My spouse was in a leadership position in a municipal water utility for several years. You have to make capital investments to maintain pumps, filtration systems and have operational funds to perform testing and repairs.
Municipal government often struggles with capital investment, especially in states that tightly regulate the ability of cities to bond or wherever the governor has the ability to control municipal authorities. There’s a “starve the beast” philosophy in some quarters that creates issues like this.
Money is usually the root cause. Incompetence is usually the result.
Another common dumb move is selling the water system to a private entity. Because governments are both more efficient and have a lower cost structure for raising capital, in the long run that leads to higher utility rates and deferred investment.