February 15, 2021, will forever be etched into our memory. At the height of the climate disaster that struck our state a year ago, over 13 million Texans lost access to clean drinking water. That is approximately half of the state’s population and also includes many hospitals that lost water. As Texas’ power crisis rapidly devolved into a water crisis, it became clear that the state’s infrastructure is ill-prepared for climate change.

And just last week, in a haunting reminder of how vulnerable our water supply really is, residents in Austin, one of the country’s fastest-growing cities, were unable to drink the water from their taps. While the boil water notice impacting Austinites was a result of internal operator issues and not weather related, the impact to residents was the same — businesses had to close, bottled water was scarce and trust in our water system plummeted to a new low.

Just like we need to ensure our energy infrastructure is resilient to climate change, our water supplies must also be resilient. Decentralized, on-site reuse strategies, called One Water, are part of the solution and would have likely mitigated some failures that we experienced so dramatically a year ago and could have also helped last week.

Under the traditional, centralized urban water model, we move freshwater from a reservoir or an underground aquifer to communities through extensive pipelines and infrastructure, often miles from the water source. The more infrastructure and the more people served, the greater the risk if something goes wrong — or if many things go wrong, as happened last February, when pumps failed, water pressure plummeted, pipes broke and power outages took down water treatment facilities.

Instead, with a One Water approach, buildings collect and treat their own rainwater to use for drinking water and treat and reuse wastewater and stormwater for non-potable purposes, such as toilet flushing. Communities become a water source, which empowers them to manage water resources in a more sustainable manner and increases their resilience to water supply challenges like we just experienced in Austin.

Although Austin’s water infrastructure clearly needs significant improvements, the city is developing more innovative water supply strategies designed to build resilience as the population continues to increase and drought conditions become more extreme. During the 2011 drought, Austin’s only water source — the Highland Lakes — dropped to perilously low levels, prompting water leaders to develop a plan to diversify the city’s water supply sources.

Austin’s Water Forward Plan details plans for aquifer storage and recovery and innovative requirements for larger buildings to treat and reuse water. The Austin Central Library’s onsite water reuse system is a model that can pave the way for similar local efforts across the state. The library uses a pre-existing 373,000-gallon cistern that collects roof rainwater and air-conditioning condensate, which is disinfected to be used for non-potable purposes, such as toilet flushing and outdoor irrigation.

Unfortunately, most laws and regulations that govern water use in Texas were adopted under the traditional, centralized framework, making it extremely difficult to construct onsite wastewater reuse systems. The lack of regulations that govern more innovative water supply strategies, such as public drinking water systems that source rainwater, may actually stymie the development of One Water projects as developers often prefer clear regulatory and permitting paths over case-by-case decision-making by regulators.

To ensure our water supply is resilient to climate change, population growth and operator error, Texas should update regulations to promote the use and reuse of locally generated water. Such decentralized One Water strategies will be a key component to cities’ future water security and help ensure we avoid future, large-scale water infrastructure disasters – and more boil notices.

Puig-Williams is director of Environmental Defense Fund’s Texas Water Program.

Mace is executive director of Texas State University’s Meadows Center for Water.

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Originally Appeared Here