by Duane Kuehn

Created on: March 27, 2010   Last Updated: March 30, 2010

One usually smiles when seeing children frolic in pools of water.  Unfortunately, even such play can be deadly to children in undeveloped nations.

Freshwater is essential for human life; so essential that multitudes of wars are fought over this precious commodity.  The number of men, women and children killed in wars over the ownership of freshwater is staggering.

The historical toll that is but a drop in a proverbial atrocity now regarding freshwater.  4,500 people die each day for lack of fresh water.  Estimates conclude that a whopping 90% of these iniquitous deaths by contaminated water are innocent children.

Every hour, approximately 170 children die a painful death because of bad water supplies.  In the time it takes to fill the average tub for a relaxing bubble bath, fifteen diarrheic children, suffering merciless cramps, die an agonizing death.  More than three children die every minute, this, for lack of the same fresh water used to flush a toilet.

The importance of fresh water can seem insignificant if one lives in a developed country, where fresh water is available in the turning of a faucet tap.

Living in an underdeveloped nation, however, is a daily struggle day to acquire that potable water, which is necessary for survival.  4500, people die each day in a battle to procure a small portion of what most take for granted, freshwater. 

Sickness and death due to contaminated water supplies are much rarer in developed nations.  Usually due to catastrophic events as hurricanes and floods that temporarily corrupt the water delivery system.

Nonetheless, fouled water could be coming to a tap near anyone.  In developed nations, factories, neighborhoods, and homes continually dump waste products into their own systems.  Vast amounts of waste water are polluting the ecological system.  The majority, 80% of this untreated sewage casually dumped into freshwater rivers and lakes.

The public relies on governments that do not regulate big business.  Big businesses not interested in funding new, healthy, technologies above profits.  Nonetheless, new technologies would only be temporary band-aids and cause bigger problems in the future.  The answer to the problems developed nations will face, lies in developing base sanitation and water recovery technology.  These same base technologies emerging in undeveloped nations.  Methods which, streamlined, can be used to repair problems now appearing

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