Dec 5, 2016 3 min read

Clean water is something we take for granted.

Turn on the tap and it flows forth. We even have the luxury of adjusting the temperature to suit our needs when we cook or bathe. Heck, if you need any indication of how little we think about the availability of clean, drinkable water, consider that Americans have spent more than $12 billion annually on bottled water when clean drinking water can be accessed from the tap at no cost just about anywhere in this country.

But water isn’t something we should just assume will eternally be cheap and abundant. In the long run, unchecked climate change is expected to cause water to become scarce in dry regions even as torrential rains cause flooding in others. Droughts could well cause the displacement of people and the destabilizing of societies in various parts of the world.

In the short term, though, we need to understand that, despite its plenitude in the developed world, water is a precious and frequently unsafe commodity for people in the parts of the world that industrialization has so far passed by. Around the world, 783 million people cannot get water that is safe and clean. To put in context just how many people that is, you would have to double the population of the United States and then throw in the populations of Canada and Mexico on top of that. There are other numbers that should give us pause: Adequate sanitation is out of reach for 2.3 billion people around the globe, and 500,000 children die because they live in places that have poor or nonexistent sanitation and unsafe water.

Then, there’s the ongoing crisis with the city’s drinking water in Flint, Mich., and occasional outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease around the country that can be credited to bacteria that seeps into water systems.

There are people working tirelessly, though, to give all people access to clean, safe water. One of them is Abram Pleta, a 28-year-old Washington High School graduate who is now a research assistant at the International Center for Automotive Research at Clemson University in South Carolina. As we reported Monday, Pleta also has a company, Silecte International, that is marketing a system that disinfects water and kills off the bacteria that can make people sick. It uses no chemicals or electricity, and has no carbon footprint. The fact that it can operate without electricity means it can be deployed in areas where blackouts are common or that electricity has not reached.

Pleta says the system results in the “safest drinking water you can get,” and that his passion “has always been people first and technology second.” He told our Karen Mansfield that “if I can combine those passions, and come up with something that helps people, I’m happy. If I can provide clean water for people in sub-Saharan Africa, and better, safer water for someone in Manhattan, I’ll do whatever I can to make that possible.”

This region is often quick to lionize its sports heroes, but less quick to glorify those who succeed in other areas that are of greater day-to-day importance. Washington County should be proud to have nurtured someone like Pleta, who is helping to change the world in ways that are less celebrated but more meaningful than throwing a smooth touchdown pass or a mean curveball.