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JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): ..... The state of our drinking water and how two major problems in American cities these past few months are calling new attention to concerns over supply and protection.
Hari Sreenivasan in our New York studios has our conversation.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): The most recent case, Toledo, Ohio, where contamination from an algae bloom in Lake Erie temporarily made the water supply unsafe for 400,000 people and stirred new worries throughout the Great Lakes region.
That followed a major disruption earlier this year in West Virginia, after chemicals leaked into the Elk River around Charleston.
David Beckman wrote about these matters in an op-ed for The New York Times. He’s with the Pisces Foundation, an environmental philanthropy based in San Francisco, and joins me now.
So, Mr. Beckman, I know that we’re better off than 800 million people or so on the planet who don’t have access to clean drinking water on a daily basis, but what do these two events start to make you think about?
DAVID BECKMAN, Pisces Foundation: Well, Hari, they make me think about the fact that, while we have come a great distance in terms of water in the United States since the early 1970s, when we had rivers catching on fire, that water pollution is not a set-it-and-forget-it situation.
And we have to be cognizant all the time and vigilant to address new threats that come on the horizon, so that we can continue to enjoy safe and reliable drinking water and clean lakes and rivers.
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