The sixth-annual Infrastructure Week, a national effort to highlight the importance of maintaining and improving the pipes, treatment plants, roads, bridges, runways, communications systems, and other shared resources that make modern society possible kicked off on Monday, May 14 and runs through May 21:
Infrastructure Week, a non-profit organization, convenes a national week of education and advocacy that brings together American businesses, workers, elected leaders, and everyday citizens around one message in 2018: Americans are waiting. The future won't. It's #TimeToBuild.
In addition to events being held across the country, communities, utilities, local governments and others with a stake in infrastructure investment are rallying on social media through the “Time to Build” campaign.
For our part, we want to use this as an opportunity to let Philadelphia residents know how water infrastructure is funded, what it takes to deliver safe drinking water while protecting the rivers that act as our source water, and highlight ways individuals can help our infrastructure do its job.
Whether they know it or not, our customers already have a strong connection to the pipes, plants and people making safe, clean drinking water possible: everything we do at the Philadelphia Water Department is made possible by revenue collected through monthly water bills.
As a customer-supported public utility, we don't get any funding from city, state or federal taxes—a fact that makes it even more important for residents to know how their money is being invested.
Some things we'll talk about during Infrastructure Week 2018 include:
- A $100-million-dollar investment in modernizing our drinking water reservoirs along the Schuylkill River.
- How you can protect our sewer system and waterways by knowing what you should and shouldn’t flush down sinks, storm drains and toilets.
- A look at new water meter technology that is coming to homes and businesses + how you can use your meter right now to check for hard-to-spot (but costly) leaks.
- Our growing network of green infrastructure tools and what they do to protect local waterways.
