The New York Times has focused this past year on an issue that most mainstream media ignores: our water infrastructure. The latest sums up the costs invovled in repairing and updating water infrastructure in the US (I'll give you a hint think big, then think biggerer).
There is a cost in the broken system, though:
“We’re relying on water systems built by our great-grandparents, and no one wants to pay for the decades we’ve spent ignoring them,” said Jeffrey K. Griffiths, a professor at Tufts University and a member of the E.P.A.’s National Drinking Water Advisory Council.
“There’s a lot of evidence that people are getting sick,” he added. “But because everything is out of sight, no one really understands how bad things have become.”
...but if you think we've got a challenge, the water situation is an out-and-out crisis in the world's poor nations, as outlined in the latest World Bank report on water infrastructure projects. More than 700 million people living in 43 countries under severe water stress, according to the World Bank. The report focuses on myriad ways to improve its investment in water projects and to make water infrastructure projects more cost-effective.
In a related move, The Carbon Disclosure Project will begin asking some 300 global companies to disclose their water use, in addition to their carbon emissions.