
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 9, 1993                   TAG: 9305070041
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

SAFE DRINKING WATER IS A MODERN MIRACLE

Turn on the tap and it's there. Clean water - safe to drink. We take it for granted that clean, plentiful water is as close as the kitchen faucet. Few realize what is required to make that water safe to drink.

Each day, more than 500,000 tons of pollutants are poured into our water resources. That's just industrial waste. Experts estimate that pollution from agriculture and urban run-off, as well as residential pollution, threatens our water resources more than industry. Modern society fouls the water and we depend on modern technology to make it clean.

Producing safe drinking water, however, is a complicated, 24-hour-per-day, every-day-of-the-year job. Public water systems are among the wonders of modern civilization.

For most residents of the New River Valley, this modern miracle takes place at the water filtration plan on Virginia 114. The 12-million-gallon-a-day plant is operated by the Blacksburg-Christiansburg-VPI Water Authority.

National Drinking Water Week, May 2-8, should have reminded us every time we turned on the tap how we can better care for our water resources.\ Kathy Sevebeck Education director Virginia Water Resources Research Center Virginia Tech

by CNB