Rural America gets clean water dollars

At least 2 million rural Americans live with critical drinking water quality and availability problems, including an estimated 740,000 people who have no running water in their homes

July 16, 1999
Web posted at: 3:55 p.m. EDT (1955 GMT)

This is particularly true in rural areas, and to help improve some of these problems, the Clinton administration July 12 announced nearly $210 million in loans and grants for safe drinking water projects in 40 states.

A 1993 outbreak of cryptosporidiosis in Milwaukee, Wis., in which nearly 400,000 people got sick, more than 4,000 were hospitalized and more than 50 deaths (some counts are as high as 100) brought the quality of the nation's drinking water front and center. Since 1994, the USDA has spent nearly $2 billion in more than 1,600 rural communities nationwide. The loan and grant monies just awarded went primarily to rural, impoverished communities, although some was allocated for empowerment zones in urban areas.

Funding for rural areas is vital. At least 2 million rural Americans live with critical drinking water quality and availability problems, including an estimated 740,000 people who have no running water in their homes. Another 5 million are affected by less critical, but still significant, water-related difficulties, according to the USDA. The 1990 census showed that an estimated 1.06 million people in rural areas had incomplete plumbing in their homes. The agency estimates that by the year 2000, this number will have been reduced to fewer than 700,000 people.

In addition to a lack of running water, contaminated water — resulting from chemicals migrating from disposal sites, animal waste running into streams, undersized or poorly protected water sources, contamination by pesticides, urban storm water pollution, inadequate treatment of sewage, a lack of adequate storage facilities, and antiquated distribution systems — is a major threat to public health. Children and the elderly are at particular risk from illnesses caused by unclean drinking water.

The grants and loans awarded Monday go to local governments, public water systems and in some cases the states, which are in the process of completing assessments of all public drinking water systems. The loans and grants announced include:

• $24 million for 12 projects serving low-income, rural towns in Appalachia;
• $13.7 million for seven projects in seven Empowerment Zones or Enterprise Communities;
• $12.3 million for impoverished counties in four Southwest states; and
• $7.2 million for five projects in impoverished Mississippi Delta communities.

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