Yesterday, I was listening to NPR's Environment podcast that highlights all environmental stories broadcast over the past week. One story on the state of our water infrastructure here in the United States really stood out. An expert on our water supply told of how we have a really old infrastructure and replacement policy has ridiculously long time frames. In fact, based on current policies nationwide, most regions would experience three 1-in-100 year storm events before they would replace their water infrastructure. Think of that. We expect cast iron pipes to last all the pressures put upon them to last roughly 300 years.
This news story really made me take a new look at the water crisis that is emerging. As I have written before, finding and sustaining water supply will be a challenge in the coming years due to climate change and over usage. However, what if we have a water supply but the delivery system is prone to massive breaks? This was recently demonstrated on the UCLA campus in California where more than 20 million gallons of water shot to the surface after a 93-year old water main broke there. Here in New York City, water main breaks are a frequent occurrence.
The NPR story rightly pointed out that we don't think about our water infrastructure enough, and we are unwilling to pay the price for upgrades. Again, water is an essential resource. We need it, and with water supplies ever decreasing, we need to ensure that delivery is efficient with no loss along the way to our glasses or bathtubs. We may have more advanced water infrastructure than many parts of the world, but the materials are outdated and if we don't address the problems, we will be no better off than a rural community in the developing world that relies on a single well in the town square where residents must carry their water away in buckets. The solution to this problem is easy enough, fix the replacement policies and get water users (commercial and industrial building owners, homeowners, and farmers) to pay just a few dollars more every month so that our communities can invest in updating and replacing our water infrastructure. The key to this easy solution is us pressuring our lawmakers, as it always is.
This news story really made me take a new look at the water crisis that is emerging. As I have written before, finding and sustaining water supply will be a challenge in the coming years due to climate change and over usage. However, what if we have a water supply but the delivery system is prone to massive breaks? This was recently demonstrated on the UCLA campus in California where more than 20 million gallons of water shot to the surface after a 93-year old water main broke there. Here in New York City, water main breaks are a frequent occurrence.
The NPR story rightly pointed out that we don't think about our water infrastructure enough, and we are unwilling to pay the price for upgrades. Again, water is an essential resource. We need it, and with water supplies ever decreasing, we need to ensure that delivery is efficient with no loss along the way to our glasses or bathtubs. We may have more advanced water infrastructure than many parts of the world, but the materials are outdated and if we don't address the problems, we will be no better off than a rural community in the developing world that relies on a single well in the town square where residents must carry their water away in buckets. The solution to this problem is easy enough, fix the replacement policies and get water users (commercial and industrial building owners, homeowners, and farmers) to pay just a few dollars more every month so that our communities can invest in updating and replacing our water infrastructure. The key to this easy solution is us pressuring our lawmakers, as it always is.
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