Clean Water
About
People who travel abroad know the familiar problem with unsafe drinking water. At home, we scarcely give it a thought. Usually, we are right. But the sources of our drinking water are constantly under siege from naturally occurring events and human activities that can pollute our sources of drinking water.
Did you know?
- In the United States, water utilities treat nearly 34 billion gallons of water every day
- In the United States and Canada, the total miles of water pipeline and aqueducts equal approximately one million miles - enough to circle the globe 40 times
- Americans drink more than one billion glasses of tap water per day
- Children in the first six months of life consume seven times as much water per pound as the average American adult.
The Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences is involved in three areas of water quality research and control:
- Waterborne microbial illnesses
- Contamination of drinking water with metals such as arsenic and lead
- Biomagnification of toxins in the ocean food chain
Our Involvement
Faculty
Courses
- ENV H 433 Environmental and Occupational Sampling and Analysis III
- ENV H 440 Water, Wastewater and Health
- ENV H 451 Ecology of Environmentally Transmitted Microbiological Hazards
- ENV H 452 Detection and Control of Environmentally Transmitted Microbiological Hazards
- ENV H 541 Ecology of Environmentally Transmitted Microbial Hazards
- ENV H 542 Detection and Control of Environmentally Transmitted Microbial Hazards
- ENV H 540 Water, Wastewater and Health
Centers, Institutes and Studies
Other Resources
- EPA drinking water topics
- Mercury in the Environment and Water Supply, former postdoctoral fellow Crispin Pierce’s website at the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire
- US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Lead in water: Questions and answers
- US Geological Survey, Arsenic in ground water of the United States
- Washington State Department of Ecology, Puget Sound
- World Health Organization, Drinking Water Quality website