Total US spending on water and sewer infrastructure is $65 billion per year. And we have 10 years, not 30. These systems are already at the end of their 70-75 year expected service life. So you’re talking about doubling water budgets to meet the backlog.
That’s just water. Other infrastructure has been neglected by state and local governments, leading to a $5 trillion backlog (including water). That’s 10x total US annual spending on infrastructure. Trains have to slow down when it rains in the DC/Baltimore area because the 100+ year old tunnels under Baltimore are leaky. DC’s metro trains were self driving when they were built in the 1970s. They had to shut off that system because the supporting track infrastructure had been allowed to degrade so much. New York’s subway has basically melted down. Ridership in DC and New York, the two biggest transit systems in the country, has been declining despite population growth because the system can’t provide the level of service it did even 20 years ago, due to decades of neglected maintenance.
Meanwhile, lead pipes are poisoning kids in Chicago, and DC’s civil war era sewers dump untreated raw sewage into the Potomac when it rains. These systems needed to be upgraded decades ago.
I’m not advocating getting rid of the entire system. I’m pointing out that it goes far beyond a “few examples of failures” as you claimed in your earlier post. It’s a systematic problem that affects almost every municipality that allows political bodies to set prices for services. They systematically set them too low to allow long term sustainability.