Congressional Digest

Excerpt

Water is an essential ingredient of life on this planet. Humans can live for weeks without food, but they can survive for only a few days without water. And while a clean and plentiful water supply is often taken for granted by those in developed nations, much of the world does not have access to safe water and a functional sanitation system.
According to the United Nations, roughly 884 million people lack access to clean drinking water, while more than 2.6 billion have no access to basic sanitation. About 1.5 million children under age of 5 die each year from water- and sanitation-linked diseases — ki…