INDIANAPOLIS — A Valparaiso state senator expects to spend much of the four-month legislative session that begins Jan. 3 reminding fellow lawmakers they can no longer ignore Indiana's multibillion dollar water infrastructure needs.
Republican state Sen. Ed Charbonneau realizes most of the focus for the 2017 General Assembly will be on deciding how to fund road and bridge construction and maintenance, but he said failing to address the state's crumbling water pipes could have a far more immediate and devastating impact on Hoosier lives and businesses.
"We can't afford to do nothing at this point," Charbonneau said. "With all the data and everything, we have to at least start."
A report recently issued by the Indiana Finance Authority found Hoosier water utilities need $2.3 billion for immediate repairs and $815 million a year in additional maintenance spending to protect human health and stem the annual loss of some 50 billion gallons of treated water that never make it to a customer.
Charbonneau said he accepts that "the timing is terrible" and there's no way the Legislature will spend 15 percent of the state's annual General Fund on water infrastructure, but pretending the problem isn't there won't make it go away.
"We need to find a way to at least get something," he said. "I'll start the bidding with $100 million that we would give to the IFA and they can then turn that $100 million into $600 million or $700 million by leveraging federal funds."
The state revenue forecast issued Thursday projects Indiana lawmakers will have approximately $1 billion in new money to spend between July 1 and June 30, 2019.
However, House and Senate budget leaders have signaled they are reluctant to appropriate that full amount since similarly rosy forecasts in prior years repeatedly failed to meet expectations.
There's also no shortage of competing priorities, including roads, education, pre-kindergarten expansion, Northwest Indiana rail transit, East Chicago lead remediation and hundreds of other state and local needs.
Charbonneau said one way to possibly get at the problem without necessarily spending state funds is for the General Assembly to authorize the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to include the cost of long-term water infrastructure needs when deciding whether to approve local water rate increases.
"We shouldn't have the decisions made on rates based on driving them to the lowest possible cost to the ratepayers," he said.
"When you start doing that you end up with where we are with $2.3 billion of infrastructure that needs to be taken care of — or we have got a disaster on our hands."
Beyond seeking funding for water infrastructure, Charbonneau also plans to propose legislation encouraging consolidation of Indiana's 554 independent water systems to reduce duplication and cost.
He also wants to concentrate state leadership on water issues in the IFA rather than the 11 different agencies that now each have a toe dipped in water.
Charbonneau hopes creation of a single water authority finally will enable Indiana to answer basic and critical questions about its current and long-term water supply.
"We don't know what we've got," Charbonneau said. "In many respects we don't know what we're doing, and we don't know how long it will last."