Five New Year's Resolutions

Abstract

Welcome to 2022! It's time to make the proverbial New Year's resolutions. So, let's think big—bigger than just losing 10 pounds (and I don't mean upping it to 15 pounds). Why not stretch? To me, this is water's moment and now is the time to be bold. Big moves often find their roots in the past, so, before getting to my proposed 2022 resolutions for the water sector, let's get into the way-back machine and visit the era of bell bottom jeans, VW buses, and rivers on fire. Fifty years ago—1972—the federal government took an unprecedented step forward for America's water. That was the year the Clean Water Act was passed. This was possible because two years prior, in 1970, President Richard Nixon created the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) by executive order. During his 1970 State of the Union address, President Nixon placed the importance of his decision to create the USEPA for the purpose of protecting the environment as “. . . a subject which, next to our desire for peace, may well become the major concern of the American people in the decade of the seventies.” President Nixon's statement about our desire for peace and protecting the environment still rings true 50 years later, of course. It is worth noting that this decision also reflected the long-pent-up desire of the people for a clean sustainable environment—not one where rivers caught on fire. In a bit of Hollywood-type drama and what for some might seem like a contradiction, President Nixon vetoed the bill in October 1972 to create the Clean Water Act and prevent pollution discharges into America's water. The president, however, was countered by votes in both the Senate and House to override his veto and make the Clean Water Act a law. With the passing of the Clean Water Act came the sizable price tag of US$24.7 billion, most of which was in the form of grants to states for the construction of wastewater treatment plants. In October 2021 things again changed positively for water's future when the US Congress and President Biden made water infrastructure a priority by enacting the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. With the $55 billion for water infrastructure and programs included in this act, the federal government is helping states and local water providers to spur on critical water projects. Now is certainly another great moment for water, and in many ways it, too, is a long-awaited response to the two decades AWWA and its members have spent working to draw attention to the concern of water's aging infrastructure. This was first formally signaled in AWWA's 2001 Dawn of the Replacement Era report and then, a decade later, more formally quantified in AWWA's 2012 Buried No Longer report. Collectively, these resolutions are all achievable and, in this moment for water, we can make positive, meaningful steps on each. A good friend of mine likes to say, in solving problems three things are needed: talent, money, and time, and usually you have only two of these. In this case, we have all three, as long as we act without undue delay. Achieving these goals may not be the same magnitude as achieving world peace, but they definitely are part of the legacy we can leave for people 50 years from now. Certainly, it is a more meaningful gift to the future than losing 10 pounds.