what you need to know about ‘point of use’

drinking water is a resource i undoubtedly take for granted.

every time i go out for a jog around the d.c. monuments, i find myself thirsty afterwards and in search of water.

however, i am never worried where to locate water and whether the water will be safe to drink.

i’ll normally just take a stroll down to the local convenience store where i can buy an ice-cold bottle of natural spring water for a very affordable price. i can also drink from the tap and have full confidence that the water has been properly filtered before gulping down.

this is not the case for 780 million people worldwide, who lack access to safe drinking water. that’s more than double the u.s. population.

additionally, the water crisis claims more lives each year than war and other forms of violence. every day, we hear news about violence and atrocities from war, but hardly anything about the deadliness of water scarcity.

at first glance, lack of access seems like such a fixable problem. royce francis, an environmental engineer studying drinking water infrastructure at the george washington university, sat down with us in kogan plaza to help explain why it is much harder to fix than one might think.

as we all cheerfully sipped from our water of bottles, francis revealed to us that the filtered water we were drinking was possible because of a hefty investment in our water system – a luxury that developing countries do not share. 

francis mentioned “point of use” (pou) water systems as a potential solution and cheaper source of clean drinking water. in fact, they help reduce disease by 30 to 40 percent, making it as safe as it is cost effective. after reading this, i thought to myself of the millions of lives this could save, while at the same time adding a peace of mind for those drinking the water.

francis says pous are a viable solution to one of our historically greatest challenges. there are organizations, such as engineers without borders, which enable concerned citizens to help implement these much-needed pou systems within developing nations.

—​ eric osman