If you were listening to All Things Considered on NPR Wednesday evening, chances are you heard a very moving story about a special education school on the eastern edge of the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. The school, which has been operating for 40 years, offers services to about 60 children and adults with moderate to severe disabilities.
Saint Michael's Special Education School has a water problem. A BIG problem. The tap water often pours out black and foul-smelling into the sinks. The school is forced to buy its water in big jugs, which costs the school thousands of dollars a year. St. Michaels needs clean water, and there is now a project underway that would supply that water.
Amazingly, the foul water meets national drinking water standards -- the so-called primary standards. As NPR correspondent Laura Morales reports, the water is not poisonous. But it doesn't meet the secondary "aesthetic" standards which affect how the water tastes, looks and smells.
Enter Dig Deep, a California-based non-profit organization devoted to helping communities dig and maintain low-cost water supplies. Dig Deep has a filtration plan for St. Michael's water system. That water project costs $100,000. They have raised $75,000 already. Can you and the people you know help them reach their goal?
As the young Navajo girl tells the camera in a video on the Saint Michael's website, "WATER IS LIFE!"
Indeed, water is a precious resource. Here in the Northeast, we so easily take clean water for granted. Lately, though, even before I knew about St. Michael's problem, I have been thinking a lot about water, and how it's in such short supply in so many western states. It makes me turn faucets off, do less wash, take shorter showers, flush toilets fewer times.
To donate to the water project, go to Dig Deep's website. Fortunately, we don't have to dig too deep in our pockets to help clean up the water on a reservation in Arizona.