Water Policy — Every American Deserves Clean, Affordable Water

The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) is the primary federal law governing drinking water quality, setting maximum contaminant levels for over 90 pollutants. But the law relies on state agencies for enforcement, and those agencies are chronically underfunded. The EPA estimates that US water infrastructure needs $625 billion in investment over the next 20 years just to maintain current service — let alone expand or modernize. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (2021) provided $55 billion, less than 10% of the total need.

Lead contamination is a crisis with clear racial and economic dimensions. The EPA's 2024 inventory identified 9.2 million lead service lines still in use, overwhelmingly in older cities with large Black and Latino populations. Flint, Michigan became the symbol of lead contamination, but the problem is national — Newark, Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and hundreds of smaller cities have extensive lead infrastructure. There is no safe level of lead exposure in children. Every day these pipes remain in the ground, children are being poisoned.

PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as 'forever chemicals' — contaminate the drinking water of over 200 million Americans. These chemicals, used in firefighting foam, nonstick cookware, and industrial processes, do not break down in the environment and are linked to cancer, thyroid disease, immune system dysfunction, and reproductive harm. The EPA finalized enforceable PFAS limits in 2024, but remediation funding is inadequate and the manufacturers who created the contamination have not been held fully accountable through Superfund cost recovery.

The Colorado River — which supplies water to 40 million people in seven states and Mexico — is at approximately 25% of its historical flow due to over-allocation and climate change. Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the two largest reservoirs in the country, have dropped to crisis levels. Western water law, based on the 'prior appropriation' doctrine ('first in time, first in right'), incentivizes maximum extraction rather than conservation. Meanwhile, water privatization makes affordability worse: private water companies charge an average of 59% more than public utilities for the same service.

For children and families, Lead Zero by 2035 means the end of lead poisoning from drinking water infrastructure. Lead exposure causes irreversible neurological damage in children — lower IQ, behavioral problems, learning disabilities. Replacing 9.2 million lead service lines is expensive but the cost of inaction is higher: the CDC estimates that lead exposure costs the US $50 billion annually in lost lifetime earnings alone. Emergency pace in minority communities addresses the environmental justice dimension — these communities have waited the longest and suffered the most.

For 200 million Americans exposed to PFAS, full remediation funded by Superfund cost recovery from manufacturers means communities do not bear the cost of contamination they did not create. 3M, DuPont, and other PFAS manufacturers knew about the health risks for decades. The polluter pays principle — already established in Superfund law — must be applied to the largest chemical contamination event in American history. Israel's 90% wastewater reuse rate shows what is possible when a nation treats water as the precious resource it is.

For Western states, mandatory conservation and federal water recycling investment address the existential crisis of the Colorado River. Current allocations are based on the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which used the wettest period in 500 years as its baseline. Reality has caught up. The CGP plan renegotiates allocations based on actual hydrology, invests in recycling and desalination, and ends subsidies for growing water-intensive crops like alfalfa and cotton in the desert.

For tribal communities, the $10B dedicated water fund and resolution of all pending water rights settlements within 5 years addresses one of the most shameful infrastructure failures in America. On the Navajo Nation, 30% of households lack running water. In some tribal communities, residents haul water for miles. These are not developing-world conditions that just happen to exist in America — they are the direct result of federal policy choices and broken treaty obligations. This plan keeps that promise. See also Issue #23 (Indigenous Rights) and Issue #22 (Racial Justice).