EPA Employees Union Says States are in Desperate Need of Additional Funding for Water Infrastructure
Group says federal funding for clean water and infrastructure is hundreds of billion short of what’s needed
The Trump Administration’s proposed budget has the American Federation of Government Employees sounding an alarm. A-F-G-E represents 9-thousand Environmental Protection Agency Employees across the country. Keith Fusinski is a toxicologist with the EPA’s Region Five and spokesperson for the union. He says under-funding water-related programs and grants will have disastrous consequences.
“It’s been estimated that we need about $384 Billion dollars to replace the drinking water system in America. Right now our drinking water system is only being funded at 863 Million dollars a year. We’re never gonna catch up. What happened in Flint, it’s gonna happen everywhere”
Fusinski says the water system is slowly deteriorating. He says 65% of the E-P-A’s budget is passed on to individual state programs. He says without adequate federal funding, state governments will have to pay for clean water programs and infrastructure improvements.
