US Cities Face Water Stress Amid Crumbling Infrastructure
Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times,
Across large swaths of the United States, drought conditions and the explosion of data centers have brought renewed attention to the future of the water supply. But the biggest concern may be something local governments have known about for years: aging pipes and other decaying infrastructure that could threaten supply even when water is abundant.
More U.S. cities have been facing water stress in recent years. Drought conditions affected more than a third of the nation last year, with almost 30 million Americans living in areas with high water stress, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
At the same time, data centers can consume upward of 5 million gallons of water per day. That’s the equivalent usage of a town with a population between 10,000 and 50,000 people. The number varies, but an estimated 4,149 data centers are currently operational in the United States, with another 2,788 announced or under construction.
But while drought and data center-related water consumption continue to make headlines, an estimated 6.75 billion gallons of treated drinking water are slipping through the cracks in America’s pipes every single day.
It’s a problem U.S. officials have seen coming for more than a decade.
A 2014 U.S. Government Accountability report found 40 out of 50 state water managers anticipated supply shortages in their states under “average conditions” within 10 years.
Fast forward to last year, when 75 percent of U.S. city officials and more than half of business executives said they expect water risks to outpace all other infrastructure threats, according to a Schneider Electric study.
“Water is not just essential for life—it’s the backbone of America’s economic strength—yet today the U.S. is facing a major water crisis, driven by dwindling supply and outdated infrastructure,” Sophie Borgne, Water and Environment Segment president at Schneider Electric, stated in a press release.
A general view of the Google Midlothian Data Center in Midlothian, Texas, on Nov. 14, 2025. Data centers can consume more than 5 million gallons of water per day, adding pressure in regions already facing water shortages that threaten residential access, industrial growth, and long-term urban resilience. Ron Jenkins/Getty Images
Most U.S. water pipes are between 45 and 100 years old, and many contain toxic elements such as lead and copper, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
In its 2025 infrastructure report card, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave U.S. drinking water a C- score and wastewater management a D+ due to the ongoing battle to replace U.S. water pipes.
“The nation’s water infrastructure is aging and underfunded. More than 9 million existing lead service lines pose health concerns,” the engineers stated in the report.
The study authors also noted that “funding shortfalls” remain a problem in state-level funding for the necessary upgrades to drinking water pipes. They also observed that only an estimated 30 percent of these utility companies have fully implemented a water asset management plan, and less than half are even trying to implement one.
In October 2024, the EPA announced its final rule on replacing lead piping nationwide, with compliance required to begin that year. The ultimate goal was to replace all aging and leaking drinking water pipes nationwide within 10 years. The agency stated that the country’s drinking water systems would need $625 billion for pipe replacement, treatment plant upgrades, and additional assets.
“[With] the latest data from 2025, EPA estimates that there are 4 million lead service lines across the country, down from 9 million previously estimated,” an EPA spokesperson told The Epoch Times.
The spokesperson said an additional $3 billion in state funding is available to reduce exposure to lead in drinking water.
“EPA is committed to Making America Healthy Again by ensuring that all Americans can rely on clean and safe drinking water,” the spokesperson said, adding that the agency’s free water technical assistance program is available to “help drinking water systems identify, plan for, and replace lead pipes in the communities they serve.”
Workers use giant pumps to move sewage around a broken section of the Potomac Interceptor in Cabin John, Md., on Feb. 16, 2026. An estimated 6.75 billion gallons of treated drinking water are slipping through the cracks in America’s pipes every single day. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Doing the Math
Presently, water lost to faulty pipe infrastructure is costing U.S. utilities $6.4 billion annually. So why is this decades-in-the-making problem still ongoing? Some say it’s because the math doesn’t work.
“While the $6 billion loss of 2 trillion gallons of treated drinking water—nearly 20 percent of the drinking water consumed in the U.S.—to old pipes and crumbling infrastructure sounds large, it must be put in perspective,” Jeff Stollman told The Epoch Times.
As an economist and technology futurist, Stollman prepares impact forecasts for industries, government, and the environment. He said the cost of replacing leaky water pipes ranges from $1 million to $4 million per mile, depending on pipe size, location, and installation method.
“The United States has over 2.2 million miles of underground drinking water pipes, with a significant portion reaching the end of their 75 to 100 year life. The cost of replacing half of these pipes at the lower range cost of $1 million per mile would therefore require municipalities to come up with $1.1 trillion. And this estimate is certainly low,” he said.
“Losing $6 billion a year, it would take nearly 200 years for the current losses to equal the cost of replacement.”
Compounding this, many older municipalities are “cash-strapped” as it is, he said.
A pipe diverts water into the C&O Canal in Cabin John, Md., on March 5, 2026. Most U.S. water pipes are between 45 and 100 years old, and many contain toxic elements such as lead and copper, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Heather Diehl/Getty Images
Outside of federal assistance, Stollman said, state and municipal officials will likely need to raise utility prices to cover the improvements.
“This doesn’t mean that this [pipe changing] shouldn’t be done. But utilities will likely have to raise the cost of water more than 7 cents [per] gallon,” he said.
The soaring cost of water bills is already a concern for many. Since 2022, water bills have increased across the board.
In the Midwest, bills were higher than the national average, but the Mid-Atlantic region saw the greatest year-over-year increase in 2024 at 9.5 percent, according to a Bank of America analysis.
Bluefield Research observed in 2025 that U.S. water and sewer bills had risen 24 percent over the previous five years.
“The cost of maintaining and upgrading water infrastructure continues to rise, and these costs are being passed down to ratepayers,” Megan Bondar, an analyst at Bluefield Research, said in a press release.
Workers with the East Bay Municipal Utility District install a new water pipe in Oakland, Calif., on April 22, 2021. The Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule in 2024 requiring water systems nationwide to identify and replace lead pipes within 10 years. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Down The Drain
Neno Duplan, CEO of Locus Technologies, said recent federal infrastructure funding “is helpful but insufficient to fully modernize century-old networks nationwide.”
Duplan has extensive experience with surface and subsurface hydrology. He told The Epoch Times that the full elimination of U.S. pipe leakage is neither “technically feasible nor economically rational.”
He said utilities optimize around what he called an “economic level of leakage,” balancing repair costs with water value.
He believes the most pressing investment need isn’t leaky water pipes, but resilient source protection, advanced treatment, and contamination mitigation.
That said, Duplan said the trillions of gallons seeping from American water pipes come at a high price tag.
“The direct impact of leakage is economic: higher operating costs, rate pressure, and occasional localized service interruptions,” he said.
Water lost from pipes isn’t gone entirely, but generally finds its way back into the hydrologic cycle via soil infiltration, aquifer recharge, or surface flow.
“The real issue is not physical loss of water molecules. The real issue is loss of treated, pressurized, potable water service and the economic and energy waste associated with producing water that never reaches a paying customer,” he said.
Reverse osmosis pressure vessels treat wastewater at the Groundwater Replenishment System, the world’s largest wastewater recycling plant, in Fountain Valley, Calif., on July 20, 2022. In its 2025 infrastructure report card, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave U.S. wastewater management a D+ due to the ongoing battle to replace U.S. water pipes. Mario Tama/Getty Images
While Duplan doesn’t expect the water hemorrhaging from America’s pipes to create scarcity on its own, he said it creates problems with delivery reliability and pressure management.
“Infrastructure failure can prevent treated water from reaching customers even when the raw water supply is adequate,” he said.
California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Illinois account for more than one-third of all infrastructure-related water losses, according to Bluefield Research.
While states including California and Texas have taken steps to standardize reporting and validation requirements for utility companies, many “still lack accurate, validated data—hindering transparency, performance benchmarking, and corrective action,” Bondar said in a press release.
Contamination is also a growing concern, which can increase water stress by reducing available freshwater.
“A far larger systemic threat to U.S. water security is contamination, because contaminated water requires energy-intensive treatment before it can be returned to beneficial use,” Duplan said. “Treatment, remediation, and advanced purification are capital and energy-intensive processes. That is where the true risk and cost lie.”
Duplan believes U.S. water supplies face the cumulative challenges of “aging assets, energy-intensive treatment, contamination risks, and allocation management under climatic variability.”
A car passes a burst water pipe damaged by strong winds and heavy rain from Hurricane Florence in Wilmington, N.C., on Sept. 14, 2018. Replacing aging water pipes can cost between $1 million and $4 million per mile, depending on pipe size, location, and installation method, according to experts. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
In January, the United Nations said the current state of water “crisis” in many countries and cities has become the new normal.
“The patterns observed around the world are not those of a system struggling through a temporary crisis,” the agency wrote. “They indicate that many key renewable water systems have crossed thresholds where full restoration is no longer realistic, even with large investments.”
Cities Take Action
Since 2016, new federal rules and local investment programs have reshaped how cities track and upgrade water infrastructure. Revisions to the EPA’s lead and copper rule finalized in 2021 required utilities to inventory service line materials by October 2024, shifting the focus toward identifying pipe materials—especially lead—rather than documenting pipe age.
Cities have also expanded replacement efforts. In Baltimore, where pipes average roughly 75 to 80 years old, about 15 miles of mains are replaced or rehabilitated each year.
Milwaukee maintains about 2,000 miles of mains dating to 1873 and plans to replace 65,000 lead service lines by 2037.
In Philadelphia, where some pipes date back to 1824, about 20 miles are replaced annually.
Meanwhile, Phoenix reported more than 480,000 waterline services in a 2024 inventory and no lead lines, while San Antonio is shifting toward condition-based pipe replacement across its roughly 9,000-mile network.