The growing shortage of water around the world is no laughing matter. As highlighted in the article, "A Glass Half Full ," over the next 20 years, it is highly likely that many areas of our country and the rest of the world will face dramatic changes in the availability, quality, disposal and regulation of our water supplies. There are few new sources of conventional fresh water left to exploit. Everything we have is already allocated to specific uses.

On the other hand, there are unlimited supplies of sea water, brackish water and impaired groundwater available for desalination. While the desalination process removes salt from water, it likewise removes all other minerals. Since the process was growing so rapidly on an international basis, the World Health Organization decided to seek advice on the value of remineralizing desalinated water. They organized a workshop in Rome in 2003 as well as a symposium in Baltimore and follow-on Expert Consultation in Washington in 2006.

After spending close to 20 years with the largest UN agency, I am intimately familiar with UN Expert Consultations, Workshops and Symposia - all too often they are designed to reinforce the agenda of the staff members that organize these events. It is a rare occasion when objectivity surfaces. In this case, although several well thought out interventions were presented by competent professionals from around the world, WHO ignored them in their drive to establish recommendations to have desalinated water remineralized.

Their draft report, "Desalination for Safe Water Supply " repeats their recommendation for the remineralization of desalinated water. The Salt Institute responded that the goal of this initiative was to improve health, yet the draft report does not provide any evidence that the suggested proposals will yield any beneficial results. Even at the recommended levels of calcium and magnesium remineralization, less than 10 percent of the Daily Recommended Intake amounts can be obtained from drinking water. Just as with fluorides, there are more practical vehicles for delivery of trace mineral nutrients than public water supplies - a good deal of which is used for purposes other than drinking.

Food is clearly the appropriate vehicle for magnesium . A good food source of magnesium contains a substantial amount of magnesium in relation to its calorie content and contributes at least 10 percent of the U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowance (U.S. RDA) for magnesium in a selected serving size. The U.S. RDA for magnesium is 400 milligrams per day. The most recent research confirms that food should remain the best vehicle for magnesium delivery.

The Salt Institute also believes that it would have been prudent for WHO to consult with the Nutrition and Consumer Division of FAO on this matter. FAO has a fertilizer group dedicated to soil nutrition and an essential part of its goals focus upon the benefits for human and animal nutrition. Magnesium is an essential soil nutrient in all sustainable agriculture. Had there been a joint WHO/FAO study group and call for better soil management practices, particularly regarding magnesium and calcium fertilization, agricultural yields would increase and, more importantly from a nutritional point of view, there would be an immediate increase in the levels of calcium and magnesium in a very broad range of foods, thus achieving WHO's goals.

While we wholeheartedly support the overall goals of WHO, the Organization's tunnel vision approach on magnesium and calcium nutrition for desalinated water does not reflect what should have been the functional synergies to be gained through working together with FAO and other cogent UN sister agencies.