Drinking Water

Salting roads, highways and walkways in winter helps prevent injury and save lives by reducing the risk of accidents on icy surfaces. As with everything in life, however, there is no “free lunch.” Everything has a downside; sometimes we have to look for it. As I told my son years ago, when something is “free”... Read More »

Providing safe drinking water requires a multi-barrier approach that includes protecting source water from contamination, physically and/or chemically treating (including chlorine disinfection) the raw surface- and groundwater, and storing and delivering the treated water in a manner that prevents re-contamination. Every day, more than a billion glasses of tap water are consumed from over 150,000... Read More »

As Perspectives readers gather with family and friends to celebrate the holidays, the Water Quality and Health Council invites you to share a mesmerizing time-lapse view of our home, the Blue Planet, from space. Hovering in a gravity-neutral zone between Earth and the sun, a million miles over the Blue Planet, the Deep Space Climate... Read More »

Americans consume more than one billion glasses of tap water each day.1  As 2016 comes to a close and a new administration prepares to take over in January, there are over 150,000 public drinking water systems in the US.2  Of these, 50,000 are community water systems that supply water to the same population (over 300... Read More »

The ability of microorganisms to attach to diverse surfaces and form complex colonies known as biofilms vastly improves their survival and growth in environmental niches. Biofilms form when bacteria adhere to surfaces by excreting a slimy, glue-like substance, and can include algae, protozoa, and other microorganisms. Nationally, biofilms cost the US billions of dollars every... Read More »