Getting People Out of Contaminated Water Sources
Still to this day, a large amount of Puerto Ricans have no access to clean drinking water or electricity, especially those living in rural areas. This presents a severe health issue since desperate residents have been drinking water and cleaning their clothes on rivers and creeks, which are mostly contaminated with a wide array of bacterias and viruses according to EPA and other local authorities. Furthermore, even tap water isn’t safe to drink as we learned from PRASA (Puerto Rico’s water company) who is warning residents rigorously about this danger on their website’s homepage. To this date Puerto Rico has announced at least 76 cases of confirmed leptospirosis, including several deaths, among other contaminated water related infections.
In order to tackle this problem effectively, the Por Los Nuestros Team moved rapidly to establish solar and grid powered community laundries on key areas around the island. Also, the team has adopted 25 communities in order to install Purified Water Oasis. Therefore reducing the need of extracting water directly from contaminated water sources.