Should Fenwick Approve a Water Infrastructure Bond? A Debate Kit

Resolution: "The town of Fenwick should approve a water infrastructure bond to accelerate pipe replacement, even though it will raise every household's water bill."

Background: Fenwick and its specific bond proposal are fictional, invented for this debate kit, but the national conditions behind the resolution are real. The ASCE 2025 Infrastructure Report Card gave US drinking water infrastructure a grade of C- and wastewater infrastructure a D+. A water main breaks somewhere in the country roughly every two minutes. EPA's needs assessment estimates $625 billion in drinking-water investment is needed nationally over the next 20 years. Distribution pipes account for about two-thirds of that need. At the same time, combined water and sewer bills already rose about 24 percent nationally from 2019 to 2024, and about another 5.1 percent in 2025. A widely used rule of thumb treats combined water and sewer costs above roughly 4.5 percent of household income as a high financial burden, a threshold some Fenwick households are already near. The figure comes from adding two EPA benchmarks based on a community's median household income: 2.5 percent for drinking water and 2 percent for wastewater. EPA has no single official cutoff, and its 2024 Water Affordability Needs Assessment used both 3 percent and 4.5 percent.

Case for the bond:

1. The ASCE 2025 Infrastructure Report Card gave US drinking water a C- and wastewater a D+. These grades reflect a national pattern of aging systems rather than an isolated local problem that Fenwick can wait out. (Source: ASCE 2025 Report Card for America's Infrastructure.)
2. A water main breaks somewhere in the country roughly every two minutes. Deferred pipe replacement tends to end in emergency repairs rather than in savings. (Source: ASCE Report Card talking points.)
3. EPA's national needs assessment estimates $625 billion in drinking-water investment is needed over 20 years. Distribution pipes make up about two-thirds of that total, so pipe replacement is the largest share of the documented need. (Source: EPA Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and Assessment.)
4. A fictional Fenwick public works memo, written for this debate, estimates that several of the town's original cast-iron mains are now more than 70 years old. That is well past the design life engineers typically plan for. (Illustrative estimate created for this debate, not a documented figure.)

Case against the bond:

1. EPA's 2024 Water Affordability Needs Assessment measured household water burden against two lines, 3 percent and 4.5 percent of household income. The 4.5 percent figure is a widely used rule of thumb for a high burden, built by adding two EPA benchmarks: 2.5 percent for drinking water and 2 percent for wastewater. A new bond could push already-stretched Fenwick households over that line. (Source: EPA Water Affordability Needs Assessment, December 2024.)
2. Combined US water and sewer bills rose about 24 percent from 2019 to 2024, and about 5.1 percent more in 2025, a pace that already outstrips general inflation. Fenwick residents are absorbing rising costs before any new bond is added. (Source: Bluefield Research / industry rate surveys.)
3. A fictional local group, the Fenwick Ratepayers Council, argues in testimony written for this debate that the town should first apply for state or federal infrastructure grants. National programs exist specifically to help towns fund large pipe-replacement projects without placing the full cost on local ratepayers. (Illustrative testimony created for this debate.)
4. Approving a bond raises every household's bill right away, for the life of the bond. The benefit, fewer future main breaks, accrues gradually over many years. Residents on fixed incomes may reasonably weigh that uneven timeline differently than the town council does.