Drinkig water quality across the United States
New York City is unique among larger cities in the United States in tis access to virtually unlimited clean drinking water from the reservoirs of Upstate New York. No other densely populated part of the United States has such consistently abundant rainfall replenishing its reservoirs. And few municipalities have a comparable body of rigorous policies regarding public health and protection of the environment.
Yet, few other cities in the United States have as old a distribution network that is both leaky and in need of lead remediation. And because the supply of clean water seems to be endless, it is much harder to educate New Yorkers about how precious this resource is.
One goal of our NYC-based research is to collect enough baseline information for a more expansive national grant proposal submission such NSF Geography and Spatial Sciences Program (GSS) with the view of exploring sustainability dimensions of bottled water usage in the Northeast region and across the United States.