Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Potable water is a basic element of civilization
And in the United States there are places that are losing access to potable water because their water and/or sewer lines are crumbling and rotting away.
Aging and corroded pipes are bursting somewhere every couple of minutes. Dilapidated sewer systems are contaminating waterways and drinking water. Many local systems are so old and inadequate — in some cases, so utterly rotten — that they are overwhelmed by heavy rain.Bob Herbert also notes our prediliction for blowing up and "rebuilding" other countries in lieu of our own. But hey, if you want clean water, go buy it at the store like a good little consumer.
As Charles Duhigg reported in The Times last March: “For decades, these systems — some built around the time of the Civil War — have been ignored by politicians and residents accustomed to paying almost nothing for water delivery and sewage removal. And so each year, hundreds of thousands of ruptures damage streets and homes and cause dangerous pollutants to seep into drinking water supplies.”
There is, of course, no reason for this to be the case. If this were a first-class society we would rebuild our water systems to the point where they would be the envy of the world, and that would bolster the economy in the bargain. But that would take maturity and vision and effort and sacrifice, all of which are in dismayingly short supply right now.
We can’t even build a railroad tunnel beneath the Hudson River from New Jersey to New York.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
Post a Comment