Treatment

Although snow-capped mountains are visible from much of Denver where I live, Colorado is one of 40 states that anticipate water scarcity challenges in the next decade. The Water Quality & Health Council has written dozens of articles on drinking water quality and the public health imperatives of safe treatment, disinfection, storage, and distribution. Yet water quality goes hand in hand with water availability, use, conservation, and increasingly—water reuse. A newly launched report and national effort led by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Draft National Water Reuse Action Plan, is making the news. The plan succinctly puts these needs and connections into perspective: “Safe and reliable water supplies for human consumption, agriculture, business, industry, recreation, and healthy ecosystems are critical to our nation’s communities and economy.” Water scarcity challenges are also global; two of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals emphasize water reuse.... Read More »

Over the years, the Water Quality & Health Council has written extensively about how most Americans enjoy virtually unlimited, year-round access to safe, treated, and inexpensive drinking water for pennies per gallon. This article highlights how this cornerstone of U.S. public health protection is made possible across our large nation with widely varying climates, landscapes,... Read More »

Safe drinking water is an essential human need. But the vast majority of the world’s water (e.g., seawater) is high in salinity (briny) and dissolved solids, and is unsuitable for drinking and most domestic uses. (Making it potable cannot be accomplished without extensive and costly treatment compared to conventional treatment of traditional freshwater supplies.) According to the United Nations, water scarcity already affects every continent, especially in (semi)arid and rapidly growing coastal areas. And it’s not just California: Freshwater scarcity is already or expected to be a statewide or regional problem in many inland states like Nevada, Montana, and my home state of Colorado.... Read More »

Conventional water treatment transforms raw water into finished drinking water that is biologically and chemically safe. We recently celebrated the 110th anniversary of U.S. drinking water chlorination, a disinfection technology that debuted in Jersey City in 1908 using a dry compound called “chloride of lime.” Today we more properly call it calcium hypochlorite. Calcium hypochlorite... Read More »

In early September, Hurricane Florence became the first major hurricane of the Atlantic hurricane season and wettest tropical cyclone recorded in the Carolinas. Just over a month later, Hurricane Michael hit the Florida Panhandle, dumping significant rainfall before doing the same in southern Georgia and in many of the Carolina counties already reeling from Florence.... Read More »