| Abstract |
The water industry is a disparate business. Although we casually talk about the “water industry,” strictly speaking there is really no such thing as the water industry. What there is instead is a balkanized and teeming “bazaar” of fundamentally quite different businesses—all of which have something to do with delivery of clean water, but which can’t all be quite accurately classified under any single heading.
As most observers loosely use the term, the “water industry” includes a very broad array of sectors: steel and concrete pipe manufacturers; specialty chemical producers; measurement, monitoring and testing firms; tank manufacturers; all kinds of treatment equipment manufacturers; new technology developers of all stripes; manufacturer’s representatives who sell all of these things to different endusers, engineers and consultants; contract operators of water plants, and many others companies that are somehow involved in providing clean water. |