The world will be atwitter today talking about wastewater. Water is becoming precious and in some places, so scarce that water we once considered as disposable, dirty, and useless, is now being looked at as a resource from which we can extract clean water.

Technically speaking, harvesting clean water out of wastewater is nothing new. Much of the technology is age-old, tried-and-true staple equipment and really the only thing determining whether or not we reclaim water is the actual expense in terms of per-gallon cost to do the work. That is, until recently. Clean water is becoming harder to come by so scarcity often outweighs the cost per-gallon of processing wastewater.

While this conversation is fascinating, what I want to talk about today is something a little bit different. Something that a lot of people are not going to want to hear, Nonetheless it is something everyone concerned about water really needs to hear. So here we go.

The pollution and contamination of our drinking water sources is inevitable. We can conserve, and we can be better stewards of the environment. We can apply waste minimization technology and we can find ways to recycle our wastes. These are all good things and I practice them myself whenever I can.

The reality of civilization however, is that population is growing, we are crowding into cities at an increasing rate, and the pollutants of mankind that include fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, road grease, gas and oil, smog, land fill pollution, medical waste and more, 200 years of it, has already been spread out across the fruited plane, and it has, for a long time now, steadily been seeping into our water supplies.

I am hear to tell you that our civilization has planted a ticking time bomb on our water. While we battle toxic waste sites and obvious polluters,the toxic deposits of post Industrial Revolution living have been hard at work gradually contaminating our water supplies for decades.

Is it too late for us? No, it isn’t. However, unless we recognize that our water treatment plants will most likely be unable to provide safe water 25 years from now, and that along with better environmental behavior, homes of the future must be equipped with a fail-safe, whole-house water purification system, we may be in for a global water crisis much closer to home than we ever imagined. The difference between our wastewater and drinking water is is getting smaller by the day.

America needs a national water policy. America needs a water czar.