CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Recently a friend moved to Tucson, Az. Tucson is a fast-growing city with a gigantic problem. Water is scarce and feuds are on going about supply, much of which arrives through viaducts from outside the region. I advised my friend to make sure that any purchased home includes an allocation of viaduct water in the contract, an acceptable provision in that area.

Not long ago, basic economics included a discussion of "free goods" -- water, oxygen, and similar commodities essential for life. That situation has changed dramatically. Oxygen is dispensed by vending machines in places as varied as Cusco, Peru, and Toyko, Japan. In a similar manner, water has become an extremely valuable commodity as well and is increasingly dispensed in bottles. Public drinking fountains will likely disappear as rapidly as payphones.

We all know that water is essential for life. As a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, I saw first hand the problems such as dehydration caused by a lack of water, and problems such as river blindness caused by bad water. The evening television news showed people in Haiti fighting each other for access to drinking water as they dealt with the devastating earthquake on Jan. 12 that made one in seven homeless and cost 300,000 lives.

We may not know that the cost of water is about to explode as fresh and clean water becomes scarcer. Since water is also the core ingredient for basic drinks and food products, scarcer water supplies will have an expensive impact throughout the chain of consumer goods. Contributing to the rising costs are changing climatic conditions such as drought as well as the purification techniques needed to clean the water of contaminants.

West Virginia is in a unique situation. West Virginia owns the waterways that touch the state's boundaries, such as the Ohio River, as well as all creeks, rivers and streams within the state. Wise conservation and careful use of that extremely valuable resource will permit West Virginia to have a competitive edge for future growth, development and quality of life.

This realization is important to recognize now. Several weeks ago, the EPA solicited comments for regulations that pertain to water quality in regard to mountaintop removal. There is a problem with contaminated wastewater impoundments, subject to leakages and spills over time. There is also concern that the deforestation, sediment, and metal byproducts from the mining is burying streams, impacting surface water quality, and contaminating ground water used by people.

Many other issues impact the water supply as well. Blasting jars rock formations below the surface, contributing to methane fissures in underground mining operations and causing potential disruption of the supply of water from source aquifers to public water systems. Spraying along power lines, railroads, and rivers plus burying coal slurry in abandoned mines, in addition to the infusion of captured carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants and various liquids or gases to force natural gas to the surface, are also techniques that have potential impact on ground water quality.

The stakes are high. We are all aware of the tragic situation at Massey's Upper Big Branch Mine that killed 29 miners and the fact that active surface mine blasting was in progress above the mine at the same time. A few months back, the New York Times had a front-page expose about the water supply with arsenic, barium, lead, manganese, selenium, and other contaminants that was causing life-threatening health problems around Prenter in Boone County. There, within an eight-mile area, coal companies injected "more than 1.9 billion gallons of coal slurry and sludge into the ground since 2004," with millions of more gallons dumped into lagoons. Warnings that fish from the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers should not be consumed, either at all or in quantity, are well known.

West Virginia's valuable water supply is at risk. Furthermore, as noted by the New York Times, "pollutants can accumulate in the body for years or decades before they cause problems. Some of the most frequently detected contaminants have been linked to cancer, birth defects and neurological disorders."

Another topic that we cover in economics pertains to "internalizing" externalities. Externalities are spillovers. Internalizing them requires the persons or entities making the spillovers to clean them up.

Using mountaintop mining as an example, there is no question that it has an economic impact for the state and those who are employed. However, the externalities are, in essence, imposing a major cost burden on others.

A way must be found to prevent those externalities or make sure that the cost of mining coal includes its full cost in the product price. In doing so, coal will be priced accurately and that process could also result in increased employment. For many years, oil has been a competing fuel and has been highly subsidized by U.S. foreign policy in the Mid-East and elsewhere. A similar example is BP's drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. On one hand, the Obama administration negotiated a $20 billion recovery fund from BP for victim compensation while on the other hand, BP plans to shave its tax bill to the IRS by $10 billion for losses, thereby passing on half the cost to taxpayers.

If oil were to be accurately priced to include covering these subsidies, an increase in the price of coal to internalize its externalities would not impact coal's competitiveness and could, in fact, increase employment as various existing mining techniques become economically unfeasible.

Protecting water quality is not the only issue at hand. Another is reliance on bottled water, a booming business and huge profit maker that has become a survival tax for many. Within a decade, the sale of bottled water has skyrocketed. While the cost of treated tap water in West Virginia is averaging a penny a gallon, an equivalent amount of bottled water is about $4 a gallon. Ironically, according to the Wall Street Journal, "47.8 percent of the most common type of bottled water sold by retailers came from city tap water." In essence, this extra exorbitant consumer expense is carved from expenditures that once were made on other needs and, in essence, should not be necessary if water was protected, treated, and trusted as a precious resource.

In July, 2010, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution that stated "safe and clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights." The text of the resolution expressed deep concern that an estimated 884 million people lack access to safe drinking water and a total of more than 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation. Studies also indicate about 1.5 million children under the age of 5 die each year, and 443 million school days are lost because of water and sanitation related diseases.

The assembly resolution received 122 votes in favor. The resolution urged countries to "scale up efforts to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable water and sanitation for all". Surprisingly, the United States was among the minority to not support the resolution.

Without question, tremendous strides have been made to bring dependable, clean water to rural areas in West Virginia during the past 25 years. Water is an essential and one of the primary components in our right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Yet, clean and dependable water, if the only healthy source comes from a bottle, may become financially unaffordable. Furthermore, bad water breeds disease, thereby contributing to permanent health problems and hurting the physical development of people destined to become the work force and citizenry of tomorrow. Such conditions are hardly conducive to economic development and building a new economy.

David, a professor at WVU Tech, is a commissioner of the Page-Kincaid Public Service District and a Gazette contributing columnist.