It's All About Clean Water

National Drinking Water Week

"It's All About Clean Water" is a recurring column exploring issues tied to water quality in our community.

National Drinking Water Week: Celebrate the Value of Water

The first week in May is National Drinking Water Week, a time to mark the importance of clean, safe drinking water and what it means to our community.

As one of the most valuable resources on the planet, clean water should be celebrated every single day. After all, water sustains life, runs our economy, promotes good health and improves our quality of life.

But value is often ambiguous and difficult to measure. As Oscar Wilde said, "Some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing."

Most Americans may acknowledge that water is too often taken for granted. That may be because clean drinking water is available to most Americans at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, one quarter of the world's population is without safe drinking water. Here at home, mentioned in an earlier column, 2,500 local residents in the Sewee to Santee community still struggle with poor water resources. Their story shows how the value of water is integrated into nearly every layer of our existence.

Discover the true value of water with these facts about how water impacts your daily life:

Here's To Your Health

• As humans, we are practically "sloshing" when we move; our bodies are 70-percent water.
• Water is essential to maintaining a healthy body. The average person can live up to a month without food but only about a week without water.
• Water helps our bodies function more naturally, promoting good digestion, nutrition and skin hydration.
• Water also helps us flush toxins from our system and even helps hold off hunger pangs.

Parents should take note of children's water intake. A recent national study shows that more than 75-percent of American children are "chronically dehydrated." This is due in part to the abundance of sugared sodas and "flavored" bottled water drinks that are consumed.
Safety and Economics

Public safety and a healthy regional economy are directly tied to modern, high technology water and wastewater system operations. Here are just a few areas:

Adequate water pressure and system flow provides local fire departments with the essential resource to fight fires and protect life and property.

In Mount Pleasant, new fire hydrants and larger water mains have helped our town achieve and maintain an impressive ISO fire rating of "2" (on an ISO scale of 1 "Best" to 10 "Worst"). This rating helps keep home and business insurance costs low.

Economic growth for businesses and jobs all rely on a stable water supply, good pressure and clean wastewater operations.

Comparing Value and Service.

Consider water and and the service MPW provides:

• MPW can deliver water to your home for less than a penny per gallon.
• And that requires some heavy lifting. Mount Pleasant Waterworks delivers 8,340 pounds or 4.17 TONS of clean drinking water to our customers' homes for $2.55.
• We also remove, treat and dispose of that same amount of wastewater for $3.06. Now that's a heavy duty delivery service when you consider 1,000 gallons of water weighs one ton more than a Hummer.

Celebrate National Drinking Water Week

Please join us and the rest of America this week as we raise a toast to one of the truly best values found anywhere in the world: clean drinking water. Also it is a good time to remember the hardworking employees and elected Commissioners that work every day to bring clean water to our community and to ensure this valuable resource will be around for generations to come.

(Clay Duffie is General Manger of Mount Pleasant Waterworks and has more than 30 years of experience in water and wastewater management practice. He is a past President of the South Carolina Water Pollution Control Association and the SC Section of the American Water Works Association (AWWA) and has led numerous national seminars on environmental, leadership and utility management issues.)