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When a natural disaster hits, such as the recent Superstorm Sandy, many utilities are knocked out in residential areas. Electricity is the most common service to go down, but what happens less often is water service being disrupted. It's nothing short of remarkable that many places, urban and rural, are able to keep water flowing to and from our homes 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year and during all manner of weather and seasons.

The Washington Post pointed this out in a recent editorial that it ran, but what the editorial's writer also noted was that water systems across the country are under threat, not just from distinct weather events, but from everyday use and decay over years and decades.

Read the editorial: Our water system withstood Hurricane Sandy, but the threats aren’t over by James Salzman, an environmental law professor at Duke University and author of “Drinking Water: A History”