World Water Day, March 22: A Focus on Water Infrastructure

Today the 22 of March, is the official 'World Water Day.' This globally recognized day has been organized with the intent of bringing to widespread attention the current negative condition of one of the world's most precious resources, water.

Numerous forces--from electricity production, to irrigation, to deteriorated infrastructure--are at play, throughout the world over, applying immense pressure on our constantly depleting freshwater supplies. The focus of my salute to today's 'World Water Day,' is on the nation's devastatingly outdated and deteriorating water infrastructure--the pipes and systems that deliver fresh water to end users (households, businesses, public restrooms/drinking fountains, and some farms that don't have their own wells) and returns dirty water to water treatment facilities--that are in dire need of rebuild.

Deteriorating water infrastructure allows for massive amounts of water loss on both ends of the delivery chain (fresh water and dirty water) to leak out and never make it to it's final destination. These water leaks cost communities and watersheds throughout the US trillions of gallons of water every year, threatening supply and human health in the like.

Here are some disturbing figures as posted in State of the Planet's Water Matters blog:

to make matters worse, the loss of these billions and trillions of gallons of water annually is not just taking a toll on water resources, but it also puts to wast the unnecessary consumption of significant amounts of electricity that is used to pump and treat the water that is being leaked away. As more and more water continues to leak out of broken pipes, more and more energy is being consumed to pump water--often times over long, sheer distances--to a point along the line where eventually some percentage of the water will simply end up being lost.

Unfortunately these faulty water pipes are just such a massive problem, there is no simple solution. It will require the federal and state governments to drastically increase spending on water infrastructure (I know, I know, that may mean making massive cuts in some other public funded area). But there are things that can be done to help mitigate these losses that doesn't require a complete and immediate overhaul of national water systems. The implementation of green infrastructure and low impact development in conjunction with practicing widespread water and energy conservation and recycle/reuse strategies will drastically and cost effectively help reduce demand on our water and energy systems.

On this day of World Water, my hope is not that we let a few handfuls of blog posts and news stories inform us about the shoddy states of affairs that our water supply, quality, and infrastructure have fallen to. My hope is that we take today's messages to heart and make a national commitment to finally protect and preserve what is left of our precious, finite supply of clean water.