Collin Bonder

05/02/2024

Dr. Foster

GEO 326

Water Infrastructure

Water flows through cities and our own bodies, creating sustainable conditions to help us

thrive and strive in a society where clean water is key. It’s no secret how important clean water is

to us; from cleaning, to drinking, and cooking; we need clean water for us to live. Many cities in

the United States, especially as of lately, have been hit with a water crisis. This crisis being, there

is contaminated and dirty water that is unusable and undrinkable for people, but it doesn’t stop

there. A national aging water infrastructure, whether with plumbing or piping, and the

susceptibility of contaminated water due to increasingly common natural hazards has made the

water infrastructure crisis the most dire and on edge it’s ever been. This has been more

prominently seen in larger cities such as Flint (population of 100,000 people when the water

crisis started, now 79,000) where the contamination of lead into water has led to severe health

and birth defects for a current generation. Government incompetence along with poor

infrastructure construction has created a dire and a rather unacknowledged water crisis problem.

So what can be done to make sure this doesn’t keep happening, not just in Flint, but all cities of

the United States? A cohesive and deep dive into the topic of water infrastructure will help

understand what can be done and fixed for the future of water infrastructure and sustainability.
 The idea of America having an extremely dire future with its water infrastructure does

not seem to be a larger focus on the national scale, even though it should; something which

Nicole Greenfield explains in her article, America's Failing Drinking Water System (10/05/2023).

She asserts that,”Chronic underinvestment has left water infrastructure outdated and on the verge

of collapse in many places across the country.” She continues to elaborate and make connections

on the worsening climate conditions we are experiencing in the United States from things such as

tornadoes, flooding, and hurricanes. To elaborate on these claims, she gives examples of areas

around the US in which the water infrastructure has been deteriorating and has been worsened by

climate; these places include Buffalo, Houston, Puerto Rico, and Jackson, Mississippi. Her

message isn’t just for the government, it’s for the general public to understand how dire this

situation is becoming, especially in areas that are predominantly African American such as

Jackson and Houston. Author Robert McDonald, in his academic journal “Water on an urban

planet: Urbanization and the reach of urban water infrastructure” (07/2014), has a very similar

message as Nicole Greenfield. He argues that the rapid urbanization of large cities such as Los

Angeles and New York even, have not been able to keep up with the rapid and expanding need

for water. Whether it’s water storage, basins, or even the pipes in the city, the conditions are

deteriorating rapidly compared to the population growth in some of these cities. This is creating

an unsustainable water consumption problem, especially in places where droughts occur like it

did in Los Angeles in 2022. Both of these authors are arguing the same thing, but in different

ways. The first article shows what the problem is and where it has been affecting as of lately, and

how the significant worsening of natural events due to climate change have sped up these

processes and the deterioration of water infrastructure tremendously, along with a couple of

major cities where this is occurring right now. The most famous example of this can obviously
be seen in Detroit, but both of these authors want to convey the message that it is not going to

stop at Detroit, nor Jackson, nor Houston; this is going to become a huge problem and continue

to affect us and endanger us at unprecedented rates if we do not begin to put funding into water

infrastructure.

​ When thinking about water, the main focus is drinking water, however there is a

lot more than meets the eye on the topic of water infrastructure. Geographer Katie Meehan

helped coin the term,“plumbing poverty” in many of her articles which explore the hundreds of

thousands of Americans who lack proper plumbing. In Katie Meehans’ academic journal

“Plumbing Poverty: Mapping Hot Spots of Racial and Geographic Inequality in US Households

Water Insecurity”(03/08/2019), she describes that plumbing poverty is not random in the United

States. Rather, as she says,”Living in an American Indian or Alaskan Native, black, or Hispanic

household increases the odds of being plumbing poor”. Once again, we find a correspondence

between the idea of those who are not white, living in places where “plumbing poverty” is seen

due to poor water infrastructure. And once again, as Meehan states several times, this fact is

ignored by the general consensus of the public, whether it being the citizens, the local

government, or the federal government. Either with clean water, or water systems such as

plumbing that don't work, there is a strong correlation between those who are a minority in the

United States and the higher chances of being subjected to poor water infrastructure. Let’s circle

back to Detroit, Michigan. A town that was once booming in economical standards, but as time

went down so did the care for its residents on a national level. With the town being nearly 80%

black, they were harshly exposed by pollutants from the Flint River; these pollutants contain

mainly lead which can lead to several deadly health problems. The Flint River was chosen since

the governor of Michigan at the time (2014) wanted to save costs and canceled the piping of
freshwater from Lake Huron. By choosing this he ended up costing and damaging the lives of

nearly 100,000 people in Detroit and Flint, and 9000 children, which lead is more damaging to. It

took 2 whole years for a state of emergency to be implemented by the Michigan government;

causing many people to realize how exposed they had become. People, mainly African

Americans, struggled to keep themselves hydrated, clean, and healthy during this time as there

was no water for people to use besides bottled water. Nowadays, the problem seems to be fixed,

but there is a reasonable distrust between the people of Flint/Detroit and the government, as

some still refuse to drink the tap water out of fear it’s still contaminated.

The government's lack of response for a water infrastructure crisis can also be seen

through many different historical events, a notable one being Hurricane Katrina and its levees

bursting from the floodwater. Water infrastructure isn’t just limited to the daily interactions we

have with water such as from showering or drinking water; there are many different

environmental uses of water infrastructure such as levees and dams. These pieces of

infrastructure are vital for the safety and sustainability of people in certain areas, and when they

break, it can prove extremely deadly for residents of the area. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck

New Orleans as a Category 3 hurricane when making landfall, although it did peak as a category

5 in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite not even being the strongest hurricane to hit the US, it was the

3rd deadliest (1st in modern day history) and the costliest by billions of dollars. This was due to

the extremely poor levee construction around the town. An estimated 50 breaches of levees

surrounding New Orleans and communities around it occurred, causing immense flooding that

quite literally swept away homes from the ground and people from their homes. Scientist Ivor

Van Heerden wrote about this levee construction and natural disaster danger in his article The
Failure of the New Orleans Levee System Following Hurricane Katrina and the Pathway

Forward (12/2007). As a hurricane and humanitarian aid expert he believes that,”With global

warming accelerating, smarter planning is needed for many coastal cities and communities… the

future habitation of southeast Louisiana, together with an east–west levee/surge protection

system across the mid-coast”. Now, while New Orleans has rebuilt the levees with better

materials, deeper in the ground, and claiming to withstand even more rain than before, this does

not mean other areas, even around New Orleans in large cities such as Lafayette, Houston, and

Mobile have. The flooding of Katrina took nearly 1500 lives and cost nearly 197.5 billion dollars

(adjusted for inflation, both numbers from the National Weather Service), with millions of people

being displaced due to widespread flooding and their homes simply being drowned by the

massive waves of water. The government agency FEMA (Federal Emergency Management

Agency) and their lack of preparedness seemed to be one of the biggest problems and

controversies surrounding the entire ordeal with Hurricane Katrina, as they were heavily

scrutinized for their late response time and extremely poor communication amongst leaders in

New Orleans and even in their own staff. This ended up costing FEMA nearly 6 billion dollars in

lawsuits and fees back to the city to help rebuild it from what it once was. Katrina made the

United States realize a couple of things; these being that water infrastructure is way more

important than what meets the eye in the event of an extremely dangerous national disaster, and

that the government needs to begin to fix these problems before another event like Katrina

happens, especially with climate change already making weather phenomena much worse than it

used to be.
 ​ Unlike Katrina where these events such as hurricanes can be unpredictable but

subdued to a better degree with the right infrastructure and engineering, another problem in

which many people are a victim of is runoff. Whether it is from agricultural runoff or rainwater

runoff, it still has a very large effect on the water we drink, or the water we may use for other

purposes. Rain runoff is something in which we don’t have much control over, as we cannot stop

rain from hitting the ground and traveling where gravity wants it to go.With runoff, there are two

different types of points, these being point source and nonpoint source pollution. Point source

pollution is heavily scrutinized as it contains actions such as dumping pollutants into rivers.

Non-point pollution is one nearly all of us participate in everyday as it includes using our car,

mowing our lawn, or the use of fertilizers/weed killers. While these are both direct threats to

water, there are different ways we can direct the water into going with new innovations. Writer

Melissa Denchak elaborates on this herself in her article, “Green Infrastructure: How to Manage

Water in a Sustainable Way” (07/2022). She expresses the major concern in which the United

States should be having when it comes to rainwater runoff,” 10 trillion gallons of untreated

stormwater runoff, containing everything from raw sewage to trash to toxins, enters U.S.

waterways from city sewer systems every year, polluting the environment and drinking water

supplies.” She explains that the estimated cost to fix this would be 150 billion dollars, and would

take 2 decades to completely fix the United States for effective rainwater runoff scenarios. Some

of the ideas she mentions are actually seen here in Normal with the Uptown Normal Water Circle

being an effective way to visibly show rainwater runoff (up to 1.4 million gallons a year) and

how it can be cleaned and cared for in a sustainable way. These types of water infrastructure

projects can be extremely expensive in the beginning, but they usually end up paying themselves

back over time, such as in Normal where they save nearly $10,000 a year from the Uptown
Circle. The implementation of something like this in cities across the United States would be a

huge benefit to its citizens, as they know they would be receiving much fresher water in their

homes. However, as expected, most cities do not have any plans for this in the future, due to its

initial high costs of building; however over time the cost is much cheaper than the current

infrastructure implemented in most cities.

This leads to several other worrisome factors the US can face as there is always an easy

way for contamination in the water we use. Another way in which the United States can be

affected by runoff, but decreased with better water infrastructure is by agricultural runoff.

Agricultural runoff is when the runoff of water or soil from areas where chemicals have been

used can contaminate areas such as oceans, lakes, etc. For instance, if someone was using weed

killers by a garden near Lake Michigan, the next time it rains this runoff from the garden can

make its way into the lake, thus polluting the lake and contaminating drinking water for citizens

to use. Most of the time the large effects of agricultural runoff takes place on huge farms with the

overuse of pesticides and herbicides; as it rains it gets into the water creating harmful land for

animals, and contaminated groundwater as it travels through the surface soils. According to the

EPA, nearly 12 million tons of nitrogen and 4 million tons of phosphorus are added to crops

every year in order to protect them from bugs and other environmental threats to the crops. These

chemicals can be washed into rivers and are known as “excessive nutrients” once they enter the

river, which nearly 46% of all streams and rivers in the US have. However, there are many

different ideas farmers and government organizations such as the EPA have thought of that

incorporate water infrastructure and the lessening and better disposal of nutrient dense

agricultural runoff. A very common one of these is tillage and drainage, where certain areas of
land are used and the other parts of the land are not used, letting water be soaked into the soil and

transferred to nearby ditches where it can be cleaned, without it being runoff into other streams

or rivers. Not only does this help save streams and water from being contaminated, but it helps

keep the soil nutrient dense as well. Another way in which people, specifically farmers have

been incorporating water infrastructure into their work is with the construction of watersheds.

When large downpours of rain happen, the land or drainage system in which the farm is built on,

is usually slanted to have the polluted rain drain into one giant body of land. On farms, these are

usually man-made watersheds that do not contain an estuary that leads into other streams or

rivers; rather the water is stationary and doesn’t go anywhere, assuring that no natural water will

be polluted nearby. One of the main problems for these people who want watersheds artificially

is the cost behind it, being nearly 2-2.5 million dollars to complete. However, some states, even

in Illinois, give out large grants to help fund these projects for people who need them the most.

​ With all of the various different ways water infrastructure can be vital to our daily

lives, the question remains, is the government doing anything about these alarms. In terms of

drinking water and the possibility of lead pipes, the government has seemed to react quite well

since the tragedy in Flint. Just over a couple months ago, President Joe Biden and his

administration, along with the EPA passed a $6 Billion dollar bill for “Clean Drinking Water and

Wastewater Infrastructure as part of [their] Investing in America Tour.” This bill coincides with

President Biden's infrastructure plan, which is worth up to 1 trillion dollars. The White House

website (whitehouse.gov) claims it to be,”The largest investment in clean water in American

history”, along with that,” decades of inequitable infrastructure development and

underinvestment, lack of access to clean water disproportionately affects low-income and

much more likely to be the victims of poor water infrastructure, whether due to piping or where

the water is coming from. This bill signed into law is a giant step in the right direction for the

nation. Assuring clean water and reinvesting American money into American problems that need

fixing are a large part of a process to help gain the trust of Americans who have lost it due to

earlier mishaps, such as the people of Flint, as some of them don’t even drink the water up to this

day. For more severe weather events, such as in New Orleans, there have been better and more

stationary levees put up to insure the safety of residents in these areas, and so far they have been

working, including a $3.7 Billion Dollar brand new levee system for the entire state of Louisiana,

according to ENR Texas and Louisiana (07/2023). However, many other states such as Alabama

and even Texas struggle against storms due to weak infrastructure to this day. According to

Laura Lightbody, the director for Energy Modernization in Alabama, she explains the cost due to

flooding, especially in central Alabama can cost counties up to $55-$190 million dollars a year in

her article Alabama Flood Risk and Mitigation While in Texas, their energy grid is separated

from the rest of the United States, meaning if there's an outage during a large storm, there will be

no way to open dams or relay important messaging for citizens. As the climate begins to get

stronger due to global warming, the country must update the aging and rusting infrastructure that

is past its time in order to ensure safety for everyone.

The connection to environmental justice focuses on the disparity between people and how

they can live their lives healthily, no matter the race, income, gender, etc. Most of the areas in

which these problems are occurring are usually run-down areas that are mainly causing African

Americans and other minorities to become victims. It is much more likely to see an area with
minorities affected from environmental disparities and water infrastructure problems than

predominantly white areas.

As time goes on, we must come together and collectively to realize how important water

infrastructure really can be. Whether it’s plumbing, levees, or just being able to take a shower

after a long day of work, everyone deserves the right to live in a country where they can feel safe

by the infrastructure around them, and the infrastructure delivering their water to them. As time

has gone on, we have gotten much better at this, whether its passing infrastructure acts that can

help millions of people immediately, or giving grants to just one farmer to lessen their runoff into

local streams in rivers; however we must continue to be as strong and empathetic about this topic

as we are other ones. Whether it’s donating water bottles to those in need or calling a local

politician about water infrastructure in the area, anyone can make a difference and it starts with

just one person.

Robert I. McDonald, Katherine Weber, Julie Padowski, Martina Flörke, Christof Schneider,
Pamela A. Green, Thomas Gleeson, Stephanie Eckman, Bernhard Lehner, Deborah Balk,
Timothy Boucher, Günther Grill, Mark Montgomery,
Water on an urban planet: Urbanization and the reach of urban water infrastructure,
Global Environmental Change,

Greenfield, Nicole. “America’s Failing Drinking Water System.” Be a Force for the Future, 5
Oct. 2023, www.nrdc.org/stories/americas-failing-drinking-water-system#lead-pipes.

Denchak, Melissa. “Green Infrastructure: How to Manage Water in a Sustainable Way.” Be a

“Fact Sheet: Biden-Harris Administration Announces Nearly $6 Billion for Clean Drinking
Water and Wastewater Infrastructure as Part of Investing in America Tour.” The White House,
The United States Government, 20 Feb. 2024,
www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/02/20/fact-sheet-biden-harris-adm
inistration-announces-nearly-6-billion-for-clean-drinking-water-and-wastewater-infrastructure-as
-part-of-investing-in-america-tour/.

“Alabama.” The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Pew Charitable Trusts, 7 June 2016,
www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/fact-sheets/2016/06/flood-risk-and-mitigation-strate
gies-for-alabama.

Leggate, James. “Corps Updates Cost for $3.7B Louisiana Levee System Project.” Engineering
NewsRecord RSS, Engineering News-Record, 19 July 2023,
www.enr.com/articles/56810-corps-updates-cost-for-37b-louisiana-levee-system-project.

Ivor Ll. van Heerden. “The Failure of the New Orleans Levee System Following Hurricane
Katrina and the Pathway Forward.” Public Administration Review, vol. 67, 2007, pp. 24–35.
JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4624679. Accessed 15 Apr. 2024.

EPA, Environmental Protection Agency,

“Uptown Normal Circle and Streetscape.” Landscape Performance Series, 18 Apr. 2019,
www.landscapeperformance.org/case-study-briefs/uptown-normal-circle-and-streetscape.