Legislative Blog
J.B. Williams, J.D.
Water Quality and Jobs Creation
A Blog about Invest in America 2021
A Bit of Background
The following backgrounds help summarize the author's views on both the general topic: Federal and more specifically Invest in America 2021 as it relates to that topic.
Brief Summary of Federal
This should be a fairly limited bills area for management the overall structures like highways, military, federal buildings, federal laws, and the like. However it has become the micro manager of all micro managers. They get involved in areas that no federal government should be involved in, and shift more power upward. This has led to each party trying to run over the other party in the eyes of the voters, all the while doing everything possible to maintain their power. They do this by holding onto all of the money, and claiming they know best how it should be spent. But they run debts so badly that no one should be looking to them as an example of anything other than the way to overspend and go further into debt.
Summary of Invest in America 2021
Expanding infrastructure and including the federal government in state decisions.
Blog Summary
Of course there are more studies here. Again focusing on items where studies have been done, and in some areas where it was discovered that was not even the issue. Much like getting rid of drinking straws while not even looking at the vast amount of plastic bottles that are not properly recycled
$4.14 billion for the clean water drinking fund for 2022 and but to $5.5 billion for 2024 through 2031. A lot of focus on removing lead pipes. While I agree they need to go, and for federal building and even schools, I can see the federal government being involved. For the remainder of a state, I believe the state should be looking at this on their own. Of course, this would mean that the federal government could not retain a great amount of the funds they currently keep.
Water Quality and Jobs Creation
Published: 2021-12-02
Highway Trust Fund - Division G
This section is very short and begins by ensuring any contract entered into in the previous 4 years cannot fail to be funded. This seems to be a regular thing that they do every 4 years. They are appropriating $109 billion unless it is otherwise already appropriated. $39 billion is appropriated to Mass Transit Account of the Highway Trust Fund.
Water Quality Protection and Job Creation Act of 2021 - Division H
Because every administration needs to create jobs. Honestly you cannot continually create more federal jobs and then wander why you cannot pay for everything. There are some areas here that seem within the purview of federal government agency oversight, but there are others where it is merely overreach. For instance, reviewing workforce necessary for water treatment plants seems to be something that the entity running the treatment plant would be responsible for not the federal government. Extreme weather needs to addressed at all wastewater treatment plants but I'm not sure a federal agency will make information sharing amongst these more efficient or less expensive. And of course, being more green, or environmentally friendly, needs to be in every decision. I was being environmental when people thought you were being ridiculous so I get the need. However I am not certain having the federal government, along with it's multitude of agencies and studies that it pays for, are the right approach.
I'm not saying that industry always gets ir right either but there may be a multitude of different approaches to an issue. And they are all happening at once, eventually the best alternative should win out. A lot of things go into determining the best. I mean look at single use plastic bags, pre-pandemic. It was the rag of city governments all over to ban their use, require a small fee to use them. Of the ones I looked at, it never actually changed anything. And in studies they have actually found that re-using the grocery style plastic bag just one time beyond the grocery store makes them a better environmental choice that the cloth re-usable bags. Honestly I started the cloth re-usable bags years ago. I had no idea the number of uses they had to make before they became equivalent to the one time re-use of the grocery style plastic bag. Not to mention the volumes of these that ended up in land fills without every being used one time. Now if you have them please use them as much as you can. To compete with plastic bags, cotton bags need to be reused 7,100 times and for organic cotton 20,000 times. That would make them equivalent not better.
They are wanting a study to address the funding for rural communities, disadvantage communities and tribal communities. I'm sure that it may find those communities were not previously getting their fair share of federal funding. Another study to determine the effect of toilet wipes marked as flushable. Hmm, maybe they could just review the studies that the American Council on Science and Health did already. They found that NYC had less than 4% of clogs due to flushable wipes. In fact they found more issues with oil, grease, and feminine products being flushed. But then we couldn't spend a bunch of tax payer dollars to make a claim that we care and are looking into these issues. More virtue signaling in an area that took me under 1 minute to find an already existing study. I imagine that there may even be more. I know my city is big on advising you to not dump oil/grease down drains. They even have an oil recycling program for household cooking oils. They probably did a study or reviewed other studies that were done.
California New River Restoration. Looking to conservation, stewardship, and enhancement of habitat for fish and wildlife to preserve and improve eco-systems. Based upon a 2018 article, some $91 million has been spent to clean up this river that flows north from Mexico. The Mexican government has been involved but it seems that dumping and water treatment plants being overrun are the real issue. Maybe rather than spending millions cleaning it up, they need to first focus on the source of the pollution. Otherwise it would be a never ending battle. So to figure this out they are going to have a bunch of federal agencies work with California and Mexico to figure out what to do. And the federal governments portion of the cost cannot exceed 55%. There are no other limits put in place. I hear that California didn't build the light rail for which they were given federal funds, and were advised they needed to pay those funds back. Maybe they could use some of those funds to meet the 55% federal portion.
Within 3 years they want new guidelines for safe water. If your jurisdiction is like mine, the wastewater treatment plant works hard to meet or exceed all federal regulations while ensuring sufficient water for current customers in the near future and beyond. There is discussions regarding regulations going beyond available technology and the continuing additional and substantial cost associated with these. And they need to show potential impact on climate change and incorporate measures to mitigate the impact.
Assistance, Quality, and Affordability Act of 2021 - Division I
The Safe Drinking Water Act is appropriated funding of $50 million per year from 2022 through 2031, and the drinking water fund is appropriated $4.140 billion 2022 and up to $5.5 billion for 2024 through 2031. Seems like a substantial sum of taxpayer dollars spent on drinking water. This is not to say it isn't important but the amounts seem very large. The focus seems to be on removing lead pipes that still exist throughout the country. They are looking at filtration inside of schools rather than removing the lead pipes. Since they have done a review of where the pipes exist, I would think if this is a significant concern they would want to advise those living with a high number of lead pipes per 100,000 to use filtration. And they want to track all water main breaks across the country. Again I really do not feel that this is a place where the federal government should be engaged. This is a matter best left to the state, county, or city.
Then there are a myriad of items that want to begin to find a way to remove them from the water so they are either completely removed or below some set limit. One of these is perfuoralkyl, which is found in clothing, paper food packaging, carpet, heat-resistant cookware and fire fighting foam. Apparently the Department of Defense used this in fighting fuel fires in the 1970s and it does not break down. They have found it in blood samples but have no evidence that it causes any adverse health issues. Another is microcystin that are caused by algae in freshwater. In 2009 this was mainly found in California, so the EPA did a report in 2015 to show risks associated. But rather than implementing the means of removal that was already found to work, they are authorizing another study to spend more taxpayer money. Yet there is no evidence to say it needs to be removed. Another items is 4-Dioxane because it may cause liver cancer, although no studies done show that it does. Looking at data it seems rates of liver cancer have been in the decline since 2015. So it would seem that either we are removing it or it is not affecting people as they think it may.
They are also providing grants to water companies where there are arrearages that have been incurred since March 2020. This will pay off those arrearages for those that have incurred them while receiving additional unemployment plus stimulus funds and potentially child tax credits but failed to pay their water bill. However, if the water company accepts these funds than they may not take any actions against those in arrearage for 5 years following the receipt of the funds. So the customer arrearage is paid in full by taxpayer funds, and they can continue to fail to pay their bill but the water company may not take adverse actions for 5 years. It would seem it would just encourage some to not pay and after 5 years they would have an even larger past due amount than what they would from a possible 2 year past due amount. But I'm sure in 5 years maybe Congress can come up with more grants to pay these off and perhaps extend the no adverse reaction time. Like a great many things that are implemented at the federal level, it has good intentions but the results can be significantly less. I think this is mostly because there are safety measures to protect the individual over the entity, but no oversight regarding the individual. Unlike when small organizations assist individuals, where there are generally oversights and responsibility placed on the individual receiving the assistance.
Another study into the contamination of Cold Water Creek, Missouri. Really not a status update but another study. One was completed in 2019. That study found that extended periods of exposure would not likely result in any detectable increase risk of cancer. For this reason it was not recommended for individuals previously residing in the area to be screened. They did recommend continued removal of radiation waste. And again they could no means to connect adverse health affects to those living and/or playing in the areas affected. Perhaps their approach is to continue paying for studies until they get the results they want.
An assessment for nationwide rural and urban low-income community water assistance done annually. There is a concern over low income rural areas that do not have access to centralized sewage systems. I'm not sure where this is going as a large number of my relatives lived in rural areas with water wells and septic tanks. So I've been around both septic systems and sewage systems. A good septic system would have multiple stages to allow re-using water for non-potable practices. While there is an upfront cost, once installed the maintenance cost is relatively small. I'm not sure if they are saying that those in rural areas are not properly maintaining them or if they wish to convert them to waste water systems.
There is also a thought that there are discriminatory practices being used for determining rates for water and/or sewage. I cannot imagine a provider varying rates based solely upon a race or sex, etc. But I can imagine rates being different due to cost of miles of pipes needed to reach an area, or other equipment being necessary.
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