Prewitt, New Mexico, resident Marie Jones has never had running water in the house her father built, despite repeated pleas for help. But thanks to the International Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (IWSH) Foundation’s most recently completed Community Plumbing Challenge (CPC) event, clean, running water is now only a turn of the faucet away.
“I’m so happy and excited with the water,” said Jones, who frequently takes care of her grandchildren. “I’m just so thankful, because I don’t know how I would have done this. Now I won’t be depending on somebody to get water for me, and water in a bucket doesn’t last long.”
The focus of the latest CPC collaboration was the Navajo Water Project, an initiative of the U.S.-based nonprofit organization DigDeep that was among the 2018 recipients of the U.S. Water Prize. The initiative’s goal is to help ensure that every American has clean, running water forever. The St. Bonaventure Indian Mission and School in Thoreau, a small town in Northwestern New Mexico, hosted this CPC event from Oct. 22–26, 2018.
“This has been an incredibly rewarding, yet challenging, week. Many families are living without running water and sanitation. The few that do have access to well water, in several cases that water is so contaminated that it is unusable,” said IWSH Project Manager Grant Stewart. “Therefore, this year, we were forced to use many different approaches to provide adequate access to water and sanitation — repairing homes and connecting them to utility water, installing 1,200-gallon water cisterns, and connecting homes to safe wastewater systems. This required a wide range of products and skill sets, which is why it is so gratifying to see the entire industry step up to help a community in need.”
Jones’ home was one of 10 nominated by DigDeep for the Navajo Nation CPC. None of the homes had adequate sanitation systems, running water or safe electrical systems. By the end of the week, they all had been connected to a wastewater system, nine of the 10 have running water inside the home, and all have a safe electrical system. A multi-disciplined team of skilled tradespeople traveled from throughout the United States and as far as away as Australia and South Africa to perform the work.
Cindy Howe, DigDeep’s Project Manager for the Navajo Water Project, joined the organization in May after 10 years with St. Bonaventure. She is well acquainted with the residents’ plight, and said many have been promised clean water and safe sanitation for years, only to see those promises go unfulfilled.
“This project has made a big difference in a lot of people’s homes and families, and I’m very happy to be part of it,” she said. “I’m hopeful this will continue, and it sounds like it might. So I’m very happy for that.”
Randy Lorge, Instructor of Plumbing Apprenticeship at UA Local 400 Plumbers & Steamfitters in Kaukauna, Wisconsin, also participated in the three previous international Community Plumbing Challenges, hosted in Nashik, India (2015); Diepsloot, South Africa (2016); and Cikarang, Indonesia (2017). He said the Navajo Nation CPC was unlike anything he had ever experienced.
“In all my travels to overseas countries helping deliver safe water and sanitation systems, I have never seen conditions as upsetting as I did this week on the Navajo Indian reservation,” he said. “It was one of the most exhausting but worthwhile weeks of my life. I am so proud I was able to be a part of the Community Plumbing Challenge once again — this time, in my own country — and to have the opportunity to work with other like-minded plumbers from not only the United States but around the world.”
The week began with a welcome ceremony and a “Water and Sanitation Crisis in America Roundtable: Government & Industry Working Together for Solutions” hosted at the Thoreau Chapter House. U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and representatives from the offices of U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, D-Santa Fe, and U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-Albuquerque, attended the welcome ceremony and roundtable. In addition to focusing on issues concerning tribal lands, the roundtable looked at problems facing the more than 1.6 million people across the U.S. without access to clean water and safe sanitation.
Residents had the opportunity to show their appreciation during a community forum at the Baca-Prewitt Chapter House on Oct. 24, during which Prewitt residents Regina Vandever and Loretta Smith, whose homes were both recipients of CPC project works, led preparation of a dinner for all of the volunteers and other local residents. Several more of the CPC’s beneficiaries took to their feet to thank the volunteers during the emotional event.
“We hope that there are people in the room tonight — who are involved in the CPC for the first time — that will join us for the next CPC as well,” IAPMO/IWSH Project Manager Seán Kearney said at the forum, “and we really hope that we’ve begun something important here, in our collaboration with DigDeep this week, that will continue into the future.”
The Navajo Nation CPC was sponsored by LIXIL/American Standard; the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO); Plumbers Local Union 412 (New Mexico and El Paso, Texas); the Piping Industry Progress & Education (P.I.P.E.) Trust Fund/NITC; United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of the United States, Canada (UA); World Plumbing Council; Reliance Worldwide Corporation/Sharkbite Plumbing Solutions; Plumbing Contractors of America/Mechanical Contractors Association of America (PCA/MCAA); Plumbers Local Union No. 400 (Kaukauna, Wisconsin); Plumbers Local Union No. 12 (Dorchester, Massachusetts); Plumbing Industry Climate Action Centre (PICAC); Plumbers Local Union No. 68 (Houston); Plumbers Local Union No. 78 (Los Angeles); American Society of Plumbing Engineers (ASPE); Milwaukee Tool; G.E. Appliances, the PHCC Educational Foundation; Plumbers Local Union No. 798 (Tulsa, Oklahoma); and Thrivent Financial.
Among the donations received for the project were 12 water filtration systems and more than 60 replacement filters from G.E. Appliances.
“We were honored to participate in this project to help bring access to clean drinking water to the Navajo nation in Thoreau,” said Ryan Prince, Principal Program Manager — Water Appliances for G.E. Appliances. “It is the mission of G.E. Appliances, a Haier company, to enable happiness and well-being in every home and assisting residents with this basic human need through our water filtration systems is core to our purpose.”
For more information about the Navajo Nation CPC, visit the website at www.commplumbing.org or email info@iwsh.org.
