Ensuring that all U.S. households have access to clean water and sanitation will require a re-alignment of resources and investment, not only for centralized wastewater treatment systems but for decentralized ones too. Nearly 20 percent of America’s households today depend on onsite wastewater treatment systems (OWTS or onsite systems), but only about 2 percent of federal wastewater dollars have been invested to support these systems to date.* There are enormous disparities across the country, states, and localities in the availability, amount, accessibility, and use of funding for onsite systems, and more importantly, for the households and residents who rely on them.
The Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) released a report entitled Investing in America’s Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems for Equity and Sustainability, taking a deeper look into some of the issues failing onsite systems and potential funding solutions, in addition to local and state-level examples and case studies.
In particular, this report offers key recommendations for policymakers:
To ensure equity and sustainability for onsite wastewater treatment systems, we need to drive more investment to the households and communities who really need it, especially unincorporated, disadvantaged, and other disinvested communities across the country. Realizing the human right to sanitation requires us to make an investment of resources and solutions, including for the onsite wastewater treatment systems on which nearly 22 million American households depend.
After the release of EPIC’s report, the EPA and USDA made this announcement on their Closing America’s Wastewater Access Gap Community Initiative to be piloted in 11 communities across the country where residents lack basic wastewater management. EPIC’s statement on this announcement is here.
Sion Calabretta is a recent graduate of UC Berkeley, and has served as a water policy associate at the Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) since January 2022.
Maureen Cunningham is chief strategy officer and director of water at the Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), and also is serving a second term as an elected Town Councilmember in Bethlehem, N.Y.
* Refers to the Clean Water State Revolving Fund program only, where $3.4 billion of $153 billion spent since the program inception in 1988 has been invested in decentralized systems. Data from the National Information Management Systems (NIMS).
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