A national survey conducted by the American Business Water Coalition (ABWC) to gauge opinions about water reliability and current funding levels found that a large majority of voters – eight in ten Americans – said they are more likely to support candidates who support increasing funding for clean and reliable drinking water.

The new findings also show that U.S. voters believe drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure are integrally linked to the business community and overall economic prosperity. Almost all survey participants – more than 98 percent of respondents – agreed that it’s important, very important or extremely important for businesses to have access to clean water for routine services, operations, and hygiene. This supports growing concern among voters that operational challenges for clean water utilities put businesses in America at risk, since economic growth depends on clean water.

66 percent of U.S. voters believe water infrastructure is underfunded or dramatically underfunded by the federal government. This concurs with expert projections that the costs associated with restoring America’s aging water infrastructure system exceed $1 trillion over the next 25 years.