| > | | | | facilities now use chlorine to disinfect their water |
| Discover how municipal water filtration has evolved, | | | | which translates into the fact that over 200 million |
| how it was created and the problems that still face | | | | Americans now receive chlorinated drinking water |
| our society today... | | | | from their taps. Health statistics have shown over |
| Municipal water filtration systems have been around | | | | the years that water filtration and disinfecting |
| for centuries. Even people several centuries back | | | | techniques have led to a much healthier population in |
| realized the need for safe, clean public water and | | | | areas where it is practiced. Unfortunately, there are |
| started demanding it from their leaders. This demand | | | | still areas on the globe without municipal water |
| was based on an Enlightenment period concept that | | | | filtration systems where people still get ill and die |
| people had certain natural rights, such as the right to | | | | from polluted water. |
| drink and bathe in clean water. Philosophers of the | | | | The system even in America, however, isn't perfect. |
| era spent hours pondering on this topic, and the | | | | Waterways continue to amass every kind of |
| general consensus was that the people were right in | | | | contaminant known to man. Even though |
| their expectations. As a result, different water | | | | environmental issues came into focus in the 1960s |
| purification methods were introduced. In 1804, the | | | | and '70s, and massive efforts were made to prevent |
| first city-wide water filtration system began | | | | factory waste products from being dumped into our |
| operation in Scotland, and the idea spread from there. | | | | water resources, and although water filtration |
| In the modern era, we have all come to expect | | | | technology has vastly improved, the water these |
| municipal water filtration as one of our unalienable | | | | plants are trying to clean continues to be dirtier and |
| rights. | | | | dirtier. Most likely this phenomenon is just the result |
| Municipal water filtration facilities spread in popularity | | | | of the world being more populated than it was at |
| due to increasing technologies and the greater | | | | any other time in the past. The challenge now is to |
| awareness that drinking unhealthy water could result | | | | either get serious about controlling the amount of |
| in epidemics and a public health crisis. Chlorine was | | | | junk that continues to pour into our waterways or to |
| first introduced into drinking water during a cholera | | | | invent still other methods of municipal water filtration |
| epidemic and proved to be an invaluable purifying | | | | that will control much more massive amounts of |
| agent. About 98% of all drinking water treatment | | | | contaminants in the future. |