EDITORIAL
I Editor: James J. Morgan WASHINGTON EDITORIAL STAFF Managing Editor: Stanton S. Miller Assistant Editor: H . Martin Malin, Jr. Assistant Editor: Carol Knapp Cewicke Assistant Editor: William S. Forester MANUSCRIPT REViEWlNG Associate Editor: Norma Yess MANUSCRIPT EDITING Associate Production Manager: Charlotte C. Sayre ART AND PRODUCTiON Head: Bacil Guiley Associate Production Manager: Leroy L. Corcoran Art Director: Norman Favin Layout and PrOdJCtiOn: Dawn Leland Advisory Board: P. L. Brezonik, R . F. Christman. G. F. Hidy, David Jenkins, P. L. McCarty, Charles R. O'Melia. John H . Seinfeld. John W . Winchester
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Published by the AMERICAN CH EM I C A L SOC I ETY 1155 1 6 t h Street, N.W. Washington. D C . 20036 Executive Director: Robert W . Cairns PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND COM MU N ICATION D I V i SI ON Director: Richard L. Kenyon ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT Centcom. Ltd. For offices and advertisers, see page 660 Please send research manuscripts to Manuscript Reviewing feature manuscripts to Managing Editor For a u t h o r s guide and editorial policy see June issue page 5 1 7 or write Norma Yess, Manuscript Reviewing Office
In each paper with more than one author the name of the author to whom inquiries should be addressed carries a numbered footnote reference
When will it be safe to drink? The water, of course! When was the last time you visited an advanced waste treatment plant, and when the operator presented you with a sample of the clean and odorless effluent you either said to yourself or out loud, "Is it safe to drink?" In his recording, "Pollution, Pollution," Tom Lehrer had no answer either but did point out that the effluent that you discharge in San Francisco in the morning you drink for lunch in San Jose. This point is borne out by more recent evidence. As this month's feature authors. Shuval and Gruener. point out. the concentration of contaminants has been shown to increase in downstream communities as water is used and reused and as the percentage of unremoved residual refractory chemicals grows. Newer pollutants are showing up in drinking water supplies. it seems, more and more frequently. The organic components in the Evansville, Ind., municipal water supply and the biorefractories in the drinking water in Louisiana have earlier received attention in ES&T. Already there is some evidence that the need for water by municipalities, industries, and agriculture in certain areas is outstripping the supply of natural waters that have passed through the evaporative and precipitative phases of the hydrological cycle. Water supply and water demand are on a collision course in the water-short country of South Africa. And there at Windhoek, as far as we are aware, is the first place in the world where renovated waste water is being used for drinking purposes and makes up 14% of the normal supply and as much as 40% of the supply during the winter months. Whether this practice i s safe or not no one dares to say. But if the demand outstrips the supply in other parts of the world, including the U.S. for that matter, then undiluted waste water in a city, including industrial wastes, may have to be processed to a point of becoming fit for human consumption. Another aspect of this health problem is the longer life span of man, which subjects him to more and more pollutants for many more years than before. Certainly his longer life aggravates. in time and concentration, the pollutional insults to which he is exposed.
Volume 7, Number 7, July 1973
579
