Policy expert Michele Nellenbach issued a warning on water infrastructure in the U.S. on Wednesday, saying a crisis like the one in Flint, Mich. could happen anywhere in the country.
“The unfortunate part about the water infrastructure is that people don’t see it. It’s underground. So until you have like a water main break that disrupts traffic, people don’t think about it,” Nellenbach, director of strategic initiatives at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball and Ned Ryun on “Rising.”
“In some ways on water, we’re kind of victims of our own success,” she added. “We have successfully treated drinking water for decades but those systems are aging and we’re not keeping up. So the next Flint could be really anywhere in the country.”
The city of Flint has been battling a water crisis since 2014, when its water supply was switched from Lake Huron to the Flint River.
Lead then seeped into the drinking water from Flint’s pipes.
The state of Michigan announced in April that the water in the city was safe to drink and that it would stop delivering free bottled water to residents.
The House passed its biennial water resources legislation, which would give the Army Corps of Engineers the authority to maintain the nation’s water infrastructure, in June.
The Senate in May unanimously approved its own its bipartisan water infrastructure bill, which calls on the National Academy of Sciences to draft reports on how the Army Corps of Engineers can improve transparency to work with stakeholders, Congress and local governments.
— Julia Manchester
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