Water.....

When I first came to the US, few of my seniors advised me not to drink hot water from the water tap. . Reason being lead contamination..The explanation they gave me was that water here was heated using lead. But, later i found out that that aint true and here's the real story. Most of the buildings here ( in most parts of US) are very old which means they have water pipes made of lead. When water stays stagnant in these pipes for hours together theres the problem of lead leaching into the water and this has an impact in the long run..It leads to lead accumulation in the body and we dont like a stranger within us..Do we?? Recently, while I was talking to my advisor I asked her what I should do rather what she did... She told me to simply leave the taps open for a few minutes before drinking water!!!!! This coming from an Environemntal Engineering prof is something not very commendable..When i asked her if there was some alternative to that she could nt think of any..
Everyday the water works department spends millions of dollars to make the water potable and just imagine thousands of homes simple letting gallons of water to simply run down the pipe to mix with the sewage to be sent for treatment again?? Does'nt it seem inane and ridiculous?? Washing down dollars down the drain!!
I wonder why these amreeki people dont have the concept of having separate drinking water mains. Is it unfathomable that they could save millions by bringing about a few changes in their water management system??
On an average the per capita water consumption in the US is around 102 gallons a day and that in most of the impoverished African countries is around 10-15gallons a day. It takes 15 liters of water to produce one ball of lettuce. People in water-starved Nigeria produce lettuce to export it to countries like UK !! sounds staaaange...Donno wat to say about that..weird weird world!! what about the millions they spend on transportation charges and the impact it has on the expeditiously decreasing resources???
"The 250 million U.S. residents living today have access to about the
same amount of water as U.S. residents did 200 years ago, when the
population was four million.
If present consumption patterns continue, two out of every three persons
on Earth will live in water-stressed conditions by the year 2025.
(THAT’S ONLY 23 YEARS!)."[ refer Jeff Gaffney] ( dont want to be sued for plagiarism)
This reminds me of few lines I read in an English text..The rhime of the ancient mariner

"Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink."
----Samuel Taylor Coleridge