We know that pure water is essential to life. However, the industrial progress of the past 200 years came at great cost to our precious water resources.

In America, a bottle of water now costs as much as a gallon of gasoline, and recent reports raise serious questions about the quality of bottled water.

The agencies which regulate our public water distribution systems allow what are called "acceptable levels" of various pollutants in our tap water including chemicals and even human waste.

Mostly, our communities use chlorine for public water treatment. Trihalomethines, by-products of chlorination, are suspected in causing cancer.

In the 21st century, a new group of contaminants threaten our very lives - microbes.

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