United Nations Declares Saturday World Water Day
By John Ostapkovich
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Today is World Water Day, as declared by the United Nations.
On a planet 2/3 covered with water, it may boggle the mind that so little of it is fit to drink, or use in industry or agriculture.
Christianne Barranguet, Ph.D, a water expert at health/science publisher Elsevier, says you and I can just turn on the tap, but it's hardly that easy for much of the world.
"As many as almost 800 million people do not have access to clean water, as we speak, and if you think about sanitation which goes together with water, the access to a clean toilet for instance, we have 2.5 billion people who do not have access to sanitation."
Barranguet says the average American uses 132 times the water as a person in Mozambique, not just to drink and bathe but in support of our First World economy.
She says the US is actually an exporter of water; some of it goes literally in fruits and vegetables, some figuratively in manufactured goods.