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WMI launches million-dollar clean water project
By Shelia Watson
Contributing Writer
By Shelia Watson
Contributing Writer
Charleston-based Water Missions International has received $4.6 million from the Pentair Foundation to launch Project SafeWater-Colon, a three-year project that will provide sustainable, safe water access and sanitation to the state of Colon, Honduras.
“The goal of Project SafeWater-Colon is to demonstrate that people in developing countries can be provided access to sustainable sources of safe drinking water and adequate sanitation facilities quickly and cost effectively,” WMI co-founder George Greene said.
WMI launched the project at a gala held March 22, the internationally recognized date of World Water Day, to draw attention to the needs of the 1.1 billion people who lack safe, clean water worldwide as well as the proposition that those needs may be addressed cost effectively.
“It is our hope that Project SafeWater-Colon will demonstrate to international agencies new solutions to the global water crisis,” said Greene.
Among the dignitaries attending the event were Gov. Mark Sanford; Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr.; Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, the first lady of Honduras; the Honduran Minister of Water; and the Honduran Minister of Social Development.
De Zelaya underscored the importance of the project by drawing on statistics of her country’s needs: 63% of the people are in poverty, living on about $1.75 per day, 24% live in extreme poverty, on less than 90 cents per day, 44% of the families do not have basic services such as water or electricity and more than 317,000 families lack any water services.
“A developing country has many needs, and I thank God for the help Water Missions and Pentair is bringing to us,” she said.
Project SafeWater-Colon is being underwritten by the Pentair Foundation, the charitable giving organization of Pentair Inc. Headquartered in Minnesota, Pentair is a publicly held company that provides products and systems used worldwide in the movement, treatment and storage of water to serve the needs of the commercial, industrial, municipal and residential markets. Pentair’s 2006 revenues reached $3.15 billion, and the company employs about 15,000 people worldwide.
Mike Meyer, Pentair’s treasurer, presented the check to WMI at the gala.
“We founded the Pentair Foundation in 1998 to facilitate giving a percentage of our pre-tax earnings to charitable organizations,” he said. “To date we have given away $17 million.”
Meyer noted that the project mirrors Pentair’s vision to bring safe, clean water solutions to its customers, and the Pentair Foundation believes underwriting Project SafeWater-Colon will change how the world addresses the water needs of the billions of people who lack clean water.
“The money for Project Safe Water-Colon fits well with our corporate philosophy and our products, because we are in the water business,” he said.
The Centers for Disease Control will provide support and technical advice on the public health aspects of Project SafeWater-Colon. The project will serve about 220,000 people in Colon, Honduras, where a significant percentage of the population lacks access to clean water and adequate sanitation.
After an initial six-month assessment, WMI will install water and adequate sanitation facilities for 100% of the population of the Colon region. The 39-month project will document current conditions, implement solutions and track results. The results will be presented to various international organizations involved in efforts to solve the global water crisis.
The objective is to demonstrate that people in developing countries can be provided access to sustainable sources of safe drinking water and adequate sanitation facilities quickly and cost effectively. The team seeks to show a direct correlation between water-borne diseases and poverty with safe water access and adequate sanitation.
The project’s overall goal is to reduce Colon’s percentage of people who have no clean water or sanitation from the current levels to the same levels found in the United States, which is 0%, Greene said.
“There are 1.1 billion people in the world—that’s 20 percent of the world’s population—who do not have access to clean water and who have to walk to a source of water that in most cases is dirty and diseased,” said Greene. “Every day, 20,000 people die from a water-borne disease. That’s five times the number that was killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11.
“One of the reasons we’re doing this is because we found out about numbers like that. With this project, we can prove that the problem can be solved quickly and effectively. Then we can take that data to the (United Nations), to (the U.S. Agency for International Development), to other agencies and to other governments and get them to help fund other projects.”
Greene insisted that projects such as Project SafeWater-Colon are not only cost effective but will also save money and lives in the long run.
“When a community has clean water, the children are not sick all the time. They can go to school and learn. The people can go to work and earn a living. And then health care costs will go down because the people are healthier. And then they can break the poverty cycle for good.”
To date, WMI has installed a total of 338 water systems worldwide. In addition to Project SafeWater-Colon, WMI will install 175 more water systems in 2007, making safe water available to more than a half a million people.
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