America's Crumbling Water Infrastructure

David Schaper examines the state of water infrastructure—especially how much drinking water is lost due to aged infrastructure: "Imagine Manhattan under almost 300 feet of water. Not water from a hurricane or a tsunami, but purified drinking water — 2.1 trillion gallons of it….That's the amount of water that researchers estimate is lost each year in this country because of aging and leaky pipes, broken water mains and faulty meters."

Schaper goes on to examine a couple high profile instances of busted and inefficient water systems and cite studies about the state of water infrastructure:

• "A recent study by Gallet's group and the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning found the Chicago area alone is losing 22 billion gallons of treated water per year through leaky pipes."
• "The Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology, a nonprofit focused on sustainability, recently put out a report that estimates 'about 6 billion gallons of water per day may be wasted in the U.S.'"
• An American Water Works Association study that estimates a program necessary to repair the country's water infrastructure would cost $1 trillion.