Growing up on a Navajo reservation in Arizona, Jay Yazzie, now a senior environmental engineer at Brown and Caldwell, did not have running water in his home. To get its water supply, the family would take a 55-gallon drum to a livestock well or to a distribution point to obtain potable water for everyday use. He was 10 when his family was finally hooked up to a reliable supply.

他说，今天，大约30年后，在大多数保留地上，情况并没有太大改善。Yazzie偶尔从事部落项目工作，他说：“在某些地方，情况变得更好，但在另一些地方会变得更糟。”新利18备用网址对于安装水分配系统的每个房屋，另一个房屋可能会发现其干燥或被有毒化学物质污染。在纳瓦霍（Navajo）国家内，只有三分之一的房屋有自来水，而在霍皮族国家，该部落估计有75％的人被砷污染了水。

虽然is a glaring need for safe, clean drinking water for Native Americans, the inequities of U.S. water systems are seen in every area of the country. More than 2 million Americans live without running water, indoor plumbing or sewerage, according to a 2019 report from the U.S. Water Alliance, a nonprofit that focuses on getting the U.S. to understand the value of water, and DigDeep, a nonprofit that focuses on access to water as a human right.

“我们把水像一个舒适,而不是生活l necessity,” said EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council in a 2019 report. “Providing water and sewage only to those who can afford to live in an area with an expensive functioning infrastructure sends the message to neglected communities that their access to clean water and sanitation is a luxury. Those who suffer greatest … are the most vulnerable, including those who are low-income and communities of color.”

Water inequality was there from “the beginning,” says Cindy Paulson, chief technical officer at Brown and Caldwell. Economically disadvantaged and minority communities are often located in “the least desirable areas—whether low-lying areas that get flooded, or areas that have less access to water, or areas where we decide to put our wastewater treatment plants—that theme has been in place for a long time.” While it’s good that the problem is finally being addressed, she said, “it’s a long way to go to turn the tide in the right direction.” A U.S. Water Alliance analysis says Black and Latino households are nearly twice as likely to lack plumbing than white ones. Race is the strongest predictor of sanitation access, and poverty is the key obstacle to water access, it adds.

挥之不去的问题Cleophus Mooney of Flint, Mich., still must pick up bottled water to ensure his family has clean water to drink, six years after the city’s water contamination scandal was revealed.
Seth Herald/AFP通过Getty Images摄

In Lowndes County, Ala., where 25% of the population lives below the poverty line, one out of every five homes has no sewage treatment, and homeowners can be jailed for failing to install systems that often cost more than their annual income. In Milwaukee, neighborhoods most impacted by floods are those with low-income, Latino and Spanish-speaking residents. In Baltimore and Philadelphia, water bills can be added to property taxes, leading to home foreclosures that most often affect the poor and people of color.

And in Jackson, Miss., the state’s largest city, residents—of whom 80% are Black and more than 25% live in poverty—went without water for five weeks this winter as chronic water system underinvestment led to failure during a multiweek freeze. “We have to understand that Jackson, unfortunately, is not an exception to the rule,” in terms of water system infrastructure, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba told ENR. “We are the rule in many regards.”

With the Biden administration earmarking $111 billion for water infrastructure investment in the American Jobs Plan—including money to replace lead pipes and address water contaminants—and its focus on environmental justice, the drive to fix the sector’s systemic inequities is gaining momentum.

备择方案More than one-third of those in the Navajo Nation (left) don’t have running water and rely on water trucks or other alternatives.
Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

“I think we’re hitting a point across the country, the moment that we are in, where everyone is thinking about how we can do our part to support racial justice, coupled with this incredible need to invest in our water systems,” says Renée Willette, U.S. Water Alliance vice president. But the question remains, she adds: “How do we marry these two opportunities to create better opportunities for all of our communities?”

建筑师，工程师，承包商和其他人在帮助纠正水错误方面发挥了关键作用。雅各布斯（Jacobs）的社会价值和公平业务领导人维多利亚·约翰逊（Victoria Johnson）说：“传统上，工程公司不一定会在水平公平或社会正义领域中发挥作用。”“因此，这确实是由我们的客户驱动的……真的与我们的水部门领导者合作，他们在过去的五到十年中一直对公平和社会正义充满热情。”她指出，在亚特兰大，西雅图和旧金山的水电图将水权益置于其他所有优先事项之前。新奥尔良城市保护区执行董事达娜·恩斯（Dana Eness）说，水部门的平等“成为对话的中心，而不是外围的中心”。

Growing Needs

The Flint water crisis, which began in 2014 when the city switched to a corrosive, improperly treated water supply that resulted in high amounts of lead in the drinking water, highlighted for the public what the water sector had known for years: Many cities can’t maintain their existing water systems because ratepayers can’t afford basic service, and state and federal help is scarce.

“We have many poor red and blue cities and towns across the country that can’t afford to upgrade their infrastructure and meet existing federal law,” says Marc Edwards, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech who, along with his students, helped bring the lead situation in Flint to the public eye. “We are putting these communities in impossible situations.” Edwards won ENR’s 2017 Award of Excellence for that effort.

In 1977, the federal government was responsible for 63% of capital spending for water and wastewater systems. Today, that amount is 9%, according to the Water Alliance. As a result, cities like Detroit and Flint, which have seen their populations shrink while the footprint of their water system stays the same, are at a disadvantage because they can’t keep up with routine maintenance, let alone pay for upgrades.

Photo courtesy The Astra Group

“我认为整个行业都有一个真正的困境，”黑人和VEATCH董事总经理兼管理咨询集团水市场业务的负责人安·布伊（Ann Bui）说。Bui是最近一份公司报告的首席作者，详细介绍了资金和负担能力是该国最大50个城市中水服务的主要障碍。她说，多年来，公用事业一直受到渴望保持低价的愿望，当他们最终提高税率时，有些人无法付款。新奥尔良的下水道和水局连续八年每年提高10％的税率，现在有些人无法根据其可用收入支付水费。董事会执行董事Ghassan Korban说，“甚至不认为水费”将被付款。

Black & Veatch has been working with New Orleans to help it better understand the affordability issue and seek alternative ways, possibly through a local assistance fund, to help customers pay their bills. EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council found in a study that 71% of utilities offer no type of customer assistance. The U.S. Senate included a water assistance fund in recent water legislation. “Unaffordable water bills perpetuate poverty,” the council said in its report. New Orleans, like most other cities, placed a moratorium on water shutoffs because of nonpayment during the pandemic, but that put the city further behind in its upgrades. The Sewerage and Water Board lost about 10% in revenue last year, Korban estimates.

Jackson found out firsthand how problematic it is to lack the funds to upgrade and maintain its existing water system when very cold temperatures froze raw water screens and crashed mechanical and electrical equipment, Lumumba said.

这座城市知道它需要进行更新，但根本没有钱。他说：“因此，现在我们正在寻找所有岩石，摇晃所有的灌木丛。”卢蒙巴说，像拜登政府提出的那样，迫切需要一个主要的基础设施套餐来帮助杰克逊这样的城市。

Historic redlining and racism also led to water inequity for people of color and the economically disadvantaged, who often live in the lowest-lying areas of communities that are prone to flooding, or have treatment plants located within their neighborhoods.

在一系列最近的水平股权研讨会中，水联盟确定，尽管暴风雨可能会同样影响城市，但“在社会脆弱的人群中应对和从洪水中恢复的能力也要低得多，即使在最好的时候，也正在努力运作。”

重新构想根据社区的投入，旧金山改建的东南治疗厂将采用气味控制，社区艺术，并在完成后离附近更远。
Photos courtesy The Astra Group

葡萄城是亚特兰大历史上一个历史悠久的黑人社区，一直受到反复洪水的影响，直到2002年的重大洪水促使联邦政府促使联邦政府购买了洪水淹没的房主。本月，一个新的数百万美元的公园，每年旨在捕捉到多达3700万加仑的雨水，将作为社区便利设施开放，该社区设施，步行道，体育法庭和一个经济弱势障碍地区的邻居渴望看到的邻居。

HDR, which led the project’s design process, worked with the community to ensure that residents could decide what would be in their neighborhood. In the past, when the community would be invited to review a proposal for water infrastructure, residents “would show up and we’d already have the whole design complete,” says Todd Hill, deputy commissioner overseeing the city’s Office of Watershed Protection. “That has changed.”

The result is not only a benefit to the community, but the Rodney Cook Sr. Park, with bridges and sidewalks and athletic fields, will cost about $40 million, compared with a tunnel solution that would have cost $70 million, says Hill.

Similarly, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission worked closely with the community on a $2.2-billion reconstruction of the Southeast Treatment Plant, the city’s largest wastewater facility that has been located for almost 70 years in a low-income area.

Brown and Caldwell is leading a team, including Jacobs and Black & Veatch, to build a new biosolids digester facility. Odor control, a more attractive resident-facing exterior and community programs are among improvements being made to the facility to reduce its impact on the neighborhood.

“Delivering these projects is only achievable with community acceptance, so being a good neighbor is an essential element of how we work,” says Will Reisman, press secretary for the commission.

亚特兰大和旧金山的发展都强调了有色社区内部的劳动力发展，以此来克服水部门内的种族主义。约翰逊说：“ 2016年，近85％的水工人是男性，三分之二是白人，这确实表明需要在水部门中年轻，更多样化的人才。”

这些试图使水更容易获得，负担新利18备用网址得起和公平的最初项目仅仅是要做的事情的开始。鲍尔森指出：“我认为，在未来20、30和50年的计划中，环境正义将在更大的范围内提出。”“东南植物仍然位于旧金山的低收入地区。我认为将来，您会发现水和废水的完成方式将完全不同。”

Most see massive federal funding, as called for in President Biden’s proposals, as the main path to water equality. “It’s as vital as you can imagine,” says Korban, of the New Orleans Water and Sewerage board, about the president’s plans.

Although needs have always exceeded funding, “everyone should have equal access to water,” he says. “I mean, it’s the most basic service we provide, and we must find a way to have that happen.”