WIN News Release

	News Release
For Immediate Release: January 30, 2003	Contact: Adam Krantz 202/833-4651

Facing a Massive Clean and Safe Water Funding Shortfall
The Water Infrastructure Network Urges Long-Term Funding Solution
The Water Infrastructure Network (WIN) believes that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) multi-stakeholder meeting today, titled Closing the Gap: Innovative Responses for Sustainable Water Infrastructure, marks a critical moment demonstrating that consensus has been reached on the now undeniable existence of a massive funding shortfall for water/wastewater infrastructure and that the discussion has now shifted to developing solutions to meet this challenge. The meeting was announced last year during EPA’s release of its report, The Clean Water and Drinking Water Infrastructure Gap Analysis, documenting a startling water and wastewater infrastructure funding gap of as much as $500 billion. EPA’s report is available at http://www.epa.gov/owm/gapreport.pdf.

WIN — consisting of nearly 40 organizations representing drinking water and wastewater agencies, local elected officials, labor, environmentalists and engineering and construction firms — essentially jumpstarted the discussion on the existence of, and methods to address, the massive water and wastewater funding shortfall and its daunting environmental, public health and economic ramifications. Simply put, the nation faces a looming crisis to its clean and safe water infrastructure, as pipes and systems age and are in need of upgrade and repair. Municipalities now shoulder 90% of these infrastructure costs, but, as EPA’s Gap Analysis demonstrates, they cannot continue to foot this massive infrastructure bill alone, especially as local budgets continue to shrink and municipalities face soaring security costs. To learn more about WIN, visit www.win-water.org.

EPA, the General Accounting Office, and the Congressional Budget Office have all weighed in with massive numbers, demonstrating the enormous wastewater infrastructure funding need. It is a rare event when a plethora of government agencies agree on such an enormous financial need. As such, WIN calls on Congress and the President to act swiftly and sign and budget for new legislation to finance a long-term, sustainable, and reliable source of funding for clean water, focusing on critical “core” infrastructure needs.

WIN believes that today’s meeting marks a significant step toward spurring strong bipartisan support on the issue of sustainable clean and safe water infrastructure funding, and WIN will continue its important work with Congress and EPA to develop a meaningful, long-term solution to the nation’s water and wastewater infrastructure shortfall in order to ensure the nation’s environmental and public health future.

WIN is a broad-based coalition of local elected officials, drinking water and wastewater service providers, state environmental and health program administrators, labor, engineers and environmentalists dedicated to preserving and protecting the health, environmental and economic gains that America's drinking water and wastewater infrastructure provides.

WATER INFRASTRUCTURE NETWORK
1816 Jefferson Place, Washington, DC 20036-2505
www.win-water.org - 202/833-2672 - 202/833-4657 FAX