It has been my pleasure to serve as Guest Editor for this special issue ofJournal of Environmental Monitoring, which contains a series of papers resulting from a symposium on potable water chemistry conducted during the August 2001 American Chemical Society meeting. Retrospectives and prospectives on drinking water analytical chemistry were featured at the meeting, and a number of papers published here focus on the utility of individual techniques. Others describe the application of specific techniques to answer specific questions.Complementing work on organic carbon quantitation in freshwater, there are two papers on total organic carbon measurement in marine environments, specifically invited to try to bridge the gap between the disparate bodies of literature for drinking water and oceanography. These two fields have been using the same technologies, but evolving almost completely independently. Environmental issues are multi- and interdisciplinary. As a member of the advisory board and chemist, I have tried to forge links with other disciplines.JEMis ideally suited to communicate such interconnected investigations by appealing to a wide array of subject specialists. Consequently, we have papers in this issue that include studies on the measurement of natural constituents of drinking water as well as some contaminants and additives. In addition, there are studies on the fate and transformation of chemicals through natural or artificial processes. Providing safe drinking water requires reliable andrugged monitoring techniques and methods that are applicable to raw source water as well as finished potable water. The EPA and its counterpart agencies in other nations that are entrusted with the task of ensuring drinking water is safe rely on such research in determining regulatory priorities and capabilities. If you can’t measure it, how can you regulate it?Fundamentally, environmental regulation is predicated on the idea of making the world a better place—cleaner air, safer drinking water and more. Scientific research has given us life-saving vaccines, a cleaner environment, better nutrition, longer life and products too numerous to mention. It has given us the means to identify, quantitate, and destroy or remove harmful microbes and chemicals in our water, air, and soil—no matter what their source.Better living through chemistryis not just a slogan; it's a reality.JEMhas provided us with a forum for bringing these kinds of information together in one place. I hope that readers will find this series of papers useful. I want to thank the authors who have contributed their work for this symposium. I want to thank Harpal Minhas for giving me the opportunity to use this venue for the publication of papers on this subject. I also want to mention Yvonne Lawson and the rest of theJEMstaff who have provided administrative support which has made this a smooth process indeed. I extend new year's wishes for productivity and prosperity to readers, authors, and theJEMstaff.Now that the holiday season has passed and we have reconnected with circles of friends and family to share the sundry joys that life brings, let us pause to reflect on those whose circles have been forever broken by the events of September 11, 2001. We have since seen a world united, but we have been reminded that freedom is not free. In our own ways, each of us can make the world a better place if we heed Abraham Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg: “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”