It's World Water Day 💧😢
Can You Believe About 2.2 Million Americans Live in Homes Without Running Water Or Basic Plumbing?
Every year, World Water Day on March 22 raises awareness and inspires action. This year is all about accelerating change to solve the water and sanitation crisis.
Today, 1 in 4 people, or 2 billion people throughout the world, lack safe drinking water.
Almost half of the global population, or 3.6 billion people, lack safe sanitation. (Source: WHO/UNICEF 2021)
What is The Global Water & Sanitation Crisis?
It can be hard to visualize the impact of water in people’s lives. Facts and statistics are important but they can be impersonal. That’s why we strive so hard in this newsletter to talk about real people.
What would it look like to apply this global crisis to a community of just 100 people?
25 people would have to collect unsafe water from a stream or pond, often far away, or wait in line for hours and pay a high price to a vendor. The water would regularly make them so sick they couldn’t go to work or school. Death from entirely preventable diseases, like cholera and typhoid, would be a constant danger.
22 people would either have no choice but to go to the toilet in the streets, bushes or fields, or to use unhygienic and dysfunctional latrines. Women and girls would suffer most as they would be more vulnerable to abuse and attack, and unable to properly manage their menstrual health.
44 people would live in areas vulnerable to disease because their wastewater and feces flowed back into nature without being treated. The other 56 people, having safe toilets connected to systems that safely treat waste, would remain largely unaware of how important their sanitation services are to protecting their health and well-being.
Around half of the wetlands around the community would have been lost in recent decades, increasing the risk of flooding.
22 people would either work in, or receive care at, a healthcare facility that has no basic water service, placing them at heightened risk of infectious diseases. Many of those will be receiving treatment for diseases that could have been prevented with safe water and sanitation in the community.
Agriculture and industry nearby would take more than 80 percent of the available water.
Due to climate change, droughts would increasingly hit water resources and food supply. Floods would threaten to destroy water and sanitation facilities and contaminate water resources.
The community would be unlikely to have a cooperation agreement with neighboring communities to share and protect water.
The poorest and most vulnerable members of the community, who would be disproportionately affected by the crisis, would face the biggest struggle to get the attention of authorities to improve their water and sanitation services.
The Water Crisis in The U.S.
American families are also part of this global crisis.
While the U.S. is the wealthiest country in the world, we also have the biggest wealth gap, according to research.
Did you know that millions of Americans today live in homes without running water or basic plumbing?
About 2.2 million people face a higher risk of waterborne disease, type 2 diabetes, physical injury, and acute mental stress because they don’t have running water at home.
They spend hours each week hauling water from streams, wells, or grocery stores—hours taken away from working, studying, and playing.
An estimated 44 million more don’t have access to clean water that’s safe to drink.
Water insecurity, in the form of scarcity or contamination, can cause short-term health effects like headaches, vomiting, and diarrhea, and can also contribute to debilitating, long-term health issues, including kidney failure, hepatitis, and cancer, according to the CDC Foundation.
One organization working to solve this crisis is DigDeep, a human rights nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring that every American has clean, running water forever.
They work to make clean water more available and more sustainable in every community through education and advocacy programs as well as water access projects. Their water projects are community-based and community led.
Today, they sent me an email about Jack Duran.
For years, Jack’s family in El Paso, Texas relied on a makeshift system he built when he was a teenager to pump water from a holding tank in the backyard into their sinks and toilets. They had to fill the tank about once a month ($130) and replace the pump nearly every year ($200) and even after all that money and work, the water they got still wasn't actually safe to drink.
Other families in El Paso County face similar obstacles after developers promised to connect their communities to essential services such as gas, water, and electricity, but disappeared without upholding their end of the bargain.
That’s not just a problem—it’s an injustice. And you can change it.
DigDeep has one relentless pursuit: to get running water and a working toilet to every American. We’ll do anything to make sure our clients have the water they need–from the mesas of Navajo Nation, to the hollows of Appalachia, to the borderlands of Texas
If you’re a paid subscriber to this newsletter, then a portion of your money has already gone to help the work of DigDeep. We love supporting nonprofits like this one!
If you’re new to this newsletter and want to find more ways to help, you can get more involved here.
Meet the “Erin Brockovich of Sewage”
One person to learn about on this day is MacArthur grant–winning, environmental activist Dr. Catherine Coleman Flowers. I met Catherine at the virtual 2020 Texas Book Fair and was immediately inspired by her work!
She has spent her career advocating for equal access to water and sanitation for all communities—particularly those who are marginalized. Flowers engages with and informs audiences on environmental justice and climate change.
Check out her 2021 Tedx Talk called “Confronting Failing Wastewater Systems.”
In her book, Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret, she shares her inspiring story of advocacy, from childhood to environmental justice champion. She discusses sanitation and its correlation with systemic class, racial, and geographic prejudice that affects people across the United States.
She uncovered communities in her home state of Alabama dealing with raw sewage near their homes and health issues associated with that. But as she continued her work she found that lack of basic sanitation is not only an Alabama problem. Sanitation issues are found throughout the U.S., wherever poverty and public neglect coexist.
“When we talk about these problems we talk about it being somewhere else,” Flowers told the Guardian in 2021. “Well, we have this problem right here at home, but we don’t acknowledge it.”
Let’s be the change we want to see in the world. Choose your action today and tell us about it. What’s one small thing you can do? Let us know what you’re working on in the comments below!
By the way, your title “something small” needs to be amended to something HUGE; saving life on this planet 🌍.
Follow the UN Water Conference this week through Friday; check Twitter for the link to view on your web browser. Thank you, Erin, for highlighting THE MOST IMPORTANT STORY OF THE DAY as is often missed in the MSM coverage of unending never indictments of Trump, the former irrelevant guy. Water 💦 is essential for life and interconnected to all other ongoing crises. We must pay attention and conserve, use wisely, plan for the near and long term future.