American Sponge City: Alternative Water Structures

Winthrop University is working toward a greener campus by installing low-flow toilets, faucets and other water saving amenities in the West Center. This journalism project will explore the dynamics of green infrastructure as well as how this and other community projects can be implemented on a broader scale. This will be an enterprise journalism story with supporting information from government documents, scholarly journals and in-depth interviews. America’s water infrastructure is a growing strain on the economy. Since much of the original construction was done over a century ago, it has begun to fail. These failures include water main breaks, sewer overflows and the inefficiencies of water structures in the face of the global need for clean water. Not only do these failures affect day-to-day life, but taxpayers ultimately pay billions in maintenance and clean up. Communities around the nation are making an effort to combat these rising costs by replacing failing systems with green infrastructures. One such community is Elmer Avenue in Los Angeles who has, by installing water reclaiming systems, turned itself into a “sponge city.” According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) action plan America spends $2.5 billion on water main breaks alone and deals with over 75,000 sewage overflows per year. These contaminations contribute to around 5,000 illnesses annually. Not surprisingly, the American Society of Civic Engineers graded U.S. water infrastructures a D+ overall. The EPA predicts it will take $533 billion to maintain these failing systems over the next 20 years, this amount goes above what the U.S. can afford. The American Society of Civic Engineers also found it would cost about $2.2 billion to fix these issues in South Carolina alone. There are organizations trying to assist rural areas with deteriorating water structures in South Carolina. The South Carolina Rural Infrastructure Authority awarded more than $21 million in grants to improve outlying communities since 2013. Also, they awarded 42 water, sewer and storm drainage grants totaling nearly $12 million