MB posted Aug 23, 2022 8:55 PM
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Thesis Statement – There needs to be improved disaster preparedness in Santa Clarita, California community for the elderly and those living in disadvantaged areas, mainly the working-class families. They are susceptible to dirty water and poor hygiene.
Supporting Ideas
1. There are minimal or no legislations requiring good private owners to put necessary treatment requirements in place compared to public water systems.
2. Groups in disadvantaged areas are significantly impacted by dirty water and poor hygiene based on their diminished ability to purchase bottled water.
3. Improving hygiene levels also improves the region’s response to disaster preparedness and safety as the contributing factors are similar for both areas.
4. RIVAL PERSPECTIVE: Evidence shows that low-income people in urban areas shy from drinking tap water (Family et al., 2019).
Open Ended Question – What measures must be taken to ensure disaster management incorporates provisions for clean water, and how can private good owners help alleviate the problem?
DRAFT
Approximately 50 million people in Canada and the United States have access to water from private well owners to cater to their domestic needs. The law requires private well owners to undertake the responsibility of maintaining the water quality in their facilities as there is no reliable framework regarding enforceable drinking water standards. Additionally, no standards define the monitoring and treatment standards that all private wells must meet, as is the case of public water systems. Consequently, as Opflow (2020) argues, consumers of water from these private wells risk exposure to various chemical and microbial contaminants. Although point-of-use (POU) water treatment offers a viable solution to the problem, there is insufficient literature evaluating the effectiveness of POU treatment options in household setups. Conducting extensive research in this area can help overcome the risks to which private well users are routinely exposed. Private well users should be encouraged to evaluate the effectiveness of POU treatment on the quality of their water systems.
References
Family, L., Zheng, G., Cabezas, M., Cloud, J., Hsu, S., Rubin, E., … & Kuo, T. (2019). Reasons why low-income people in urban areas do not drink tap water. The Journal of the American Dental Association, 150(6), 503-513.
Mulhern, R. E. (2021). Point-of-Use Water Treatment for Private Wells in North Carolina: Risks and Solutions for Lead, Per-and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs), and Microbial Contaminants (Doctoral dissertation, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).
