Water pollution is a serious environmental problem that significantly impacts the health of Americans. Although the US is a developed nation, the contamination of water sources within its borders still leads to a myriad of risks to its citizens that are often so severe they make regional and national news headlines. In 2015, the US ranked third globally in terms of renewable water resources. This large quantity of water reserves enables the widespread availability of clean water for a variety of uses, but unfortunately allows for the wasteful consumption of water as well. Each day, the typical American uses more water by taking a five minute shower than the average person in a developing nation does in an entire day.

Because water consumption is so high that it is often very wasteful, US citizens are also at a high risk of health problems when water is indeed polluted. Specifically, the large consumption of resources in the US contributes the generation of over 2.2 billion pounds (nearly 1 billion kilograms) of pesticides that end up in rivers and lakes. On average, one in four beaches in the US will be closed at least once due to water pollution annually. Even worse, nearly 70% of American bays and estuaries are highly degraded as a result of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution.

While natural features such as lakes or gulfs are a common site of water pollution, contamination also leads to flagrant health hazards for Americans. Recently, the Natural Resources Defense Council found that more than 18 million people received drinking water from systems with lead violations in 2015. As shockingly high as this number may seem for any developed country, the study also noted that the actual number of citizens drinking tainted water could be much higher, as many violations go undiscovered by government databases developed to identify such problems.

In 2014, the town of Flint, Michigan received a great deal of attention after it was discovered that its approximately 100,000 residents were subjected to high levels of lead in drinking water. Furthermore, about 10% of the victims of this potential lead exposure were children. Last year, the government declared a federal state of emergency, mandating that inhabitants of Flint only use bottled or filtered water. Even though water quality has returned to standards deemed acceptable, residents are still being directed to not use tap water until the pipes that caused the lead exposure are replaced in 2020.

Work is being done by lobbyist groups and nonprofit environmental advocacy organizations to improve water quality, but given the current political landscape in the US, it seems unlikely that these efforts will yield any substantial leeway towards advancing legislation that will protect citizens from water contamination and natural ecosystems from water pollution. Currently, the Trump Administration is aiming to eliminate an environmental rule called the Clean Water Rule.

This rule protects streams and wetlands that form the basis of American water resources by establishing clearer definitions as to what constitutes as small water bodies that belong under federal jurisdiction. An Executive order was signed earlier this year trying to eradicate this rule as part of the administration's goal of reducing the power of the Environmental Protection Agency. Hopefully legislation that tries to prevent water contamination and other forms of pollution will still be able to combat such harmful actions, but it is up to all citizens, not only Americans, to call on elected officials to enact such change.