by Will Coggin
Keystone, W.Va., has not had safe drinking water for eight years.
Over those eight years, there were times when Keystone had no water at all. The taps were dry. In one instance, the residents of Keystone went more than two weeks without being able to shower or wash their clothes because a water main burst and the city didn’t have access to a backhoe to repair the pipe.
Many of the pipes in Keystone haven’t been repaired since they were first laid in the early 1900s when the city was in the midst of a coal boom. The coal boom came and went, taking a lot of money with it. The water pipes — and the families they served — were ignored.
This isn’t some town in a third-world country. This is a town in America. And as of January, this is a town represented by the most powerful swing vote in the United States: Sen. Joe Manchin.
Manchin will play a key role in negotiating the infrastructure legislation being pushed by President Joe Biden and he’s already been pushing back on the plan to fund the package with a steep corporate tax hike. As Manchin continues negotiating this legislation, fixing America’s crumbling water infrastructure should be a top priority.
The CDC estimates 7.15 million people fall ill from waterborne diseases in the U.S. each year. Roughly 6,630 Americans die each year after being infected by contaminated tap water.
While situations like Newark, N.J., and Flint, Mich., have become well-known instances of heavy metal-contaminated water, much of the tap water problem has been a steady drip of failures.
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, one U.S. water main breaks every two minutes. More than 9,000 swimming pools’ worth of treated water are wasted every day because of those water main breaks.
Water main breaks are more than an inconvenience; they are dangerous. When a pipe bursts, the system loses the water pressure needed to keep the treatment chemicals in balance. This allows harmful pathogens to seep into the tap water. Without pressure, pipelines become a breeding ground for biofilm, a plaque-like sludge that is home to many waterborne pathogens.
Many of these pathogens can be killed if the water is vigorously boiled. Millions of people in Texas and Mississippi were placed under “boil water advisories” following the recent winter storm that burst hundreds of water mains throughout the South. But not all tap water problems can be boiled away. Water contaminated by lead, for example, becomes more dangerous if heated.
These water failures are why FEMA recommends each family store one gallon of bottled water per person per day to keep their families safe in the event of an unexpected water disaster.
The people of Keystone have been picking up bottled drinking water from the city for the past eight years. The residents of Flint, Mich., were offered the same solution. The same was done for the people of Jackson, Miss., who recently went two weeks without water. If Congress doesn’t address the crumbling tap water infrastructure in the U.S., more Americans can expect to wait in line for bottled water to keep their families hydrated and clean.
Luckily for the people of Keystone, the town received $6.3 million in grant money to fund repairs to the water system that are due to be complete by December 2021. But after eight years without water, it’s hard to call that a win.
West Virginia isn’t alone in its water woes. Every state has issues. Millions of Americans get their water from lead pipes, many of which are a century old.
Manchin and the rest of Congress should see that the tap water infrastructure is failing. Broadband internet and trains are nice, but they are nowhere near as essential as access to clean water.
c is the managing director of the Center for Accountability in Science, the nonprofit responsible for IsTapWaterSafe.com.
