The New York City water supply is widely considered a public jewel because of forward-looking protection initiatives, as evidenced by the city’s recently renewed waiver agreement with the New York State Health Department. Every day the city’s water system delivers over one billion gallons of largely unfiltered, incredibly high quality drinking water to nine million people.
As part of the waiver agreement, the city will invest over $1 billion in such ongoing programs as watershed protection, water treatment upgrades and pollution runoff management in partnership with landowners like farmers. This is a prime example of what smart infrastructure investment means: Preventive, upfront outlays in, among other things, environmental protection, that avoid costs that end up saving billions of dollars in funding for the municipality and rate payers.