In the third year of the Trump administration, Congress and the White House have repeatedly discussed a multi-trillion dollar investment in the country’s roads, dams, levees, telecommunication networks, power grids, drinking water pipes, and sewage treatment plants.

Neither side has agreed on such a plan, and a deal seems out of reach at the moment. For drinking water infrastructure, Congress has preferred instead to fortify existing loan funds and grant programs. The country’s metropolitan centers, by and large, are taking advantage of those incremental measures. They are also forging ahead on their own, not waiting on Beltway politics to be resolved before making investments to prepare their water systems for the decades ahead.