UN declares 2003 the Year of Freshwater

"Aquathin OP-ED Commentary"

The quick read below discusses the tremendous importance of the role we and our industry play concerning water. Interestingly, what is ommitted is the water needs for commercial, industrial and laboratory...also missing is the future legislation adding contaminates (and reducing MCL for existing contaminates) to the regulated list. Costs are high, time is short. Again, it is up to each and everyone of us to provide our families and business with the very best in water security.  Water treatment is becoming very mainstream. Building contractors, kitchen designers and architects are specifying (or offering as options) water treatment systems and marketing them from necessities to comfort features.

UN declares 2003 the Year of Freshwater

      NEW YORK — Warning of a mounting water crisis, the United Nations has launched the International Year of Freshwater (2003).  "Water is likely to become a growing source of tension and fierce competition between nations if present trends continue, but it can also be a catalyst for cooperation," UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a statement yesterday.

Two of the aims of the campaign are to raise awareness about the scale of the crisis and to promote creative thinking about ways to end it, Deputy Secretary General Louise Fréchette told the UN General Assembly.

The year should promote peaceful dialogue on water-related issues, Fréchette added, noting it is often said that water crises and scarcities will at some point lead to armed conflict over this precious resource.  "But water problems can also be a catalyst for cooperation,"  she said, calling for greater interaction between governments, the private sector and users to create "equitable and environmentally sound solutions."  "The International Year is not an end in itself, but rather a beginning - the start of more intensive efforts to address one of the major challenges of our times," she said. 

About 1.2 billion people — one-fifth of the world population— lack safe drinking water and twice as many have no sanitation, the statement said. UN figures show that more than three million people a year die from diseases caused by unsafe water.  Heads of state and government agreed at the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000 to try and halve that proportion by 2015.  "If we continue with business as usual, it will take only a little more than two decades for two-thirds of the world's population to be living in moderate to severe water stress," Fréchette said.

The UN estimates that spending on drinking water supply and sanitation worldwide would have to increase from about $30 billion a year to between $44 billion and $60 billion to reach the goals of the Millennium Summit.

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Edited from Tech Bank 12/14/02