Clean drinking water for drinking, yes. Clean drinking water for industrial (or even irrigation) purposes, no – because putting a fair price on it would appropriately punish those who use it wastefully.

I wish it were so simple to remove economics from things. Unfortunately, the problem isn't the need (the demand), its the supply. We don't just have unlimited clean drinking water, and as soon as there is a constrained supply, we have to consider how we can divvy it up to meet demand.

Usually that means increasing price, but the what the commenter above was saying is that often we're making it artificially cheaper. Often by either subsidizing things w/ our taxes (hiding the cost), or by not adequately funding the collection, which will eventually cause failure or exhaustion of the supply.

The problem is that fresh water is a scarce resource. Give it away for free and it will be used inefficiently and you will run out. This is an area where markets are an efficient solution, so long as the scarcity problem does not become so pronounced that the poor are unable to afford water. If this happens it is a policy failure and an external force (the government) would have to step in to insure that everybody has enough water to at least survive, probably by shutting down some big industrial users to reduce demand and lower the price.