The Importance of Clean Drinking Water

Floor Speech

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Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, America loses 7 billion gallons of clean drinking water every single day through broken pipes and leaking pipes. Flowing through those pipes, water, yes, but also dollars, tax dollars, to purify the water and treat it. Eighty-six percent of our households depend on public drinking water, and these systems are failing. I have seen my share of corroded pipes and broken pumps over the years. I have seen communities and businesses suffer from a water main break, which happens 700 times a day across America.

Last week, I visited systems in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Rensselaer, East Greenbush, and Castleton-on-Hudson in my district. I visited that legendary baby food maker, Beech-Nut, in Montgomery County, New York, which requires 275,000 gallons of water per day.

The message is clear: we must invest in our public water systems to protect our public health and to support our local businesses. We have a bipartisan bill, H.R. 3387, that has passed through committee and now awaits a vote by the full House. It would deliver critical funding to State and local governments to get this big job started.

Whether you are a Republican, Democrat, or Independent, every life and every job depends on access to safe drinking water. This is the kind of infrastructure plan we need. Let's get this job done.

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