Today many more demands are placed on the same amount of water. Some water is recycled for use within a week, other water may not be used again for years. Water is resilient and responds well to treatment, however, using water and abusing water by contaminating lakes, streams, and wells with toxic chemicals are two different things. To keep our drinking water safe, it needs not only appropriate treatment, but also appropriate source protection. We can no longer take our drinking water for granted.
Public participation is vital to protecting our water sources, building adequate treatment plants.
Improving water delivery, analyzing costs versus risks, and enacting appropriate legislation. Maybe, maybe not. There may be more contaminants that can enter our water sources today. We did not have the technology to know what was in our drinking water 25 years ago. Today we have sophisticated testing equipment that enables us to know more about our water than ever before.