Water Infrastructure Modernization Act of 2025

This bill updates federal water rules to help cities and utilities use smarter tools to manage water. It spells out what “intelligent water infrastructure” includes, like real-time sensors, leak detection, advanced metering, and AI tools that cut costs and improve reliability. It also covers projects that store water underground and reuse water, guided by real-time data. The goal is to improve safety, save money, and make systems more reliable during storms and droughts .

It lets grant money pay for engineering, design, construction, and final testing of alternative water source projects. Normally, planning, feasibility, operations, and maintenance can’t be paid with these grants. But for intelligent water technology, grants can cover implementation, training, and operations, and those expenses won’t be treated as operation or maintenance costs. The bill also raises the maximum grant size from $5 million to $50 million. The EPA must report to Congress within 180 days of the law taking effect, and then every year, on which projects got funds, how they improved resilience, and why some applications were denied .

Key points:

• Who is affected: Local water and wastewater utilities, and communities that rely on them .
• What changes: Clearer rules for “smart” water tech; grants can fund building and testing, and can cover training and operations for intelligent tech; larger maximum grant size ($50 million) .
• When: EPA reports due 180 days after enactment and annually after that .