Whenever I get a chance to teach social studies, I tell my students that sometime in their lifetimes there will be a war over water somewhere in the world. You’ve probably seen the stories about Cape Town, South Africa, and how their current water supply is measured in months. The latest projection is they will run out in June (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/02/14/water-crisis-cape-town-day-zero-june/337844002/).
So how are we doing? Talking about infrastructure, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2017 Infrastructure Report Card gives drinking water a D grade (https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/cat-item/drinking-water/). The Society estimates this country loses about 6 billion gallons of drinking water to leaks every day.
But I’m mentioning this now because there is some good news. In an article entitled “Oklahoma Leak Busters” by Christa Case Bryant, The Christian Science Monitor reports a pilot project run by Oklahoma’s Department of Environmental Quality to identify and repair leaks has saved $800,000 so far. The project is in cooperation with the Oklahoma Rural Water Association and is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Improvements can be made. All it takes is will and funding.
The article is on-line at https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2018/0205/The-Oklahoma-leak-busters , but registration is required.