Connecticut receives about $8.5 million annually from the federal EPA to finance the existing revolving loan fund. It makes low-interest loans available to the state’s 2,500 or so public water systems, which can vary greatly in size. Replacing pipes, treatment plants and other infrastructure, as well as expanding drinking water systems to handle population growth, could cost as much as $1 trillion.
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Scores of drinking water systems built around World War II and earlier are increasingly failing and in need of replacement. Under the initiative, grants would be provided to certain small and large public water systems that participate in the state’s Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund, which is federally funded.
“What’s driving it now is just sheer age”, Pillsbury said.
Chris Riley, NPU spokesman, said the utility has a number of projects that will be affected by the availability of the additional money, including a $4.65 million project that includes a million-gallon water storage tank, transmission lines and treatment plant infrastructure improvements. “You see it on a very routine basis”.
Robert Barry is commissioner of the New Hampton Village Precinct water system, a tiny provider that serves 600 people. Because water from Mountain Pond comes overland to the reservoir, it contains loads of particles that turn the water into “tea” during spring, summer and fall.
The 2013 report also noted that the American Society of Civil Engineers, in quadrennial report cards since 1998, give New Hampshire’s water infrastructure an average of “D” grades because the state isn’t investing enough. They have only one drinking water well to meet their needs and those of the more than 900 inmates who are housed at a private prison on the outskirts of town. If Congress cuts the revolving fund, as it is considering doing, cash-strapped states might have to find other ways to pay those costs.
Many of the problems plaguing local water systems stemmed more from years of neglect, but officials said the drought helped to exacerbate the challenge of providing clean, sustainable drinking water in numerous communities around the state. In an effort to move the money more quickly, the state accepts applications year round and reviews and prioritizes them each quarter.
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The city has the outline of a plan to fix the city’s aging drinking water infrastructure: “It will take a million dollars a year for a hundred years”, said Rutland Public Works Director Jeff Wennberg.
