Digging among the mass of half-empty cups that cluttered my desk, I picked out a freshly poured glass of water. Then, slumping in my chair, I gazed at the mess; it had been a few days since I had been home long enough to do more than grab some water and go to bed. So I stuck my fingers into eight glasses and made my way into the kitchen to dump out about a gallon of water, or, for some in India, about two day’s wages.

In a city that gets more rain than most anti-depressants can handle, it’s hard to imagine that water is so expensive in India that millions of farm workers can’t afford to buy it. However, the problem isn’t just in India. About a billion people on Earth don’t have access to drinking water, and about half of the hospital patients are sick with water-borne illnesses.

About 4,500 children die every day from lack of safe drinking water, and in 2004 about 2.2 million people died from drinking contaminated water. Therefore, hundreds of thousands of people die each year of diarrhea from curable, water-borne illnesses, according to Ethos, a water bottle company that donates much of its profits to bringing water to the impoverished.

For most of human history, the primary source of water has come from the Earth’s surface, in rivers and rain. However, demographers say that in the past century the human population has more than tripled, and rainwater can’t keep up. As a result, dependence on wells has become a must for many developing countries. Thirty years ago India had about 2 million wells, but today it has about 23 million wells.

Although no one can deny a well’s necessity or benefit, the deeper it is dug the higher the chance it will get contaminated with arsenic or saltwater, rendering it permanently useless.

“Tube wells have been used for a long time, and due to over-extraction the water table is sinking lower and lower,” said Priti Ramamurthy, a UW associate professor of women studies who specializes in rural India’s water issues.

Although not all parts of India face this problem, the solution is turning back to the Earth’s surface. Because India only receives rain once a year from a monsoon season that lasts about two months, finding ways to store water is the most practical answer.

Building reservoirs and restoring canals will benefit lower-class people the most, as wells are mostly controlled by landowners who often sell their water for large profits to people who can’t afford it. Another way to store water is through building dams. Many experts have justified building large dams by their ability to store water. However, I agree with Anand Yang, director of the Jackson School of International Studies, who said large dams mostly serve the purpose of electricity and require a large outlay of funding. Large dams are not necessary and cause too much displacement for people who live on rivers.

Nevertheless, small dams can be useful for storing water, and they are able to produce energy to support development without causing too much displacement. Some argue that dams are merely an attempt by the government to control power. However, these people forget that most developed countries rely heavily on dams to produce energy for industry and water for agriculture, which alone makes up over two-thirds of all water usage.

Significant change starts with policy change in India’s government. Egregious use of water by farmers, deteriorating facilities, failure to produce promised water and apathy toward the issue are among a long list of policy issues. Yang hinted that the UW is even starting to form a project that would focus specifically on policy change in India.

Although few of us will have the opportunity to work on drinking water problems overseas, we can help by understanding the issue and making it known to the public. For those who want to take the next step, Craig Jeffrey, an assistant professor who lectures on the topic, encouraged student activists at the UW to reach out to young activists in India. We don’t all have to go to India to make a difference — we can just extend a helping hand to people already working toward a solution.

Although water policy doesn’t have the same flare as the Darfur protestors sprawled out face-first in Red Square mud puddles, it’s still a bigger issue. Let’s begin to think of it as one.

Reach columnist Celeste Flint at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.