Keep in Touch

Subscribe to stay up to date on Seacology’s events, trips, and projects.

  • Email Address
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

top-cap-white
top-cap-bluetop-cap-white

Celebrating National Water Quality Month

August 6, 2015

hihs-blogtour

Few things are as important to human survival as access to clean water, and in few places is this necessity more precarious than on remote islands. Indigenous islanders can be vulnerable to fresh water shortages, contamination, and damage to water supply infrastructure by natural disasters. At Seacology, we work with communities around the world to ensure safe and reliable drinking water supplies as part of our larger mission to protect island ecosystems while benefiting their human inhabitants.

In the United States, August is National Water Quality Month, and we’re highlighting one of our many successful fresh water projects.

DSC01469

In the Micronesian state of Chuuk, Seacology funded the construction of equipment that can collect and store 5,000 gallons of water, 10 toilets, and a community meeting hall for the Onongoch community on Fefen Island. In return, thee 400-person declared a 15-acre plot of forest as a no-take conservation area. The project was completed in 2011. Tthe new infrastructure has since guaranteed a reliable water source to some of the village’s most vulnerable residents, who in turn now help with protection of the pristine forest area.

Fefen, however, was battered by an unusually powerful typhoon this March, and the project sustained some damage. Two of the water tanks were broken or upended, and the community center also suffered minor structural problems from being inundated with the storm water.

typhoon-damage-apr-2015-530

As always, we stand behind our work. In May, Seacology approved a maintenance grant to replace the damaged tanks and pipes, and to repair and reinforce the community center. The repairs are being made now, and we anticipate they’ll be complete by the end of August.