Rahm Emanuel and Mark Tercek, writing in the Chicago Sun Times:
James Marvin Phelps
“The world’s cities spend roughly $90 billion per year on infrastructure to move and treat water. This price tag is increasing as urban populations grow, infrastructure ages, and our changing climate continues to turn once-reliable rainfall into periods of more severe drought and floods.
We spend billions to clean water, but do comparatively little to prevent it from getting polluted in the first place.
Delivering clean and reliable water may be the single largest challenge that our growing cities face. The good news: we have a significant opportunity right now to turn this trend around. Investing in nature can reduce the amount of nutrient and sediment pollution in our natural water sources, before costly chemical treatment is required.”
This will be a very important test for politicians.
