Water woes shed light on what we take for granted

We take for granted being able to turn on the tap without fear of being sickened. This is the way it is in America. We can drink the water.

For the next three days, after that initial first morning resulted in no health consequences, I decided not to take any more chances. I remembered that I had several jugs of drinkable water in the basement. For whatever reason — probably because I was trained by a mother who always planned for “what ifs” — I had, over the years, rinsed out Clorox jugs when they became empty and filled them with water. Y’know, you never know.

I drank bottled water at work and came home to these jugs that had to be dusted off, then I had to remember to lug one up to the counter if I wanted to rinse a spoon, freshen the pets’ water bowl or wash off a peach.

It’s so easy to forget and so quick to turn on the water and hold the peach under it. Oh no! And then the next morning, so easy to forget and hold the coffee carafe under the water … but I remembered in time to pour it out, then rinse the coffee pot from the jug and then fill it from the jug before pouring water into the coffeemaker.

I did wash my hands from the tap, using extra soap and remembering not to suck my thumb.

I’m a strong believer in environmental regulation, a fervent believer that solid environmental standards and practices lead to a better economy because, for starters, who wants to invest where someone can dump sludge into the stream you fish in or pour toxins into air that you like to breathe?

Without it, we don’t know what’s in the water because we don’t have anyone to say, “Whoa, that water is testing for pathogens!”

Having faith in a certain standard of quality is part and parcel of being an American. I want to have faith in the person who says, “Your water is now safe to drink.”

On Aug. 28, when the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority alerted about 18,000 customers to boil water before drinking it, that was a precaution. Inspectors from PWSA and the Allegheny County Health Department noted that the polypropylene cover on the Lanpher Reservoir in Shaler, which birds frequently land on, looked a little deteriorated in places.

It will be fixed to the tune of $9 million over nine months. The reservoir was taken offline and PWSA will reroute water to the affected areas. The lifting of the order to boil didn’t ease my mind completely, because I was already thinking about Third World worries and First World assumptions.

We have come to assume that American systems, infrastructure and processes will always be top notch and won’t let us down. But there is reason to believe America may not be as resilient as we expect it to be.

Our rates of poverty, infant mortality and other benchmarks that differentiate the First World from the developing world are rising, and our infrastructure is in serious decline, from bridges and locks and dams to levees and water and sewer systems.

It really is just an inconvenience when you can’t use tap water for three or four days. It takes less than that to realize how vulnerable our nation could be with less than robust official attention to standards that assure our health and well-being.