Our Advocacy
Over the past four years, communities across the country have come to rely on wastewater monitoring as a modern early warning system to detect infectious diseases and help protect families.
Wastewater Monitoring:A Vital Tool for Early Disease Detection
Whether it is seasonal viruses, new threats like bird flu or the next pandemic, wastewater now plays a crucial and cost effective role in detecting threats before they show up in hospitals, empowering communities and individuals to respond and make health care decisions. According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, wastewater monitoring is fast and effective, does not require individual testing or clinician reporting, protects privacy, and will continue to be a valuable component of the nation’s strategy to manage infectious disease outbreaks.
Taking Action:The Urgent Need to Sustain Wastewater Monitoring Funding
Now is the time to build on, not dismantle, this significant progress. Despite strong bipartisan support in Congress, wastewater funding is set to expire at the end of Fiscal Year 2025. $200 million in federal funding is urgently needed in Fiscal Year 2026 in order to strengthen and sustain wastewater monitoring. If we don’t act now, Americans will lose access to a critical early warning system, our country will be less prepared to respond to emerging health threats, and we will be far more likely to repeat the mistakes of COVID. We cannot let that happen.
Strengthening Wastewater Monitoring
Wastewater Action Alliance is working to strengthen America’s wastewater monitoring system and ensure that American families, communities and health care providers have continued access to its valuable, real-time, and lifesaving data. Wastewater monitoring should be strengthened by expanding the communities it reaches, the number of diseases it can quickly detect, and supporting the transparent and anonymous information it provides that helps Americans make informed health care choices.
