The Coming Water Crisis
Many billions of dollars will be needed to quench America's thirst, but is private business the answer?
But public officials are loath to hike rates for fear of burdening lower-income families. That's certainly a problem in big cities, but even more so in small towns, where, lacking economies of scale, water treatment and distribution is more expensive. Consultant Raftelis found that water bills in small systems average 25 percent higher than in large ones he has surveyed. The new arsenic rule is projected to cost households under $1 annually in the largest systems but over $300 in those serving fewer than 100 customers.
Economist Wallace Oates of the think tank Resources for the Future says arsenic's economic realities make a case for abandoning national standards and letting localities weigh costs and benefits on their own. Congress and the EPA already let small water systems operate with less regulation and enforcement--some will have 14 years, instead of four years, to meet the new arsenic rule. The Bush administration is studying whether to relax small-system standards even more. Yet all but a fraction of health violations occur in small systems, which serve some 50 million citizens. "What you have is a two-tier drinking water system, and that's pretty troubling," says NRDC'S Olson. He argues that health and efficiency require a major consolidation among the 54,000 U.S. water suppliers. Says EPA's Mehan, "Citizens and systems are going to have to look at this option."
Turning off the tap. Citizens are certainly looking at other options, but less with an eye to changing the system than to just protecting themselves and their families. "We're looking at having a plumber put a filter on our entire house," said Atlanta resident Davignon. In the meantime, he buys bags of ice and water from the supermarket, adding, "I hate to pay for water, but if it's undrinkable, or the kids can't bathe, you do it." Already, 76 percent of Californians rely on bottled or filtered water. "We have reached a breaking point beyond which central treatment can no longer go," says Peter Censky, executive director of the Water Quality Association, which represents filter makers. Joseph Cotruvo, a former EPA water administrator, agrees: "You wouldn't think of drinking orange juice out of a pipe, would you? I wouldn't be surprised if 25 years from now the thought of drinking water as a beverage rather than a commodity will dominate."
The drive toward bottled water and filters will, however, widen the gap between haves and have-nots, a result some hope technology can prevent. "[G]oing into the 21st century, you can't get the kind of long-term improvements in water quality that are needed without the next generation of technology," says Olson. A few U.S. water systems are trying disinfectants used in Europe: ozone, ultraviolet light, and perhaps the best purifier (used by bottlers Pepsi and Coke), reverse-osmosis membrane technology. "It removes just about everything," says Olson, "so you don't have this contaminant-of-the-month approach."
And yesterday's clean water may not be clean enough for the future. L. D. McMullen, chief executive officer of the Des Moines water system, believes as the population ages and more people have compromised immune systems, cities and towns will have to provide water much lower in contaminants than they do today. "We will totally have to deliver water to customers in a totally different way," he says. "You may see what I like to call `neighborhood polishing units,' that develop ultrapure water in the neighborhoods and deliver it to homes" through much smaller pipe systems. Households need relatively little superclean water, McMullen points out, since less than 15 percent of "drinking water" is drunk or bathed in. Most goes to flushing toilets and watering lawns.
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