How much of a rethink does water need?6 January 2023

The world of water through the eyes of GWI publisher Christopher Gasson.

The tagline ‘Re-Thinking Water’ is the theme of the American Water Summit later this month in Los Angeles. Originally, the concept was that the drought in the Western United States was going to drive a revolution in water reuse across the region. With innovation accelerating more broadly around the value-from-waste theme, the double meaning in “Re-Thinking Water” seemed to be a good way of summarising the current imperative.

Then it became clear that the economy was going to drive a rethink in the way we approach water. Higher interest rates, supply chain disruption, “buy America” requirements, and staffing challenges all mean that the way we do business in water in 2023 is going to have to be very different to the way it has been during the past two decades. We need to think how we can recycle these challenges into opportunities.

The Biden administration is also determined to challenge the paradigm for water. Historically, the Environmental Protection Agency has taken the view that it regulates and provides finance, and beyond that it is the responsibility of utilities to ensure they perform. The problem is that there are a lot of structural reasons why utilities serving low-income communities are unable to make the system work for them. The EPA is now putting a lot of money on the table – up to $50 billion through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – to change this state of affairs. This funding, and the technical assistance programme that supports it, could dramatically reshape the opportunity in the US water sector. It certainly calls for a rethink of strategies for growth.

The final challenge to the status quo came before Christmas, with Arizona’s announcement that it is working with Israel’s IDE Technologies to build the largest desalination plant in the world by the Sea of Cortez in Mexico. The Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona intends to buy up to 1 million acre-feet of water per year (3.4 million m³/d) from the plant for delivery to the Central Arizona Project through a long pipeline. It is an extraordinarily ambitious plan – probably the biggest water infrastructure project in North America for the past 50 years. It was made necessary in part by the 592,000 acre-feet per year (2 million m³/d) mandated reduction in withdrawals from the Colorado River, which came into effect this week. The plan seems impossibly ambitious: the Mexican government is likely to want a big sweetener to agree to a project where the environmental impacts fall largely on its side of the border while the benefits largely accrue to those on the other side of the border. Nevertheless, it is the clearest proof we could ever want that policymakers are now contemplating dramatically radical solutions to water availability in the West.

If you are looking at the history of water in America, you would probably divide it up into three distinct periods: the years before 1900, which saw the establishment of municipal water systems across the country; the years between 1900 and 1972, which were the golden age of the mega-engineering project (the Hoover Dam, the California State Water Project, the Catskill and Delaware Aqueducts, and so on); and the years 1972 to 2023 which, as a result of the Clean Water Act, saw the EPA emerge as the most significant force shaping water infrastructure investment. I think we are now on the verge of a fourth age of American water. This is the age in which climate change takes over from the federal government as the main driver of investment in water infrastructure. Its beginning coincides with the end of an era of historically low inflation and interest rates. It also comes after a long period of inchoate innovation in the water sector. By that, I mean fantastic opportunities have been created by technology, but risk aversion has meant that these have not been converted into productivity gains by the utility sector.

It has always been my belief that the water sector is always growing, but never consistently in one place. I think at a moment of change like this, it is necessary to be particularly attentive. That is why I want to ensure that we have all the right people in the room to rethink water in Los Angeles on 24-26 January. Nearly all the key decision-makers have already committed to attend. Don’t miss out.

https://www.globalwaterintel.com/news/2023/1/how-much-of-a-rethink-does-water-need

My comments: See bold. Emphasis mine. I really hope MABR will be included in the list of technological changes that will spur the USA's utility sector.