America’s Water Crisis Is About Infrastructure, Not Just Supply

0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. America’s drinking water infrastructure is approaching a defining moment. A report by the American Water Works Association shows that the U.S. is facing a clear and pressing need for significant investment in drinking water infrastructure and other critical resources, amounting to $2.1 to $2.4 trillion over the next 25 years. Those figures reflect more than deferred maintenance. They point to a broader question about how future water infrastructure should be designed to serve communities facing changing environmental, economic, and population pressures.

For decades, that conversation has largely centered on expanding centralized treatment facilities capable of serving entire regions. Those systems remain the backbone of public water delivery, but growing attention is now being paid to how resilience, operational flexibility, and redundancy can complement traditional approaches. An American Society of Civil Engineers report highlights that the United States experiences a water main break approximately every 2 minutes, underscoring the challenges posed by aging infrastructure. As governments plan future investments, the discussion is expanding beyond capacity alone to consider how water systems can continue operating when unexpected disruptions occur.

That shift reflects a broader trend across critical infrastructure planning. Resilience is increasingly becoming a design objective alongside efficiency and cost, encouraging planners to consider modular systems, distributed assets, and localized infrastructure capable of adapting as communities evolve.

Within the water sector, decentralized treatment has emerged as one approach receiving greater attention. Instead of relying exclusively on large centralized facilities, modular systems allow treatment capacity to be deployed closer to water sources while expanding incrementally as demand grows. Supporters argue that this model can provide additional operational flexibility without replacing existing infrastructure.

Andrew Van Hoesen, founder of Air Water Solutions of the Ozarks and co-founder of HydroGenesis , believes that the shift is already underway. Both companies bring together expertise in advanced water treatment, renewable energy, and purification technologies to develop modular systems capable of converting seawater, brackish water, rivers, and lakes into potable water. According to Van Hoesen, future investment decisions should increasingly focus on resilience and flexibility alongside production capacity.

“Large treatment plants will always have an important role,” Van Hoesen says. “The opportunity is to build systems that can adapt as communities grow and solve challenges that centralized infrastructure was never designed to handle.”

Van Hoesen notes that centralized treatment facilities remain the foundation of many public water systems around the world. At the same time, he believes evolving infrastructure needs are prompting governments to consider how modular, decentralized systems can complement those networks by expanding capacity, improving operational flexibility, and supporting service continuity under a wider range of conditions.

One solution, according to Van Hoesen, is decentralized infrastructure built around modular treatment systems. “Rather than constructing one large facility designed to meet decades of future demand, communities can deploy smaller systems closer to existing water sources and expand capacity as population and consumption increase,” he says. According to him, that approach provides greater redundancy because individual units continue operating independently if another location experiences an interruption.

“Our systems are modular, so communities can add capacity when they need it,” he says. “Instead of depending on one location, they have multiple independent systems working together.”

The approach also changes where water treatment can realistically be deployed. Van Hoesen notes that modular systems can support rapidly growing cities, coastal communities managing seawater intrusion, disaster-prone regions, and rural communities where extending conventional infrastructure may be difficult or prohibitively expensive. “Because the systems are designed to integrate with renewable energy, they can also operate independently of the traditional electrical grid when local conditions require it,” he says.

According to Van Hoesen, off-grid capability has become one of the most consistent topics during conversations with government officials evaluating future water infrastructure. Renewable energy, battery storage, and localized microgrids allow treatment facilities to continue producing drinking water during electrical outages while reducing dependence on centralized power networks. He believes those capabilities become particularly valuable in regions where grid reliability remains inconsistent or where emergency preparedness has become a higher priority.

“Reliable water should not depend entirely on whether the power grid stays online,” Van Hoesen says. “Communities need infrastructure that keeps working when conditions become unpredictable.”

The broader policy conversation appears to be moving in a similar direction. OECD emphasized that resilient infrastructure is becoming increasingly important as governments respond to climate risks, aging assets, and rising demand for essential public services. “Rather than simply expanding capacity, long-term planning increasingly considers resilience, adaptability, and life cycle performance alongside construction costs,” Van Hoesen says.

He believes those priorities should also shape how policymakers evaluate new investments. Alongside construction timelines, he encourages considering long-term maintenance requirements, operational flexibility, and the ability to expand systems ...

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