A series of water main breaks in Waterbury this summer left thousands of residents and businesses without running water for days. The first break in late July left more than 5,000 homes and businesses without water for at least three days. A second break expanded the outage to roughly 15,000 residents and businesses.
The Connecticut Department of Public Health has regulatory authority over the state's drinking water systems. Commissioner Dr. Manisha Juthani says her department has been working with Waterbury for years to update the town's system.
"If there's a community where there are public health impacts from water systems not being maintained, we definitely are collaborating with them to help them figure out what upgrades they may need to do, how they can do it, how the state can leverage federal dollars that we can get to help them make those investments," Juthani said.
Many pipes are reaching the end of their useful lives
The Waterbury breaks have raised a broader question: How sound are drinking water pipes in other Connecticut municipalities? And how much longer can those pipes be expected to last?
Juthani says some of Connecticut's municipal drinking water infrastructure dates back to the 1800s.
"A properly installed and maintained cast iron pipe system can usually last 75 to 100 years," Juthani said.
However, Juthani said getting a complete picture of the condition of Connecticut's water infrastructure and identifying which systems are most urgently in need of replacement is not easy.
"Unfortunately, DPH often doesn't have reliable data on all of that information. And quite frankly, some of the cities and towns with older infrastructure may not have that data," Juthani said.
Federal money available
Juthani said the state is using federal money to help communities make those investments, with the goal of replacing older infrastructure before failures become more disruptive. That money comes by way of a federal Drinking Water State Revolving Fund that provides loans to water systems for infrastructure improvements.
"This is a fund that we get money from the EPA to be able to loan different water systems, to be able to keep their systems top of the line so that they can continue to provide safe drinking water to people," Juthani said.
Broken pipes are DPH's top - but not only - concern
Juthani said the DPH also keeps an eye on other threats to Connecticut's drinking water systems.
Cybersecurity attacks are one example. Water systems in neighboring states and elsewhere in the country have been hacked, and Juthani says DPH has worked with utilities to prepare for those threats.
But a water main failure can have an immediate impact on public health, particularly when a break causes a loss of pressure that allows contaminated water into the system.
"If you have a break in water pressure and you have an entire community that has contaminated water, that can be deeply disruptive," Juthani said.
Keeping the system running as workers retire
Juthani says Connecticut is generally in good shape in terms of communities' willingness to work with DPH on water infrastructure. But the state faces another challenge: many of the experienced workers who operate those systems are approaching retirement.
"We, of course, have lots of very well-educated, well-trained, and experienced personnel who have been in the water industry, but many of them are retiring," Juthani said.
She says a new generation of workers is entering the field as water operators, but they will need the training and experience necessary to take over for retiring workers.
Juthani says that workforce will be critical as Connecticut continues replacing its aging water infrastructure.
"That is what we need to be able to stay on top of this so that we can start swapping out older infrastructure for newer infrastructure," she said.
