The state is not allowing the city to access federal infrastructure dollars for our waterworks

New York City’s water infrastructure is some of the most sophisticated in the world, and right now, there’s once-in-a-generation funding available to invest in that infrastructure. Recent legislation — like the state Clean Water Infrastructure Act, the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and other federal funding packages — should give our city the resources we need to upgrade our sewer system, manage higher-intensity rainstorms, protect our world-famous drinking water supply, and so much more. But because of arbitrary rules at the state level, our city isn’t receiving anywhere near our fair share of the funds.

New York City contains 44% of the state’s population and 59% of our state’s disadvantaged communities, and we pay 62% of the state’s taxes. If you took New York City out of New York State, the state would be more than 90% white. But because of unfair funding rules, last year, we only received 2% of available water infrastructure grant funds. On a per-person basis, communities outside of NYC received 33 times more funding for this critical infrastructure. We’re calling on our partners in Albany to right this wrong with the stroke of a pen.

For example, the state has capped funding from the Clean Water Infrastructure Act at $5 million per municipality for some programs, regardless of the city size. Due to this cap, New York City cannot receive more than 10% of these funds, despite having nearly half of the state’s population.

With $50 billion for water and wastewater projects, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is providing the single largest investment in water infrastructure in U.S. history. But under Albany’s rules, the city can only receive 6% of the state’s funds for 2023. Again — that’s 6% of the funds for 44% of the people. The state has chosen to exclude municipalities with more than 300,000 people from the vast majority of this funding — which is another way of saying the state chose to exclude New York City, as the state’s only city with more than 300,000 people.

This is a choice New York State, and New York State alone, is making. These arbitrary caps do not exist in the federal laws that created the funding; they’ve been created at the state level and can be revised at the state level at any time. This is also a racial justice issue. Our majority-minority population — and disadvantaged neighborhoods that have borne the brunt of climate change and environmental injustice — deserve equitable investment in critical infrastructure.

When we’ve asked the state to remove these caps on New York City’s funding eligibility, they’ve responded with the argument that their goal is to distribute available funds to as many municipalities as possible. Everyone statewide deserves high-quality water infrastructure — and to be absolutely clear, we aren’t advocating that every cent of water infrastructure funding goes to New York City, far from it. What we’re saying is that the 44% of New Yorkers who live in New York City, and our 59% of the state’s disadvantaged communities, deserve far more than 6% of federal water infrastructure funding.

The projects that New York City could use this money for would be transformative. For starters, we could offset nearly $600 million in work we’ve started to keep sewage out of the Gowanus Canal, upgrade wastewater treatment infrastructure in Hunts Point, improve stormwater management infrastructure around public housing developments in places like East Williamsburg, and expand capacity in flood-prone areas, like Staten Island’s East Shore that was affected by Hurricane Sandy and parts of Queens that were recently impacted by the remnants of Hurricane Ida and other storms.

This funding could also ensure resilient, reliable access to New York City’s drinking water by helping to cover a $1.2 billion new upstate water supply tunnel and $400 million dollar investment to finally complete the city’s Third Water Tunnel in Brooklyn and Queens. And beyond that, we’d be able to use that money to keep our water bills low — putting more money back in New Yorkers’ pockets.

Our proposition is simple. We won’t stand for a funding model that continues to give us pennies on the dollar and leaves New York City residents exposed to climate change impacts and infrastructure failure. And with New York City being home to a majority of the state’s disadvantaged communities, any argument for the current funding structure ignores the basic principles of equity and justice. We need state officials to remove the unfair restrictions on funding that leave 8.5 million city residents more vulnerable to infrastructure failure, so we can continue to build a greener, more resilient city for all.

Malliotakis, Meng and Velasquez represent New York City in the U.S. Congress.