The U.S. Water Crisis, Why Our Involvement Matters & What's Next

by Mark Duey, CEO, Water For People

Recently, Water For People joined our colleagues in the Vessel Collective at the first-ever U.S. water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) Convening to address the water crisis facing more than 2 million people in the United States.

The Vessel Collective, which we co-founded alongside DigDeep , aims to provide direction and momentum for the development of a U.S. WASH sector that brings together communities, NGOs, academics, the public and private sectors, and others into a structured coalition for collective action.

And yes, Water For People remains an international NGO focused on nine countries across Latin America, Africa, and Asia. So why are we now adding a high-income country like the U.S. as a focus area?

Three reasons:

1. Access to safe water is a human right.

2. United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #6 (ensuring universal and sustainable water and sanitation services by 2030) applies to all countries. High-income countries like the U.S. are not exempt.

3. The challenges facing the U.S. are very similar to those facing every country where Water For People works – water scarcity, pollution, structural racism, inadequate infrastructure, and climate change impacts.

Founded in the U.S. more than 33 years ago, we have learned quite a bit over those three decades. We understand why it’s important to build up this sector here – to build coalitions, to collaborate, and to advocate for policy and systems change at the national level.

Like many of the countries where we work, the U.S. has inadequate or aging infrastructure in some locations. This places many communities one natural disaster away from losing their water access. Others face over-abstraction and pollution of groundwater resources by industrial and agricultural interests. Water and wastewater access were removed from the U.S. census in 2016, so we don’t even have actionable data to help guide national decision-making.

There’s a lot of commonality around the issues even if the context is different. Our hope is that we become a unified force for change, developing sustainable solutions, raising awareness, advocating for common sense policy change, and transforming communities.

One very important aspect of the convening was advocating on the Hill for the WASH Access Data Collection Act, which would make sure comprehensive data is available to address the needs of ALL Americans. Based on our experiences around the world, data collection is one of the first steps for any country working towards universal and sustainable water and sanitation services.  That enables effective planning and then resource allocation, coordination, and implementation!  I was pleased that we visited the majority of senate offices to advocate for passage of the Act.

Long ago this nation decided it would put a man on the moon in less than a decade and did it – so why not make this decade the one where we make sure every person in this country gets access to safe water and sanitation?