityofthefuture_blueprintforaction_final.pdf.
89 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Program Case Studies: Demonstrating Program Outcomes, January 2006. Available at: https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_Report.cfm?dirEntryID=146984.
90 NACWA, WE&RF, and WEF, Utility of the Future, 2013.
91 Federation of State Medical Boards, “Six New States Introduce Interstate Medical Licensure Compact Legislation,” January 2016. Available at: https://www.fsmb.org/Media/Default/PDF/Advocacy/NewCompactIntroductions_Jan2016_FINAL.pdf.
30bipartisanpolicy.org
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