Focus On . . .DRINKING WATER
The Problem: The Earth has 1.386 billion cubic kilometers of water in total but only 2.5 percent of that is fresh water. Less than one percent of the world's fresh water is usable in a renewable fashion.
The Solution: Keeping pollutants out of precious water resources, efficiency in using and reusing water, new techniques for desalination, purification and conservation.
The United Nations estimates the price of bringing safe water to those who need it would be about $25 billion per year over eight to 10 years. Current world investment in clean water supplies is only $8 billion.
DRINKING WATER Websites
Recommended by the Editors of EcoISP.com
INTRODUCTIONS...
National Drinking Water Week is May 5-11. The theme for this year's official week is the Wonder of Water.
Most states and many water conservation organizations install and dedicate drinking water fountains and other infrastructure upgrades, hold fairs and workshops, and improve water sources such as lakes and streams.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) celebrates National Drinking Water Week online with information and places to surf to find out how to protect fresh water supplies.
There's a link to a site with water games for kids and a link to a watershed locator so people can explore what's going on in their own watershed.
Fact: Watersheds are land areas that catch rain or snow and drain to marshes, streams, rivers, lakes, or to groundwater.
EPA Office of Groundwater and Drinking Water The starting place for information from the U.S. EPA on drinking water and health basics, local drinking water information and standards, public drinking water systems, source water protection, and water safety issues.
Water on Tap: A Consumer's Guide to the Nation's Drinking Water This EPA online publication answers questions such as: How safe is my drinking water? Where does my drinking water come from, and how does it get to my home? My water may be safe now, but what about in the future? What can I do to help protect my drinking water?
Fact: Half of all Americans and more than 95 percent of rural Americans get their household water supplies from underground sources of water, or groundwater. Groundwater is used for about half of the nation's agricultural irrigation and nearly one-third of the industrial water needs.
Read the Citizen's Guide to Groundwater Protection, also from the U.S. EPA.
Water safety and security has become a concern in the United States since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The EPA's Water Protection Task Force and Regional Offices, working with many partners, are taking actions to improve the security of the nation's drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. Find out what they are doing the EPA's Water Infrastructure Security site.
The American Water Works Association, the largest organization of water supply professionals in the world, is conducting security training sessions that help local water utilities assess vulnerabilities, develop emergency response plans and risk communication strategies.
Fact: Nonpoint source pollution is the largest source of water quality problems. It is the main reason that 40 percent of assessed water bodies in the United States are unsafe for basic uses such as fishing or swimming.
The EPA's National Water Quality website offers a map of each state depicting surface waters that do not meet state water quality standards and information about each state.
Water quality monitoring is the job of the EPA Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds. Learn about becoming a volunteer monitor trained in pollution prevention, help clean up problem sites, and collect water quality data.
The National Rural Water Association is a non-profit federation of State Rural Water Associations. Fact: Over 2,600 groundwater protection plans have been adopted by local communities, and another 2,300 are in the process of being adopted.
EXLORE more WATER Websites!
Water sites of all kinds are listed at: Water What-ifs Water Related Websites from North Carolina University's Science Junction.
Home water filters are increasingly popular in the United States. The Pure Water Network says, "There is an enormous boom today in the awareness and usage of alternatives to drinking tap water. There are hundreds of new bottled waters now on the market and just as many hundreds of choices of various filtration devices." The network's Guide to Choosing a Home Water Filter is a clear explanation of the range of technologies and links to charts of all major filters, and a cost comparison chart of bottled water versus investing in a filtration unit.
Filtering the water while camping, hiking and climbing can mean the difference between life and death.
Doulton, manufacturers of emergency drinking water filters that are certified and used in 150 countries has a warning for water filter customers. "As a distributor of drinking water filter products that have been serving nations for two centuries, we must ask that purchasers of emergency and recreational portable water filters be cautious. There are thousands of get rich quick schemes being promoted to take advantage of the global water crisis, so please don't let your water quality fall prey to the unscrupulous."
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) Primer on Water Quality is a basic set of ideas and definitions. USGS web pages covering Water Resources offer the Site Inventory System contains and provides access to inventory information about sites at stream reaches, wells, test holes, springs, tunnels, drains, lakes, reservoirs, ponds, excavations, and water use facilities. Data in real time provided on surface water, ground water and water quality.
When a source of drinking water needs improvement, the National Association of County and City Health Officials, in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, offer a new community-wide strategic planning tool for improving community health - Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP). Facilitated by public health leadership, MAPP helps communities prioritize public health issues and identify resources for addressing them.
Water rights sale or lease transactions are listed at The WaterBank services website. You can list water rights, water utilities, water sources, bulk water, bottled water, disaster relief and emergency water supplies, irrigation project water, and geothermal waters for buyers and lessees to view. If you are looking for water for agricultural, industrial, mining, municipal, and subdivisions, you can list these too.
"Clean water is the gift of life," says Global Water, an international nonprofit, non-sectarian, non-governmental organization. By emphasizing volunteer help, Global Water serves as a vehicle to get involved in the worldwide effort to provide clean drinking water for developing countries. Permanent solutions to a region's water needs by providing well drilling equipment to drill new water wells to allow rural populations access to safe, clean groundwater, and to purify, store, and distribute new sources of water for drinking, cooking, hygiene, and agriculture.
American Rivers Top 10 Most Endangered Rivers 2002
You American Whitewater Association maintains a complete national inventory of whitewater rivers, monitors threats to those rivers, publishes information on river conservation, provides technical advice to local groups, works with government agencies, and, when necessary, takes legal action to prevent river abuse.
The Scientific Software Group has a site for water testing software and programs for watershed and environmental modelling.
VerticalNet offers Water Online, a catalogue of technology. This is an industry professional marketplace with news of the water industry, supplier news, measurement conversion, currency exchange rates, world time zones, calculators, reference information.
WaterTech Online, a publication of water treatment technologies, has daily water industry news and product features. Corporate and financial developments, mergers and acquisitions, legal issues, technological advances, legislation and new products and services in the water and wastewater treatment industry.
Save Water 49 Ways from American Water & Energy Savers is a common sense set of home and garden tips.
FURTHER EXPLORATIONS...
Clean water is a worldwide concern. The World Water Council is preparing for the Third World Water Forum is planned for March 16-23, 2003 in Kyoto and Osaka, Japan.
10,000 Volunteers are needed to gather opinions around the world in a unique program of global democracy called Water Voice Messenger, volunteers around the world are gathering opinions on water problems and solutions from any citizens who lack access to water, all of which will be sent via the Internet, fax or mail to the 3rd World Water Forum. Members List for the World Water Council.
Prince Willem-Alexander of The Netherlands has made the global sufficiency of fresh water a priority. In his speech as chairman of the Second World Water Forum in March 2000, he said, "Too many people in the world have no access to clean water or adequate sanitation. Millions of people - many of them children - die each year of water-related diseases: diseases that could easily be cured. Water resources are in danger of drying up - water that is needed to produce food and give people sustainable livelihoods. Half of our wetlands were destroyed in the last century. Half of the world's rivers are polluted, their ecosystems dead before they reach the sea. This is simply not acceptable."
African ministers in charge of water from 22 countries are urging that action to reduce death rates due to poor hygiene and polluted water be placed at the core of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. Read about it here.
ChemIndustry.com is a database of environmental water and wastewater sales and services sites covering engineering, bioremediation, water science and techologies, erosion control, water quality, habitat restoration, streambank and lakeshore stabilization, watershed management. It includes federal, state and local government water quality websites such as the Alaska State Division of Spill Prevention and Response. It lists professional engineers, geologists and hydrologists, coastal and wetlands experts, industrial hygiene, safety and training services.
The Global Environment Monitoring System Freshwater Quality Programme (GEMS) of the United Nations Environment Programme is hosted on the Environment Canada GEMS website. GEMS Water Partners lists links to high level water scientific and policy setting agencies that operate on a national and international levels such as World Meteorological Organization, and the World Health Organization which has a WHO Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality Training Pack
Aquatech 2002 taking place October 1-4 at the RAI Conference Center in Amsterdam, Netherlands is one of the largest water industry shows in the world. The last show drew more than 23,000 attendees from 100 countries.
Nuclear energy to power seawater desalination is a growing interest among water-scarce nations according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Fact: Eleven countries are taking part in an IAEA technical cooperation project on desalting seawater using nuclear technology.
This technology is being considered by countries which lack cheap indigenous energy resources, need large amounts of desalted water, and have the means and infrastructure to install a medium size nuclear power plant. An agreement between Indonesia and South Korea was signed in October 2001 to do a preliminary economic feasibility study for a nuclear desalination project on Madura Island, Indonesia.
Quote: "Water scarcity is now the single greatest threat to human health, the environment and the global food supply."
-- David Seckler, executive director, International Water Management Institute, a research center
of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research which released a study predicting that a third of the world's population will experience severe water shortages within the next 25 years.
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