文档介绍：The Environmental Science of Drinking Water
by Franklin J. Agardy, Patrick Sullivan, James J. Clark
· ISBN: 0750678763
· Pub. Date: July 2005
· Publisher: Elsevier Science & Technology Books
Foreword
In an era of hyperbole and hubris, one hesitates to use current media
terms like "sea-change" (despite its currency, not a new term~it was
coined by Shakespeare almost 400 years ago) to describe the potential
impact of any new book addressing important issues of broad public
interest. But Patrick Sullivan and his coauthors, drawing on over 60 years
of experience in the field of water quality science and engineering, have
written such a book, an incisive pelling manifesto on the pres-
ent dangers inherent in the way our nation's drinking water supplies are
being managed today to protect their quality.
Their thesis is that the current approach to water quality manage-
ment, as codified through USEPA Water Quality Standards, is not sus-
tainable, and cannot achieve its avowed goals because of an intractable
complexity, not only of the cumbersome regulatory process through
which drinking water standards are created for pollutant chemicals, but
also plexity that now attends the chemical nature of water pol-
lution itself. As they point out, with at least 2000 new -
ing into production each year, with our nation already having 40% of its
waters out pliance with quality standards and facing water distri-
bution infrastructure upgrades that will cost about 10% of its annual
GDP, how can USEPA possibly assure the future availability of potable
drinking water to everyone? And this dilemma does not even consider
the many, many unregulated but potentially harmful chemicals now in
use for which no water quality standards yet exist.
Everyone cares about the quality of drinking water, but not everyone
has the educational or professional background to understand, without
some guidance, why their thesis is a sound o