Pete Domenici: “in the 1746 Poor Richard's Almanac, Benjamin Franklin wrote, ``When the well is dry, we learn the worth of water.''…”

“in the 1746 Poor Richard's Almanac, Benjamin Franklin wrote, ``When the well is dry, we learn the worth of water.'' Nowhere is the bottom of the well approaching more quickly than in western United States. Nearly depleted aquifers and deteriorated infrastructure on which our small and rural communities rely coupled with their inability to raise large amounts of capital to afford water infrastructure has resulted in substantial want. When the water dries up, so will many of our communities. As such, the scarcity of water in rural western communities is a dire situation. An article appearing on April 15, 2005 in the Wall Street Journal elucidates the breadth of our Nation's water infrastructure need. The article states that most water infrastructure and water treatment plants in the U.S. are more than 50 years old and, in many cases, are more than 100 years old. The huge capital outlays needed to rehabilitate this aging and, in many cases, deteriorated infrastructure far exceeds the ability of many rural communities to pay. Neither can these communities accommodate the costs in their rate structures nor are the necessary capital outlays within their bonding capacity. Exacerbating this problem is that, in many western states such as my home state of New Mexico, ground water supplies for which many communities have relied on for water are nearly depleted.…”