For the past few posts, I have discussed causes of water insecurity, but in my final post, I would like to include how other organizations are helping and how you can get involved as well.

Cigna has donated 190,000 USD to West Bangal’s water initiative organization over the past seven years. The group is Water for People, a non-profit global organization, whose primary goals are to provide water and sanitation to Agar, Patharpratima, Parganas, and Sheohar.

Bank of America gave a 1 million USD grant to provide safe water to India; this mission will be fulfilled in partnership with water.org and they are confident that they will be able to provide for 100,000 South Indian peoples.

Hydro Industries and Intelligent Energy is another partnership working in this part of the world. Hydro Industries’ focuses are purifying India’s water supply through electrochemistry, replacing diesel generators with fuel cell systems, and standing as an emergency response group for the locals. Intelligent Energy is not known as a philanthropic group; they create powertrains with zero emissions and stationary power units. However, the innovation brought from them will be beneficial to the electrochemistry Hydro Industries hopes to achieve.

Millennium Development Goal 7 was put forth by the United Nations to reduce the proportion of people without access of sanitation by 50% compared to 1990’s level. This ambitious goal ended this year and was missed by 500 million people. In March of 2013, Jan Eliasson, the Deputy Secretary of the United Nations, declared a new objective, Call to Action on Sanitation in order to end open defecation by the year 2025, and India’s government said that their aim would be to eradicate the practice by 2019. As ambitious as both of these newer goals are, scientists predict that neither will be accomplished by the set time. A more reasonable, but still improbable target was given by the Sustainable Development Goals setting the bar to ensure universal access to improved sanitation by 2030.

These approaches, to better hygiene, fail due to the absence of public backing. The only way for lasting and widespread change to be made, is for the government to pass laws and make executive orders; however, unless they feel pressure from their allies to do something, they will remain static. What India needs, are people donating time as well as fiscal funds, people who will protest against the social injustice occurring in that part of the world. If India’s government became so embarrassed, they would have no other option but move forward with the nation’s greatest wish for water. It will take time and there won’t be one easy fix, but with the assistance of the rest of the world, India could have toilets in every home and water in every child’s cup.

This is where we come in. For my advocacy project, Corey Hoydic and I will will be handing out water bottles with facts about India’s water issues. It was going to happen today, but due to inclement weather we are experiencing it will be postponed to Tuesday. Yes, this is a shameless plug to come see us at the Hub, but also to ask you to be a part of the solution. The water project is a wonderful foundation to back with whatever spending money you may have to donate, but what is there on campus for us to give time to?

During this most recent Earth Week at Penn State, The Nile Project had a performance at the Eisenhower Auditorium to raise awareness of the water pollution occurring in the world’s longest river, through music. The College of Agriculture also had panels on food and water sustainability, and how our actions in America can influence the lives of those across the planet. Also, this Saturday, there will be a local watershed cleanup day that anyone can volunteer for. These acts do not all directly help those without water, but if you can’t give money to help them or time to do a mission abroad, we can still be grateful for what we have. We have so much. We have clean water flowing from the tap and we should be prudent in what we put down the drain to ensure that the fresh water is here to stay. So readers, if you take anything from this, count your blessing and know that there is always something more we can do today to make tomorrow a bit easier for everyone else.

Stay Hydrated this Summer.

This post will be about the various microorganisms that can contaminate our water. Yes, OUR water. Last post I focused other nations, but this time, to give some perspective, I’m going to delve into the watersheds of America. Because, if we can have these issues with our superior water filtration and sanitation units, you can only imagine the magnitude and danger occurring outside our borders.

Most people have heard of E. coli, which is a particular strand of fecal coliform. This comes into our water when human or animal wastes are present. The short term effects of an infection are diarrhea, cramps, nausea, and headaches, but it can be fatal for children, since their immune systems are not as strong as adults, thereby comprising their ability to fight of the infection. But wait! Some people say, “E. Coli is in our bodies, why is dangerous?” It is true, E coli is in our stomachs, but it only constitutes about 0.1% of gut flora. Also, hydrochloric acid is in our stomach, and no one thinks that should be in his or her smart water bottle. The danger of E coli and other fecal coliform is the dehydrating effect; constant diarrhea flushes out fluids and electrolytes. This will be resolved like the flu though, with a bottle of gatorade. Hospitalization is usually required.

Legionella bacteria grows best in warm water, and in our homes we can find it in hot tubs, cooling towers, hot water tanks, large plumbing systems, or parts of the air-conditioning systems. The real threat of this bacteria becomes a reality, when the bacteria is aerosolized and thereby inhaled. Breathing in the bacteria can result in a type of pneumonia known as Legionnaires disease. The symptoms are as follows, provided by the Mayo Clinic:

First 2 weeks after exposure

• Headache
• Muscle pain
• Chills
• Fever that may be 104 F (40 C) or higher

Second or third day of symptoms

• Cough, which may bring up mucus and sometimes blood
• Shortness of breath
• Chest pain
• Gastrointestinal symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea
• Confusion or other mental changes

Although treatment usually cures it, some people continue to experience problems after treatment, and untreated Legionnaires’ disease can be fatal.

Nitrate poisoning is caused by an excess of nitrogen in the water system. Where does the nitrogen come from? Fertilizer runoff, leaky septic tanks, natural deposits eroding, and more. So, it could happen to anyone, but the real issue is not some extra minerals in our diet, but our children cannot handle the inorganic chemicals. Infants who drink contaminated water could become seriously ill and, if untreated, die. The symptoms include shortness of breath and blue-baby syndrome, which is when a baby’s circulation is extremely poor.

These three water issues are just a few out of the ones the EPA warns us about. The reasons I bring this up is because if these few issues can slip through the sanitation units in the United States, imagine how intense it is in other nations. Also, the side effects of most contaminations is death without treatment, and in developing nations, they don’t have the medicine to treat them. Until next time friends.

Acknowledge your water usage.

Today, we will discuss why some countries have an abundance of water while others must loot for their livelihoods.

Looking at this chart is astounding to me, because a human being is supposed to have 2 litres a day. So, at the end of the day assuming the people of Haiti are getting their daily amount of water, which they’re not, they would spend 65% of their year income on water alone. Meanwhile, in America less than 2% of our money would be put towards water, and 75% of Americans are speculated to suffer from at least mild dehydration.

In Sub- Saharan Africa alone, approximately 4.3% of its projected gross domestic product (GDP) is lost to lack adequate water supply and sanitation. Around the globe $284 billion are lost in the economy for similar reasons. With this great loss of global GDP, you would think that more than 6% of international aid would be put forward for this issue (, but in 2011 that was how much investment occurred), especially when on average, every $1 invested in water and sanitation provides a $4 economic return.

It is easy when looking at these facts that the problem is real and should be acted on with haste; there is a clear solution, investment in water infrastructures. However, no one seems to want to step up to the plate. The main reason involvement is low, is because of politics. Within America the civil engineers who are working to innovate a better water and sewage system, can hardly make strides, since only 5 percent of the $4.3 billion invested in the clean tech industry by the federal government goes to water technologies. Bureaucracies, simply don’t care about our water ways, because they believe it will cost more to fix the big picture problem than patching up 240,000 water main breaks each year. Obviously, if we can’t even maintain our own nation’s water, we are in no position to be telling other countries how to fix theirs.

That being said, there are foreign issues that dictate the behavior of those who have the power to help. The political unrest in countries who need water assistance most deters anyone from putting money in, because people with lots of money have lots of money by keeping their money. The rich stay rich by not spending frivolously and investing wisely. It only seems fair that giving money to an area undergoing a civil war is not the most prudent choice.

I am going to look at a country who experiences a water crisis and examine the political and industrial history for the past twenty five years.

Haiti:

In 1990, Jean-Bertrand Aristide won the presidency seat by 67%; he is a Roman Catholic priest, who used his Christianized Marxist beliefs to promote social justice. However, he only lasted a year after a coup killed hundreds and he was forced into exile. His life was saved by international invention though. For the next three years, Haiti lived under military rule and around 4,000 Haitians were murdered and even more fled to other countries in the Americas as refugees.

Aristide made a come back and ascended to his previous position. His finished out his term, and René Préval was elected to take his place. This was the first time in Haitian history, that two democratically elected presidents took office in a row. The country gained independence in 1804. After a successful term (success being measured by not ending in a coup or revolution), Préval lost to Aristide. However the opposition refused to believe  this election was legitimate and felt he unfairly earned the title. Even if the rumors of a rigged election were false, Aristide was found to be guilty of  embezzlement, corruption, and money laundering, and a coup soon ensued. 

The UN sent out peacekeepers and the US shipped over 1,000 marines to snuff out the violence. In the midst of all this chaos, what was left of the government arranged for elections to occur. Preval won and began to make some serious headway; he stood up against the rising prices in foods and had the goal of helping the poor with no other agenda. But terror shook the nation when the 2010 earthquake came. Over 100,000 dead, 300,000 injured and nearly a million people were displaced because of what happened one day.

What followed this day? A cholera epidemic that has killed thousands and hospitalized hundreds of thousands. Why? Poor water sources. Since there wasn’t a proper water infrastructure, people turned to polluted water ways. A lot of international aid went to this mission, but water is not something we can sit on. We should be proactive.

People don’t want to give their money to unsafe investments, but my hope is that people can be open to a little loss so that other places can gain.

3.4 million people die each year from water related illnesses, and around 750 million people lack access to clean water. More people have a cell phone than a toilet, and the average American shower is the equivalent to the amount of water someone from a developing nation uses in a day. The water and sanitation crisis claims lives, and what could we be doing about it? A lot. Then why doesn’t everyone have clean water? I’ll get to that. In this four-installment blog, I will discuss water and how it affects the lives of millions, the charities that are established around it, and reasons for the division in equality.

So, why is water important? People can only go around three days without water, though it is not recommended, and when they do, the signs consist of slowness in thought, kidney stones, and heart attacks. You start to feel thirsty when your body fluid is decrease by 2%. Two percent is the difference between content and cottonmouth. At 5-10% missing, one feels nauseated and aches; the brain has decreased function, and thoughts and sights become blurred. This is called moderate dehydration and can cause serious long-term problems, if one perpetually lives in this state. Beyond this stage, a human being is experiencing severe dehydration, and their muscles begin to contract and brain is swelling. All of this being said, you need water! You need water to live. You need water to move. And you need water for higher-level thought.

Unfortunately, there are many who cannot just grab a glass from the tap when they thirst. Only 2.53% of the world’s water is fresh, so although it is a renewable resource for energy purposes, it is finite one, when it comes to consumption.

I know, I know I’m the bearer of bad news, but most people know that developing countries lack safe water. What many don’t realize is what comes after, lack of sanitation. Around one in nine people lack access to clean water, and more than twice as many can’t even get to a toilet. Due to this, 1.1 billion people practice open defecation (the act of defecating in public or outside), and within three days time, the amount of fecal matter in the world could fill the superdome. It’s disgusting, but true.

Whom specifically does this issue affect? Women and children. Women are held responsible to find and carry all the water their family needs for drinking, washing, and cooking. They walk far, carrying burdensome jugs of water, and wait to pay inflated prices. More often than not, the water is diseased, sometimes deadly. Once girls are old enough, they join the women in this quest. This time spent collecting water adds up to be around 200 million hours a day. Another problem women face because of the crisis is that it defiles their dignity. In many places, women cannot use the bathroom during the day, since it would require the immodest act of going outside. We tell little kids not to hold it for long because they may get a UTI (urinary tract infection). Can you imagine waiting till it is night for a bit of privacy? In half the world, girls attend schools without toilets, and many of them drop out around puberty for this reason alone. The combination of the two issues makes it even more difficult for women to climb out of poverty, for without an education they can obtain no income. More, this translates to an industrialization issue, because if half the population is uneducated and looking for water, how many can devote their time to creating infrastructure?

Taking a look at the children, a child dies every minute due to water-related illness. According to the World Health Organization “Diarrhea kills children at a rate equivalent to a jumbo jet crashing every ten hours.” As previously stated, young girls take the brunt of the water burden, but young boys too will sometimes leave school in order to sustain the family. Even though the United Nations have fought to make children without water a major priority, the rate at which children die has decreased by five seconds. The kids can’t become fully educated and half the kids from the class that should be there are dead. There is a generational gap occurring each year because the people who should be succeeding their parents and making a difference, can’t.

When I was in Honduras, I was appalled by the fact that the people couldn’t afford what we consider a mini bottle of water. It is the American equivalent of eight dollars for a large bottle of water, and this is why my heart burns for those who are less fortunate than we who lived in industrialized nations. I hope this blog is eye opening for many and could change the way people think about taking a sip of water. This isn’t going to be a pissing party on America, but more on the philosophy we have as consumers. Most days, I say that people should be careful about their resources since they are finite and it will eventually snowball into hurting our infinite grandchildren, but when it comes to water, we are hurting people right now.

In the next segment, I will discuss the economics behind the problem, and how some countries can pay for 16oz of H2O for $1.50 while others could never afford it.