Clean Drinking Water

Today

In 2011, we are addressing the need for easily accessible, clean water in several ways. As we mentioned below, Living Water Treatment systems (watermissions.org) have been installed in four villages and we have built a one mile long pipeline to bring water to the village of Kichahi. We are also partnering with an organization called Water4 (http://water4.org/) to manufacture high quality, affordable, hand pumps that are easy enough for a child to use. Used together with a carbon filtration system, these pumps will make clean water more readily available in hard to reach places.

History of Our Involvement

Clean drinking water is a basic need for all people. In Nepal, many water sources are contaminated with arsenic and E. coli, among other things, and this leads to disease and death. In many villages, flooding occurs during the monsoon season, destroying safe water supplies. In some places, people walk an hour or two to bring water back to their villages.

In October 2008, TURBOCAM purchased five Living Water Treatment Systems (LWTS) from Water Missions International for use in Nepal. These systems cost $5,000 USD each; with shipping and import duties, the cost more than doubles. FedEx shipped the systems to Delhi, India, at no cost to us. The LWTS is a self-contained water filtration system that can be loaded onto the back of a pickup truck, connected to a water source, and provide clean drinking water within hours.

These systems have been installed in four villages in Nepal and one in a community of leprosy-affected people in India.

The company also funded a one-mile pipeline—which was recently completed—to provide water to the village of Kichahi. This village had no source of water after the floods of 2008. Now, villagers no longer have to walk an hour to get water.