Third in the nation. That’s where Pennsylvania ranks in — wait for it — the number of clean water violations reported in the state as of 2015.

It’s not often we feel comfortable saying that throwing money at a problem is the answer. But that is the case here. The state Department of Environmental Protection needs adequate funding to properly handle its water monitoring duties.

And a current proposal to get DEP that funding, while it addresses the root issue, still takes far too long (18 months to two years) to achieve its goal.

The fees proposed in DEP’s package range from $250 to $40,000 for community water supplies; $50 to $1,000 for non-community water supplies (which includes schools); and $1,000 to $2,500 for bottled, vended, retail and bulk water suppliers.

Those numbers sound intimidating, but when you boil it down to a per-person cost to the 10.7 million people who rely on these water suppliers, the fees would end up costing people anywhere from 35 cents to $10 extra per year.

Still, that may be unacceptable to many. Pennsylvanians have made it abundantly clear over the past several election (and budget) cycles that they do not appreciate the idea of new taxes or fees being levied by the state.

Additional borrowing — like the $201 million Gov. Tom Wolf has proposed over the next three years to help fund water quality projects and the state’s Growing Greener program — seems equally unpopular with voters.

On this point, however, opponents should rethink their reflexive rejection of new spending.

This amounts to a risk-reward calculation. Do Pennsylvanians want to pay for preventive measures that adequately fulfill the state’s constitutional obligations to protect its natural resources and provide clean drinking water? Or do they want to wait until a multi-billion-dollar pollution crisis manifests itself — Flint, Mich., anyone? — to reach for their pocketbooks?

Regional water quality crises — the Summit school water debacle in Butler County; high lead levels in and inadequate testing measures for Pittsburgh’s public water supply — have already manifested themselves in big ways this year.

If the financial and public health implications of inaction aren’t enough to motivate residents and state officials, the prospect of losing control of our own water monitoring program — and millions in federal funding along with it — should prove an additional incentive.

In December, the federal Environmental Protection Agency warned state officials that lax oversight was creating “serious public health implications” and the risk of a federal takeover of the water monitoring program.

Allowing such a takeover to occur is simply unacceptable. And unlike other areas of state government, Pennsylvania’s failures on water monitoring aren’t products of inefficiency. They are the effect of years of cuts to DEP’s budget. As the department’s funding was siphoned off, the number of inspectors fell, workloads grew, the number of inspections fell, and unaddressed violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act ballooned — from 4,298 to 7,922 over the past five years.

The cost of allowing this state of affairs to continue is simply too high.