There is no one solution to the issue of water shortages. If the discussion is about helping people get fresh water, most will initially think of water wells as the primary solution. Water wells will solve problems where groundwater is available and if it can be accessed. There are many areas where numerous issues prevent a water well from being a viable solution. There are also issues of polluted waterways, whether by manufacturing, human defecation or livestock and farm chemicals. We need to work together to solve these problems wherever possible.
A big obstacle in solving some of these problems is the lack of research. A good friend, who is the head of training for a major manufacturer, reminded me that our industry has the best engineers in the world. These engineers are distributed worldwide. My friend’s corporation has plants in dozens of countries. With today’s technology, we could develop a system to gather information utilizing numerous resources, such as satellite imaging to locate water. After the location is confirmed, the chemistry needed to identify and pretreat water could be determined. Much of this technology could also be used to identify land ownership, right of ways and access to places needing help often without leaving home. We can’t depend on our government to solve these problems. The EPA is doing what they can here at home and falling further behind daily.