World Water Day Series #7 - Clean, Safe Drinking Water is a Basic Human Right

By Richard J. Cavagnaro, Marketing Coordinator

Welcome to our blog series in honor of World Water Day on Friday, March 22^nd! The United Nations declared 2013 as the “International Year of Water Cooperation.” The employees at AdEdge have a passion for clean water and providing safe drinking water for people throughout the world. Over the next week and half, we will be exploring some of the ways AdEdge is making a difference in helping the global water crisis.

A little less than two years ago, I had the privilege of traveling to the Navajo Nation in Arizona with Helping Hands for Water, a non-profit group started by a group of employees at AdEdge. I spent three days in the remote desert along with two other members of the non-profit doing a site visit for a community we are working with to provide a uranium treatment system. In order to fully understand the problem with the drinking water and how it influences everyday life in this community, we decided to fully immerse ourselves into the Navajo lifestyle. We toured abandoned uranium mines, visited several wells contaminated with arsenic and uranium, but the most impactful part of the experience was talking with the members of the community to get their perspective on the water crisis. Some people on the reservation travel over an hour to fill up containers of water and unfortunately, for many of these people, the only option is contaminated water.

It’s reported that this well is causing congestive heart failure, cancer and kidney failure among those who depend upon it as their primary water source. One woman I met with goes to a funeral every month because of a water-related death. Another woman informed me that her seven-year-old daughter had a ten-pound tumor removed from her thyroid earlier in the year. Generations of Navajos have lived on the same land for decades and many are worried this generation may be the last.

The sad thing is this community is not alone. Tens of thousands of communities throughout the world only have access to water that is contaminated. That is their only option. In 2013, it should be a basic human right to have access to clean and safe drinking water. We at AdEdge are continuing to do our part to ensure every single person on this planet can have drinking water free of contamination so generations can grow up healthy.