24
HEALTH AND SANITATION
IAPMO’s annual scholarship
essay competition:
second place winner
In November 2017, IWSH completed the Community Plumbing
Challenge (CPC) 2017 in Bekasi, West Java, Indonesia. If you
had to choose one location within the United States to conduct
the next CPC (providing safe access to clean water and proper
sanitation), which location would you choose and why?
By Karina Keefe
plumbing use nearly 100 gallons per person per day,
which is “more than any other country on Earth” (“What
We Do”).
When people think about the need for clean
water, they rarely think of the US. As one of the
wealthiest nations on earth, most Americans
take it for granted that we have clean running
water in our homes.
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, and even
in parts of the US, there are millions of people without
clean water in their homes, and even those without any
water at all. Sandbranch, Texas, is one small community
with a desperate and urgent need for basic water and
wastewater infrastructure, and it would be well suited
for a project similar in style and scope to previous
Community Plumbing Challenges.
In the spirit of the sharing
of unique experiences
that shape the plumbing
industries in our
respective nations, the
following essay took
second place in IAPMO’s
2018 annual Scholarship
Essay Competition. First
introduced in 2009 and
open to members and their
children of IAPMO and
many of IAPMO’s industry
partners, the competition
has elicited entries from
all over the world. Written
by Karina Keefe of the
University of Maryland
Baltimore County, it is the
next in a regular series of
similar articles that will
run in this magazine.
www.plumbingafrica.co.za
Before the infamous water crisis in Flint, Michigan,
clean water access in the US was rarely discussed. The
Flint tragedy sparked global outrage when thousands of
children were exposed to dangerous levels of lead in their
drinking water, and effectively raised awareness about
lead contamination, which actually affects those in cities
such as Milwaukee, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Philadelphia
at much higher rates than in Flint (Pell and Schneyer).
Although fewer than 1% of Americans lack access to
clean drinking water or complete plumbing, the fact
that the rest of the population uses water in such
excess makes this disparity an extreme one. Often,
communities without access are located only a few miles
from some of the most advanced water and wastewater
infrastructure in the world.
The community of Sandbranch, Texas, is a drastic
example of the disparity in water and wastewater
infrastructure. Sandbranch is located only 14 miles from
the wealthy city of Dallas and immediately adjacent to
the state-of-the-art Southside Wastewater Treatment
Plant (Savali). Despite its proximity to technologically
advanced and well-funded infrastructure, this community
has never had running water in the 138 years since
its establishment and is home to approximately 80
residents, 97% of whom identify as racial or ethnic
minorities, and all of whom live below the federal poverty
line (Riggs et. al.).
However, the large-scale need for replacement of lead
infrastructure is far from the only challenge facing
access to clean water in the United States. Six major
access challenges include (Riggs et. al.):
• a lack of basic indoor plumbing
• unsanitary on-site wastewater disposal
• contaminated and at-risk wells
• contaminated or depleted water supplies
• customers struggling to pay, and
• customers with substandard plumbing. At its peak, Sandbranch was home to around 500
residents, many of whom would gladly return if the
community were to gain access to complete plumbing
systems (Savali). Although Sandbranch is located
within Dallas County, it is technically unincorporated,
meaning that no municipality takes responsibility for
its water and wastewater services, trash collection,
or law enforcement (“Strategic Vision and Plan for
Improvements to the Sandbranch Community”).
In 2014, results from the American Community
Survey showed that an estimated 630 000 occupied
households, or approximately 1.6 million individuals,
do not have basic indoor plumbing features such as
flushing toilets, showers, or running water (Ingraham).
Meanwhile, Americans who do have complete indoor As a community founded by newly emancipated slaves,
Sandbranch takes pride in its history. Many families
have lived there for multiple generations and have no
interest in relocating, nor do they have anywhere else
to go. Despite the lack of services that most Americans
take for granted, Sandbranch is a resilient and inspiring
community.
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August 2019 Volume 25 I Number 6