JOHN YANG: For nearly a week earlier this month, the 6th largest city in one of the world's wealthiest nations told its residents to boil the tap water because it may have been contaminated.

That city was Atlanta.

U.S. drinking water is among the world's safest and most reliable.

But an aging infrastructure is posing challenges.

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that there's a water main break every two minutes.

Earlier, I spoke with Shannon Marquez, professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University's School of Public Health.

I asked her why these problems are so common in the United States.

SHANNON MARQUEZ, Columbia University School of Public Health: Well, you know, there are a combination of things that are happening now, John, aging infrastructure from years of neglect, under financed systems, and having to make decisions that are more like Band-Aid approaches to addressing these challenges, as opposed to comprehensive rehabilitation.

That, coupled with what we are seeing with extreme weather events and climate change, are also really putting our water systems in jeopardy.

Many of these systems were constructed for a capacity that is really outgrown at this point.

JOHN YANG: Why the neglect?

Why the Band aid approach?

Is this just out of sight, out of mind?

SHANNON MARQUEZ: Well, in fact, if you think about what it's going to take to overhaul these systems, the amount of finance, the reality is that water utilities are faced with just being able to do what they can, patch the holes as they come, patch the main breaks as they come, and there's not enough resources.

It really is going to require federal level efforts.

And although we have the infrastructure bill, it's not nearly enough to really overcome these challenges.

One of the other challenges is the diversity of water systems.

The reality is that the governance and regulations around publicly owned treatment works versus community water systems.

You know, there is just a huge array of regs, and the structure of that makes it very inefficient.

So the reality is, depending on the size and the age of it, there are going to be different problems.

There's not a one size fits all solution to this problem.

JOHN YANG: How much would it take to really fix the system?

Is it more that the federal government has to do it, or is it the problem that we have, this sort of confederation of local Independent Water systems?

SHANNON MARQUEZ: So there's going to be a tremendous need with this funding gap.

I mean, the $55 billion that set aside is not nearly enough, partially because we also need to think about new approaches connecting these nodes.

There are something like 50 or 60,000 independent water systems in this country.

And the reality is, if you look at the growth and being more efficient, we need to come up with ways to connect them so that we can actually also address these challenges.

It's going to take far more as well, because we don't even have the data.

We don't actually have the information to know what all the challenges are.

What we are doing now is just reacting.

JOHN YANG: Are there ways to get around the problem of, as you say, in poor communities, underserved communities, is there a way to get around that so that the funding and the support is a little more even among communities?

SHANNON MARQUEZ: Well, I definitely think we have to have some creative investments, right.

We really need to think about partnering in ways that create solutions that make the funds more accessible.

So oftentimes, even when these programs, the loan programs are available, sometimes communities are missing out because they simply can't put together the package, the proposal to apply for the funding.

And then I also think that particularly in election years like now, we need to think about how water is a pressing political issue akin to whether it's health care or education.

We need to hold our government officials accountable at all levels to ensure that they're also thinking about this and prioritizing it, because we know it's disenfranchising the poor disproportionately.

And so it needs to be on the agenda in ways where we've never seen it before.

JOHN YANG: We've covered on this broadcast water problems in Flint, Michigan, in Benton Harbor, Michigan, in Jackson, Mississippi.

Is it a coincidence that these are all majority black cities?

SHANNON MARQUEZ: No, it's not a coincidence.

I mean, if you look at sort of the tenets of environmental racism and if you look at the troubled history we've had in this country, it is not a coincidence that once again, the disenfranchised tend to be those that have had really disproportional impacts on their livelihood across the board.

So whether it's health or education, these communities are facing the same challenges.

And so this water issue is just overlaid in the same way.

And so that should not be surprising to us.

What is surprising is how we continue to neglect these very same communities.

And so whether we're talking about, again, the education system in those communities, or healthcare and access to healthcare, and now thinking about water, just the mere fact that you're living in the U.S. and are planning your day relative to how you're going to access safe drinking water is quite shocking.

JOHN YANG: Shannon Marquez of Columbia University, thank you very much.

SHANNON MARQUEZ: Thanks so much John.