The other affordability crisis: water

For much of the last year, the term “affordability” has dominated news coverage, and it is now a central talking point for nearly every candidate for public office in this election cycle. That is a reflection of the well-founded anxieties many of us are feeling about the eye-popping cost of seemingly everything these days, especially the basics we can’t live without such as housing, education, groceries, fuel, transportation, health care and electricity.

Add to that list a less frequently mentioned, but mounting affordability crisis affecting yet another essential building block of life: water.

More and more, families are shaking their heads in disbelief when their water service bills arrive. A survey commissioned this year by a consortium of organizations that support water infrastructure — including my organization, the American Water Works Association — found more than 25 percent of Americans — the highest percentage in a decade of polling — say that their water services are already unaffordable.

Their perception is increasingly reality. Our new report confirms that, by every empirical measure, the cost of the drinking water that pours from our taps is rising, and it’s on a trajectory to increase even more sharply if we do nothing to rein it in. For too many, that triggers questions about tradeoffs they’ll have to make to keep their water running — a choice no one, especially in the U.S., should have to make.

In fact, there are readily available and proven mechanisms, particularly federal loan programs, that can put........

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