Four years ago this week, Flint, Michi­gan began receiv­ing water from the pol­lut­ed Flint riv­er, mark­ing the begin­ning of its dev­as­tat­ing water cri­sis. For res­i­dents like Melis­sa Mays, whose chil­dren suf­fered skin rash­es and hair loss short­ly there­after — and now waits to learn the extent of the long-term health con­se­quences of their lead expo­sure — trust in what comes out of the tap must seem like a dis­tant mem­o­ry. Nev­er­the­less, water bills in Flint keep ris­ing: May’s bill this month was $352.

There’s one path forward for clean, affordable water for all Americans: We must reinvest federal dollars into our water infrastructure.

We have long known that lead is a dan­ger­ous poi­son that affects our children’s devel­op­ment. That’s why in the 1970s, the Unit­ed States began to phase it out of gaso­line and banned lead-based paint, thanks to strong fed­er­al gov­ern­ment action. Now, we need a sim­i­lar com­mit­ment to ensure that we get lead pipes out of com­mis­sion and ensure that every­one can have access to clean, afford­able water.

New leg­is­la­tion intro­duced today is crit­i­cal to this vision. The Water Afford­abil­i­ty, Trans­paren­cy, Equi­ty and Reli­a­bil­i­ty (WATER) Act would cre­ate a trust fund by rolling back a small por­tion of the Trump administration’s mas­sive cor­po­rate tax cuts to pro­vide $35 bil­lion a year for our water infra­struc­ture. It would allow our com­mu­ni­ties to ren­o­vate aging water sys­tems, remove lead pipes, stop sewage spills in water­ways and back­ups into base­ments, improve rur­al house­holds’ water wells and sep­tic sys­tems, and pro­vide safe water in schools.

While an esti­mat­ed 12,000 lead water pipes still deliv­er water to Flint homes, a lack of clean, afford­able water is not just Flint’s prob­lem. Many com­mu­ni­ties have seen ele­vat­ed lead lev­els in the water or faced oth­er con­t­a­m­i­na­tion issues. Water bills are also unaf­ford­able for thou­sands of peo­ple in cities like Detroit and Bal­ti­more and in rur­al areas across Amer­i­ca. Mar­tin Coun­ty, Ken­tucky, an impov­er­ished rur­al com­mu­ni­ty, is expe­ri­enc­ing rate hikes for a sys­tem that is cat­a­stroph­i­cal­ly failing.

Last month, the EPA released a new sur­vey that found our drink­ing water sys­tems need near­ly half a tril­lion dol­lars over the next 20 years to pro­vide safe water. Add in our waste­water and stormwa­ter sys­tems, and America’s water sys­tems needs more than $35 bil­lion each year to keep our water safe and clean. This bur­den is falling heav­i­ly on local gov­ern­ments and ulti­mate­ly local res­i­dents who are expe­ri­enc­ing unman­age­able increas­es to their water bills.

It wasn’t always like this. Fed­er­al fund­ing to main­tain our pub­lic water and sew­er sys­tems has declined 74 per­cent since its peak in the 1970s. On a per-capi­ta basis, that’s an 82 per­cent drop. In 1977, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment spent $76.27 per per­son (in 2014 dol­lars) on our water ser­vices but by 2014 that sup­port had fall­en to $13.68 per per­son. Pres­i­dent Trump’s pro­pos­al to pri­va­tize water infra­struc­ture will do noth­ing to reverse this prob­lem of water injus­tice, and peo­ple would like­ly see the cost of their water bills increase while Trump’s friends on Wall Street reap the profit.

A study from last year found that 12 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion strug­gles to pay their water bills. In Min­neapo­lis, 3,500 homes lost water ser­vice for non­pay­ment in 2016 — affect­ing an esti­mat­ed 8,000 peo­ple — accord­ing to City of Min­neapo­lis data. That means no water to drink, cook or clean with, or bathe in. In many com­mu­ni­ties, unaf­ford­able water bills can lead to home­less­ness with homes lost to tax sale or evic­tion. This cri­sis can break up fam­i­lies and destroy communities.

There’s one path for­ward for clean, afford­able water for all Amer­i­cans: We must rein­vest fed­er­al dol­lars into our water infra­struc­ture. This will take a com­mit­ment to pro­tect future gen­er­a­tions from the lead that lies below the ground in our decay­ing infra­struc­ture. Upgrad­ing our water sys­tems would cre­ate jobs, pro­tect our chil­dren, and ensure water justice.

Con­gress needs to have the vision to step in and save our tap water for future gen­er­a­tions. It must pass the WATER Act to make sure that clean, pub­licly owned and afford­able water doesn’t become a dis­tant mem­o­ry for us all.