With financing for water infrastructure becoming more scarce due to federal funding cuts and Trump administration efforts to rescind not-yet-disbursed Inflation Reduction Act spending, some water-sector utilities are becoming more resourceful about prioritizing and sequencing planned projects, according to speakers and attendees at the American Water Works Association annual meeting.

Water utilities listed challenges in financing projects as their top concern in the drinking water group’s annual “State of the Water Industry” report, based on a survey of members. At the Denver meeting, held June 16 to 18, they also highlighted how utilities are working to navigate prioritizing projects at a time when needs to build are greater than funds available. 

Laura Barraza, senior civil engineer of facilities planning for the fast-growing Eastern Municipal Water District in southern California, noted that the budget for her utility’s capital improvement plan has grown from approximately $100 million annually a decade ago to $200 million to $250 million per year due to supply chain issues and rising costs. As a result, its team has had to have some “hard discussions” analyzing each planned project, evaluating which could be cut back, postponed, or even cut. “We go through [each project] in very fine detail,” she said.  

Ghina Yamout, senior technical specialist with CDM Smith, outlined a framework developed with CDM subsidiary Trinnex that uses algorithms and various risk and cost-benefit analyses to help clients identify how to optimize dollars in their capital improvement plans.

Pooling Resources Shows Results

Allega da Silva, research and innovation director at Brown and Caldwell, said that communities with very small water providers can achieve economies-of-scale when they work together at a state or regional level. One company study released in 2024 evaluated challenges faced by small utilities with tiny budgets seeking to address the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS in biosolids. The study found that utilities that individually might not be able to install high-cost treatment systems for PFAS or other waste streams could potentially work with other municipal systems to pool resources for a local or regional facility that could be used by multiple entities. 

Lauren March, a chemical engineer at Arcadis, described the regional collaborations as a “hub-and-spoke” model for PFAS destruction. “Instead of moving a system around to various sites or buying a system outright, you would essentially ship your waste to a regional disposal facility that would have a destruction system already in place to manage that waste, similar to what is already being implemented for landfills and incinerators.” 

Da Silva, who oversees Brown and Caldwell’s research division, added that private financing, working in in tandem with public dollars, could help necessary projects advance. This might require novel delivery methods and contractual arrangements, she said. One current study funded by the Water Research Foundation is evaluating how to address brine concentrate created through reverse osmosis membranes. “We may need to create new entities—either private or public—to manage those concentrate streams, because to do it at the facility level isn’t cost effective [for some small utilities],” Da Silva said. 

Brown and Caldwell teams are working to identify legal and contractual methods to create different types of institutions or frameworks to allow new partnership and delivery methods. “I think that’s going to be a growing theme in the next 10 to 15, years in our sector, as we face water shortages and climate change,” said Da Silva.

New association president Heather Collins, who oversees water treatment for Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, told ENR that one of her top priorities over the next year is reaching out to other market sectors to serve as an educational and technical resource, and potential partner or collaborator. “I’m focused on making sure we increase the opportunity for partnerships and collaborations … with other market sectors.”  

Christina Armour, a senior community resilience planner at Tetra Tech, emphasized the need to consider resilience in project planning to avoid higher costs after flooding or other extreme events, rather than paying much more to rebuild after such an event. Project planners should consider incorporating the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard, which is more rigorous than using base elevation standards, in projects being built in floodplain areas.  “I get it, it’s hard to swallow the upfront cost. Sometimes it’s hard to sell them on that concept, but at the same time, you have to look at the long-range resiliency and the sustainability,” she said, adding that building a project to higher standards makes it more likely to be insured, and as a result, more “fundable.” 

Valdis Krumins, a senior environmental engineer at the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, noted that it has federal funding available in the form of grants for projects in small, rural communities, but some of those funds are not being fully used. He said funds include grants for emergency response projects and could potentially be used in cases where FEMA funds are not available.

No ’Silver Bullet’ for PFAS 

Determining how to scale up effective technologies for PFAS destruction was a major focus at the meetings. The number of firms and groups conducting pilot studies and research to identify different ways to manage treatment and destruction of PFAS chemicals, of which there are thousands, is dizzying. The chemicals, found in everything from firefighting foam to kitchenware, are described as forever chemicals because they do not degrade in the natural environment and have been found to be harmful to human health. The carbon-fluorine bonds within the compounds are nearly impossible to break and can exist for decades. 

“We’re making progress, and I think that there’s a lot of really interesting research going on, but there is no solution right now for any destructive technology that I’m seeing that is able to really navigate [the] limitations,” said Robbie Venis, an AECOM process engineer.

But that challenge hasn’t stopped numerous firms that are testing and evaluating different technologies to mitigate PFAS. 

Water technology provider Xylem works closely with both utilities and engineering firms on pilot efforts for different technologies, determining which would be most effective and cost-efficient for particular sites, says Geoff Pellechia, its PFAS program manager. “We’re seeing growing momentum around PFAS mitigation, including from engineering firms designing treatment systems for utilities. By working together from the earliest planning phases through to full-scale system integration, we ensure solutions are tailored, scalable and aligned with regulatory compliance and treatment goals.”