Aging Infrastructure and Cyber Threats Put America's Water Supply at Risk

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning. What the heck is going on?

0:03 Speaker 2 I’ve seen reports that water, I guess to your homes, to your businesses, has gone up 65% in the last 10 years.

0:14 Speaker 1 Well, with us today is Robert F.

0:17 Speaker 2 Powelson, and he’s the president and chief executive officer of the National Association of Water Companies.

0:24 Speaker 1 So, well, are you guys making a ton of money? What the heck is going on?

0:30 Speaker 3 Well, John, good to be with you. I wish we were making a ton of money. What we’re doing is investing in America’s water infrastructure so people have peace of mind that what comes out of their tap, at a penny a gallon, by the way, versus bottled water, is treated to the highest standards and that people have peace

0:50 of mind that this is a public utility service. By the way, the only public utility service in America that we ingest, right? that their tap water is an exceptional value compared to other forms. And I think it’s very important.

1:04 We get these headlines, right? I always love it during Thanksgiving. We talk about the cost of a. Turkey, right?

1:11 Speaker 3 The inflationary index of turkey pricing. But the reality is, in our world, affordability comes with a price tag, meaning you have to invest in water treatment. You have to source water. You know, people don’t realize this. America has the highest per capita water use in the world, right?

1:29 Over 40 states in the U.S. are going to face some type of water scarcity. In fact, today in New Jersey, 21 counties are in a drought alert because of water scarcity concerns. So we often lose sight of that. We see the headline and we say, oh, my God, water rates are out of control. But the reality is we

1:49 have to invest. Right.

1:51 Speaker 3 We have things like lead service lines that need to be replaced. We have to treat and detect emerging contaminants. And you can’t do that in a vacuum. You have to have a holistic approach to investing. I do find it a little bit, you know, we hear about these studies that were put out, one by this group called

2:10 Food and Water Watch. It’s a very dangerous comparison, the study on rates, where you try to compare your local municipal government run water system to an investor-owned model. It is very different. And I think the fact of the matter is, this report that has been circulated throughout parts of this country is very unbalanced. It doesn’t take into

2:35 effect the health-based violations of some of these systems. And the reality is water quality is often overlooked in this conversation. So a lot to unpack there, but I think your listeners need to have peace of mind that water in the U.S. is a great value proposition. The important thing is we can’t now more than ever, we can’t waver

2:58 in investing in systems. We’ve had too many near misses Jackson, Mississippi, Flint, Michigan, Newark, New Jersey. These are all real time examples of what happens when you’re not investing properly in water infrastructure.

3:11 Speaker 2 Let me ask a silly question. You know, we’re all worried about, uh, uh, terrorism, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, How much security or how much testing do we have to make sure the consumer is getting good water because water is the lifeline of our life?

3:35 Speaker 3 It is the lifeline of our life. I’m glad you brought that point up. And look, in 1970, we passed the Clean Water Act, right? And then we passed the Safe Drinking Water Act. And that was in the 70s.

3:47 So here we are today where we have continued health-based violations. We have PFAS in our water that we have to invest and treat and detect and dispose of it. And people need to understand that over time... You know, we were treating water molecules at parts per hundred in the 70s and 80s. We went from parts per hundred to

4:12 parts per thousand. And now we went from PPM, parts per million. Now we’re parts per trillion. That’s amazing, right? That’s a good outcome of our research and what we’ve done as an industry to invest in water research technology.

4:27 So that’s a good thing, but it comes with investment, right? And you don’t want to, you know, many cities and municipalities across this country have deferred that maintenance. And I’m proud to say in New York and other parts of this country, New York has a great, very well-run water system, some of the cleanest water quality in America, right? But again,

4:52 it comes with investment, good engineering, good safety culture, and that doesn’t come overnight, right? And we still, as a country, need to understand that cybersecurity and physical security of water assets You know, it takes one, we’ve had too many near misses with cyber incidents right now in this country, where the water sector is the bullseye for these threat

5:16 vectors to emerge. And we’re seeing it from the Iranian threat vectors to Chinese threat vectors. These actors are trying to get behind the industrial control system to impact chemical flows that could create a national public health crisis. And we’re working really hard to make sure that never happens.

5:33 Speaker 2 Well, people want good water. There are people that pay $ 2, $ 3, $ 4 for a bottle of water. Could you imagine what that comes out to on a per-year basis?

5:45 Speaker 3 Well, that is another great example of why people need to trust what’s coming out of their tap. Their default option should always be the tap, not bottled water. Bottled water is not a value proposition. In fact, I was in Jackson, Mississippi. I spent a couple of months in Jackson, right?

6:05 Do you know we brought 25,000 cases of bottled water to that community? Because the citizens there over decades could not trust what was coming out of their tap. So when things went really bad, 25,000 cases of bottled water.

6:20 That’s not the America that I see and you see where we should have viable electric gas, water and wastewater service and telecom service. It all comes with investment. And if you’re not investing, that’s where you’re coming. You’re seeing in the headline risk of water quality issues across this country.

6:39 And now we’re seeing it with water scarcity issues as well.

6:43 Speaker 2 Robert Powelson, the president and chief executive officer of the National Association of Water.

6:48 Speaker 1 Thank you for the explanation.

6:50 Speaker 2 Please keep our number and keep WABC involved. Our listeners always want to hear what the story is. And thank you so much for coming on this Sunday morning.

7:02 Speaker 3 Yeah, my pleasure. Great to be with you, my friend, and great to talk to your listeners. And I hope to come back online with you, too.

7:08 Speaker 1 Thank you so much.