Lawmakers Expect Incremental Improvement For Water Infrastructure

Indiana lawmakers expect the General Assembly will continue to take incremental steps toward addressing the state’s water issues in 2018. The state needs billions in urgent water and wastewater infrastructure repairs.

Some Hoosiers want to see the legislature pass a large water infrastructure funding package, similar to one for roads approved during the 2017 session.

READ MORE: Why Is Water Infrastructure Taking A Back Seat To Roads?

But water presents some unique challenges. There’s no single state agency in charge of water like there is with roads. Rep. Ed Soliday (R-Valparaiso) says there’s a lot of data about water and wastewater infrastructure that we don’t have.

“We don’t want to talk about money,” Soliday says. “We want to talk about process, defining the problem very much more clearly, and bringing everybody to a central focus like we did with roads.”

Soliday says he’s drafting a bill that creates a task force to further study the issue.

The 2018 session is a non-budget year, so it’s unlikely the General Assembly will pass a funding package for water infrastructure — if it decides to — before 2019.