Water is critical to our communities, health, safety, and overall survival

Water is essential to all aspects of our communities. It truly is the single most crucial resource in our lives. But imagine if your city could not deliver water to you and your family. Life would look much different for all of us.

That was precisely how people across the country were challenged last month when Imagine A Day Without Water was hosted by the Value of Water Campaign. In its eighth year, the day of action event is held to heighten awareness of the value of water in our daily lives. It is also a time to highlight the importance of funding and support for water providers across the United States so they can continue to deliver water to our homes, businesses, schools, and hospitals.

The fact is that without cities and the utilities that provide us with access to water, we would not be left with much. Hospitals and medical facilities would be unsanitary and unsafe without clean and safe running water. Staying clean would be challenging without running water to easily wash anything, such as dirty dishes or clothes, which would elevate the risk of sickness and disease. Restaurants would not be able to prepare dishes without access to running water to cook, clean, or keep food sanitary. Firefighters could not do their jobs without operating fire hydrants, and fires would be left to burn. Parks, recreational and athletic fields would be barren, dry, and, for the most part, unusable. And office buildings, warehouses, schools, and academic institutions would not function correctly or be safe without the availability of water. Additionally, no one would be able to operate cooling towers, which are critical for making our workplaces and other frequented venues hospitability during our long summers.

In industry, machinery relies on water to cool it to a temperature that keeps the manufacturing process going. Almost every manufactured product uses water during some part of the production process for such purposes as fabricating, washing, diluting, cooling, or transporting a product.

On a grand scale, the generation of electrical power also makes use of water to cool equipment and to push the turbines that are the heart of the process that produces electricity, including the power created by the Palo Verde Generating Station that utilizes water provided by the Valley cities. Without power and water distributed throughout our communities, our modern world would be unrecognizable, and life here in the arid desert would be nearly impossible.

Water is essential and invaluable. And imagining a day without water is an important reminder of water's critical role in our personal lives, communities, health and safety, and human survival. It is also a reality check as we talk about our changing climate, prolonged droughts, and water shortages impacting millions of people. Our current way of living relies heavily upon the availability and reliability of clean water. That is why the ten AMWUA cities, which provide water to 3.7 million people, take the responsibility to deliver safe and reliable water to all areas of our communities very seriously.

Ultimately, we need to appreciate the value of water, a seemingly unending resource, and its significant role in our lives. Water is the lifeline of our communities, and continued investment in our water and wastewater infrastructure is critical, so water providers can keep the water flowing and we don't have to learn firsthand what it's like to live even a day without water.

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For 50 years, Arizona Municipal Water Users Association has worked to protect our member cities' ability to provide assured, safe, and sustainable water supplies to their communities. For more water information, visit www.amwua.org .