ASDWA Releases Updated Analysis of State Drinking Water Programs’ Resources and Needs

July 27, 2020 Alan Roberson

Today (7/27), ASDWA released its updated report (2020 report using 2019 data) on the necessary resources for states and territories to run their drinking water programs and protect public health. This report updates the previous 2011 analysis, and the updated analysis found the funding gap for 2020 to be $375 million, increasing to $469 million in 2029. The funding gap has increased by $197 million since the previous analysis in 2011 due to increasing demands on state programs to address unregulated contaminants such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and harmful algal blooms (HABs), and to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The federal share of program funding has decreased by 8% since the previous analysis in 2011. The report also has a short summary of the estimated/predicted impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on state revenues on page 42, as well as some early estimates of ongoing/future reductions in state revenues that will likely become a bigger issue in the second half of 2020 and in 2021 and beyond.

Today is the public release of this report, as it’s being referenced in Hill testimony by Shellie Chard, ASDWA President and Water Quality Division Director at Oklahoma DEQ, at a SDWA hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change that is being held tomorrow, Tuesday, July 28, starting at 11 AM EDT, with the title: There’s Something in the Water: Reforming Our Nation’s Drinking Water Standards”. ASDWA’s written testimony for this hearing will be posted on the Committee’s website here.