By David Cruz
Correspondent
Officials weren’t expecting to find a leak at Anderson Avenue in Cliffside Park today, but workmen for United Water came across a faulty valve that spewed water for a few minutes, just in time to make the point for today’s press conference.
“Our water infrastructure, especially the pipes beneath the ground that we’re walking on is aging and in need of significant investments,” noted Bob Iacullo, executive vice president at United Water. “We had identified a faulty valve and you can see the crew behind me is in the process of replacing that valve so we can prevent a major disruption to water service, traffic and the commerce that’s occurring along this main thoroughfare.”
Everyone here agrees that the state’s local water infrastructure is crumbling beneath us. Water main breaks in New Jersey are becoming as common as mosquitoes in the Meadowlands, creating sinkholes and traffic jams, wasting millions of gallons of treated water, costing municipalities and utilities, and ultimately you millions of dollars. Congressman Bill Pascrell says it is a looming crisis.
“New Jersey needs $7.9 billion alone to repair its water infrastructure,” he said. “We’ll need to find a total of $633 billion over the next 20 years. Now you have a choice; we don’t do, I can’t assure the people here today and beyond that we’re going to have clean water.”
Pascrell and fellow Democrat, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, are promoting the Sustainable Water Infrastructure Act, which they say would stimulate private investment in water utility projects by lifting the caps on so-called Private Activity Bonds, bonds issued by local governments to pay for private projects. The benefit for investors is tax breaks; for municipalities, savings.
“We get the private sector to make an investment because they get a tax benefit but we get the bigger benefit by multiples of dollars,” added Menendez. “Communities like Cliffside Park wouldn’t have to take it out of their budget and their budget comes from the taxpayers of the communities. So it really is about the taxpayers of the communities not having to foot the bill to the fullest extent for the infrastructure that they so desperately need.”
Towns have turned to private utilities like United Water to run their sewer and wastewater systems as a way to ease the burden on taxpayers but the utilities have found crumbling systems dating back to the Civil War era. The result is rate increases to pay for upgrades and repairs.
This is not the first time or the second time that a bill like this has been close to passage, but Congressman Pascrell and Sen. Menendez say this time around, they’re taking a different approach.
“By including this provision within the Transportation Bill, since it is ‘must pass,’ I think we have a greater impetus to make it happen,” said the senator. “I chair the mass transit side of that legislation in the Senate, so I would expect to be in the negotiations and we will try to make it very clear that this is a critical element of an infrastructure bill that we want to see.”
Whether this bill makes it through Senate negotiations or not, the state’s water infrastructure continues to deteriorate and a precious resource continues to be lost, thousands of gallons at a time, every day.
