Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. President Biden has been negotiating
Speaker 1: with Republicans over a giant bill to fix America's aging infrastructure,
Speaker 1: and the two sides are having trouble coming to an agreement,
Speaker 1: mostly because Biden wants to pay for the bill by
Speaker 1: raising taxes on corporations and the super rich, and Republicans
Speaker 1: want to pay for it by selling tickets to Trump's
Speaker 1: surprise reinauguration in August. And hopefully they can figure things
Speaker 1: out soon, because there's one particular part of America's infrastructure
Speaker 1: that's truly garbage right now. And I'm talking about America's
Speaker 1: water system. The question is why is it that bad? Well,
Speaker 1: let's find out in another edition of If you don't Know,
Speaker 1: Now You Know Water. It's Mike Pence's favorite soup, what
Speaker 1: has one of the essentials for humans of Bible along
Speaker 1: with food and the new Olivia Rodrigo album, which is Guys,
Speaker 1: She Gets. But as important as it is in America,
Speaker 1: the infrastructure that transports the water is breaking down fasta
Speaker 1: than me listening to the Rodrigo album. It's an issue
Speaker 1: that's tough to see. Literally, water problems often they go
Speaker 1: unnoticed until it's too late, but it's a problem that's
Speaker 1: getting worse across the country with aging infrastructure. The nation's
Speaker 1: water infrastructure system gets a grade of D by the
Speaker 1: American Society of Civil Engineers. Thousands of dams and levees
Speaker 1: are on the brink of failure. Our water infrastructure all
Speaker 1: over the country is literally hitting a breaking point everywhere.
Speaker 1: The last time there was a major rehall of water infrastructure,
Speaker 1: creating these new pipes and systems was about water systems
Speaker 1: were living off systems who are actually some of them
Speaker 1: built in the century. And at least five hundred and
Speaker 1: forty five municipalities across the country there are cast iron
Speaker 1: pipes that are now more than one hundred years old.
Speaker 1: The aging infrastructure has led to a point where a
Speaker 1: water main breaks somewhere in this country every two minutes.
Speaker 1: God damn people, a pipe is bursting every two minutes.
Speaker 1: If America were a person who would have to wear depends.
Speaker 1: America's water pipes are so bad that they got a
Speaker 1: D from the infrastructure experts. And keep in mind, a
Speaker 1: pipe that gets an F is just a puddle of water,
Speaker 1: and it's not surprising that these pipes are falling apart
Speaker 1: because some of them have been around since the nineteen century.
Speaker 1: So not only are they failing, but they're also probably
Speaker 1: a little racist. I mean, I guess on the bright side, though,
Speaker 1: this is definitely keeping America's enemies from invading. You know,
Speaker 1: North Korea is probably looking at America like the layout
Speaker 1: is nice, but the plumbing is a disaster. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's just not worth the gut renovation. I don't know, guys,
Speaker 1: and look people, unless you live in Mario World, you
Speaker 1: probably don't spend a lot of your time thinking about pipes.
Speaker 1: But should because when the pipes that carry America's water
Speaker 1: become old and busted, the effects can be pretty drastic.
Speaker 1: Are aging water infrastructure systems are making clean, safe drinking
Speaker 1: water unreliable in many parts of this country. The National
Speaker 1: Resources Defense Council estimates thirty million Americans drink community water
Speaker 1: that contains lead, and five and a half million get
Speaker 1: water that exceeds the e p a's maximum levels. Go East.
Speaker 1: In places like North Carolina, water has been contaminated by
Speaker 1: coal ash. Go West, it's nitrates from fertilizers. Water Here,
Speaker 1: we've let our water system just to lapidate to the
Speaker 1: point of lamps into our third world country. Here, our
Speaker 1: waste water systems are crumbling. People are living with sewage,
Speaker 1: water and sewage in their streets, in their backyards. The
Speaker 1: city of Fort Lauderdale rushing to clean up more than
Speaker 1: two hundred million gallons of toxic sewage flooding the streets,
Speaker 1: seeping into houses and spilling into waterways, rivers of raw
Speaker 1: sewage flowing down streets, in ventnor. It's really gross. It's
Speaker 1: things real bad. I can't move my car. I'm not
Speaker 1: putting my car in there. That is a lake if
Speaker 1: I ever saw one. Wow, that poor guy. What a
Speaker 1: bad deal to live next to a ship lake if
Speaker 1: I was in I'm trying to sell that house a sap.
Speaker 1: That's right, I'm selling some lakefront property. Oh cool, what lake, man?
Speaker 1: It's a lake? Do you want it or not? And
Speaker 1: ship lakes aside? Do you see that gross blue water?
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't care where you live. Taking a
Speaker 1: bath should never turn into surprise gender reveal. And by
Speaker 1: the way, can America please stop comparing all of its
Speaker 1: failures to the Third World, Because every time there's an
Speaker 1: infrastructure problem or an insurrection, Americans are like, this is
Speaker 1: just like a third world country. Yes, is a third
Speaker 1: world country. Guys. It's not cool alright, because you don't
Speaker 1: hear Africans comparing their school shootings to America. They don't
Speaker 1: do that, you know why, because Africa doesn't have school shootings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: while our children or soldiers. So how did America's water
Speaker 1: system end up this way in the first place. Well, basically,
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the past decided that rather
Speaker 1: than fixing a bunch of little problems back then, it
Speaker 1: will be easier to wait for them to become big
Speaker 1: problems and then leave them to us. Infrastructure is not
Speaker 1: particularly sexing, you know. It's something that seems easy to
Speaker 1: be to kick from one year to the next and
Speaker 1: suddenly look up and it's been thirty years. According to
Speaker 1: the American Society of Civil Engineers, the federal government's capital
Speaker 1: spending on water infrastructure has dropped from six in seven
Speaker 1: to nine in two thousand seventeen. Repairing, improving, maintaining the
Speaker 1: nation's water systems requires big money. The American Water Works
Speaker 1: Association estimates it will take a trillion dollars for drinking
Speaker 1: water alone. As costs to fix the systems continue to rise,
Speaker 1: Investment in water infrastructure has increasingly fall into state in
Speaker 1: local governments over the past few decades. The problem is
Speaker 1: that cities are burdened by dead and don't have the
Speaker 1: money to fix pipes. Milwaukee has a program to split
Speaker 1: the cost of replacing lead pipes with homeowners, but so
Speaker 1: far only one percent has been done. The city is
Speaker 1: trying to replace seventy thousand lead laterals, and at a
Speaker 1: pace at about a thousand a year, it would take
Speaker 1: seventy years. Are you gonna be kidding me? Seventy years?
Speaker 1: In seventy years, we won't even need pipes, probably just
Speaker 1: absorb water through n f T s or something. I
Speaker 1: don't actually understand what they are because I'm like, what
Speaker 1: do you mean? I don't own the art. The only
Speaker 1: other time you hear something's gonna take seventy years to
Speaker 1: fix is when you're on the phone with your cable company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we can get a guy to come check out your
Speaker 1: router in Does any time between eleven pm and three
Speaker 1: pm work for you? What? I'll be dead by then?
Speaker 1: Do you want the appointment or archer? Okay, I'll take it. Know.
Speaker 1: As crazy as this is, I actually get why politicians
Speaker 1: never want to spend money on pipes because it's expensive
Speaker 1: and it's worring. I mean, think about it. If you
Speaker 1: open a new stadium, you get to hold a press
Speaker 1: conference there, you know, with a big ribbon cutting. It's flashy,
Speaker 1: But how are you supposed to celebrate a new sewage pipe? Huh?
Speaker 1: Or you invite the press to what you take a
Speaker 1: huge dump at city hall. It's actually not a bad idea.
Speaker 1: But the reason this has gotten so bad and so
Speaker 1: expensive is because they waited so long to fix it.
Speaker 1: You see, people, you have to address problems when they
Speaker 1: come up or they just get worse. And that goes
Speaker 1: for everything. Infrastructure relationships help even this mold that I
Speaker 1: probably should have gotten checked out before it grew into
Speaker 1: its own person Alex find buddy, you can probably put
Speaker 1: it up for another ten years. You know what, You're
Speaker 1: right more. I love this guy. And while the water
Speaker 1: situation is pretty put across the entire United States, there's
Speaker 1: one group of people in the West who are getting
Speaker 1: the shortest, dirtiest, most lead covered end of the stick.
Speaker 1: And you can probably guess who it is, right who who?
Speaker 1: There is a close correlation between race and economics and
Speaker 1: whether or not you have clean water in the United
Speaker 1: States of America. That Newark is a largely poor, mostly
Speaker 1: black and Hispanic city, and its lead levels are among
Speaker 1: the highest in the US for large water systems. Some
Speaker 1: houses here tested four times the federal limit. Much of
Speaker 1: Mississippi's largest city is beginning it's fourth week without safe
Speaker 1: drinking water coming out of faucets. Jackson residents, about eighty
Speaker 1: percent of whom are black, remain under a system wide
Speaker 1: order to boil water for the past eight years. Keystone,
Speaker 1: West Virginia has been under a boil water advisory eight years.
Speaker 1: It's so common it doesn't even make headlines anymore. You
Speaker 1: can run the water sometimes and it's as brown as
Speaker 1: I am. Good Lord Ward, the water is as brown
Speaker 1: as I am. I mean, when people are asking for
Speaker 1: more black representation, they weren't talking about the water supply.
Speaker 1: I know that. And this is extremely messed up that
Speaker 1: so many black people in America don't have access to
Speaker 1: clean drinking water. I mean, I know reparations might not
Speaker 1: happen anytime soon, but maybe America can start with the
Speaker 1: water filter. I will say, though, it's impressive how even
Speaker 1: with this shitty water supply, black still don't crack. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine how good black people would look with proper hydration?
Speaker 1: Who are we? So? There you have it. America's water
Speaker 1: systems are on the verge of collapse, and the country
Speaker 1: needs to start fixing them now. This isn't a problem
Speaker 1: that can be kicked down the road anymore, people, especially
Speaker 1: when that road is buried six ft under ship Lake.
Speaker 1: And if you don't know, now you know what's the
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