Water supply of the United States

Abstract

The front pages of the press throughout the country during the past several weeks have dramatized the critical water shortages in many parts of the Nation. The concerns that has grown in recent years over the future of our water supplies has been forcibly brought to the attention of the public by the water shortage that New York City is experiencing. This shortage is not the dirt that has affected an American community and it probably is not the most serious. Ample sources of additional water are known to exist in Upstate New York, and in all probability construction that will bring this water to the city will be pushed as rapidly as possible. Nevertheless, the fact that our largest city, the center of our business life, has an acute water shortage, even though it may only be temporary, causes everyone to realize something of the importance that water has in our national life and out national economy and security. In nearly every state of the Union, one or more communities now has or has had water problems as serious as or more serious than that which now faces New York City. These problems are springing up in increasing numbers, and it is high time that orderly and systematic consideration be given to their solutions and to the avoidance of as many such problems as possible in the future. If the crisis in New York services to bring this fact into national focus, New York's misfortune may in the long run be a blessing in disguise.