The Saturday editorial “Enjoy the Riverwalk; But before you dip a toe in the water . . .” calls attention to the tremendous necessity for the city of Chicago, Cook County and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District to coordinate resources in order to modernize our water and wastewater infrastructure.
Our infrastructure — and the brilliant policymaking that built it — is the major reason America continues to be a world power. However, many of the great decisions that put us on that path are now more than a century old.
Clean drinking water and wastewater services are vital priorities that are necessary to sustain public health, support our economy and protect the environment. Chicagoland’s ability to provide clean and safe water as well as adequately treat wastewater and stormwater is being challenged as our existing infrastructure is aging and deteriorating.
Much of our water and wastewater infrastructure, the more than 1 million miles of pipes beneath our streets, made of either brick, wood, clay and in some cases lead, is nearing the end of its useful life and approaching the age at which it needs to be urgently replaced. Furthermore, our growing population requires larger pipe networks to provide dependable water and wastewater service.
Investing in our infrastructure not only makes perfect sense from a public policy standpoint, it would also create good-paying jobs overnight and boost our local economy. The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that each job created in the local water and wastewater industry creates 3.5 jobs in the national economy and each dollar spent yields $2.50 in gross domestic product.
Deferring infrastructure investments today will only result in greater expenses tomorrow. Increasing water main breaks, poor water quality and surging costs for emergency repairs are just a few of the burdens that confront us if we don’t begin to take action now.
— Andrew Seo, former mechanical engineer, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago
