Celebrities have had a bit of a rough news cycle this week, but earlier this month came a feel-good story about actor Jaden Smith providing money to help Flint, MI residents get “The Water Box”, a relatively small-scale drinking water treatment system.
We shouldn’t have to rely upon the generosity of celebrities to make sure everyone has access to clean, safe drinking water. And yet, nevertheless, here we are. While we’re all probably at least a little familiar with pictures of villagers in developing countries facing scarce water supplies, the problems exist right here in America as well, and they’re getting worse.
This isn’t a problem isolated to Flint, despite all the media attention there. Recently 21 cities and towns in New Jersey learned they have elevated lead levels in their own tap water. There are an estimated 240,000 water main breaks in the United States each year, and degrading water infrastructure in the country is expected to cost businesses $147B in losses from 2013 through next year. And meanwhile, there are few signs that at the Federal level, policymakers are about to get serious anytime soon about the hundreds of billions of dollars of investment deemed necessary to fix our crumbling drinking water and sewage infrastructure.
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Forbes
by Rob Day
Mar 14, 2019