Clean Drinking Water: Boston and Beyond

[tahnan]

You know what? I thought about a post on my friendspage about what a pain in the ass it is to have to boil water. And I thought about jadelennox's thoughts on being a spoiled first-worlder. And I thought, "All right, let's start a fracking meme I can get behind":

Restore the balance of drinkable water to the world. For every day my city has to go without drinkable water, I hereby pledge $1 to a charity that helps bring drinkable water to the actual Third World—minimum of $10, in case Deval Patrick's "Days Not Weeks" comment is accuracy and not just wishful thinking/crowd control. (I might bump that up to a minimum of $20; I'm unemployed, but even so.) According to The Water Project, "every $10 donated provides 1 person with clean water for 10 years", and that seems like a fair tradeoff, doesn't it? I'm still researching likely charities; Water For People also looks likely.

Join me. Make our "tragedy", by which I mean "minor inconvenience for a week", into someone else's life-saving opportunity. Boost the signal. Pass it on.

Comments

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I am totally matching this donation (unless it gets insane and, like Phoenix, two years later you still can't drink the water). I can either paypal you the matching funds, make my own donation, however it works out.

[42itous.livejournal.com]

I hereby pledge to [at least] match your donation. (Please do remind me of this pledge when we have potable water again. I'm worried that'll be long enough from now, and that I'll be so excited when we do have clean water, that I'll forget.)

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Hey, if you're joining in, post it to your LJ, too! I so rarely do anything worthwhile that I want to see this spread as far as it can.

[lapak.livejournal.com]

I like it. I'm in.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Hey, if you're joining in, post it to your LJ, too! I so rarely do anything worthwhile that I want to see this spread as far as it can. (he said, cutting-and-pasting from above)

[arianhwyvar.livejournal.com]

Sounds good to me. I'll certainly donate at least $20. The situation has also been making it clearer to me, soberingly, how much drinkable water it takes to, say, wash my hands. Or my face.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Hey, if you're joining in, post it to your LJ, too! I so rarely do anything worthwhile that I want to see this spread as far as it can. (he said, cutting-and-pasting from above)

also...squint...why I can I never recall which Brunonian you are?

[jofish22.livejournal.com]

Can I recommend Deep Springs International (http://deepspringsinternational.org/)? They're really serious about providing clean water, and really good at it. They supply buckets with lids and droppers to put appropriate amounts of bleach in solution, and then they set up people up locally to sell extra bleach solution so it's economically sustainable. Brilliant.

I'm currently working with them for a research project in Haiti using cellphones to track clean water use (basically), and their system is so robust that we planned it all out before the earthquake, and after the earthquake *nothing changed*

I first heard about them from alethia_juturna (ex-Pikan, for data) who's at the CDC and has worked with them for years; making clean water happen for people is pretty much what she does.

Btw, it occurs this might be useful, from her LJ, given she *really* knows what she's talking about.

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1) To boil water enough to kill EVERYTHING you only need to get to 80 C. Ie - no matter how many minutes they tell you (I've seen up to 30 minutes to boil) you only need to get it to boiling in order to make it safe.

2) To chlorinate water to make it safe at 3-4 drops of normal Clorox (unscented and purchased within the last six months) to every gallon. Wait 30 minutes. The EPA regs are a MASSIVE overdose that tastes terrible.
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[tahnan.livejournal.com]

I'll definitely look into Deep Springs International. If it's member-of-the-CDC endorsed, I'll trust it (as long as it doesn't concern obesity).

[justsomesleddog.livejournal.com]

I'll match... and will blog the idea over at my blog.

[lilisonna.livejournal.com]

Matched and posted.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Just tweeted this under the #aquapocalypse hashtag. Hope it gets some boost.

[angorian.livejournal.com]

Actually, access to safe drinking water is a real problem in rural communities in North America. Check out the Safe Drinking Water Foundation (http://www.safewater.org/), a Canadian non-profit.

If you do choose to support an overseas initiative, find one that is run by the people for themselves since most of the projects that people swoop in with to "save" the third-worlders do not get sustained or maintained.