Test Your Water with Us and Directly Help a Community at Risk Test Theirs
At Caminos de Agua we have been testing community wells, and other water sources, all across our watershed, as well as in other parts of Mexico, since 2011. Water Monitoring, in fact, is our oldest program. It was developed out of a community need to understand our regional water problems and persists to this day to help us continuously understand the changing water conditions from both rural and urban wells alike.
For more than a decade, we have been collaborating with regional laboratories and university partners like Texas A&M, the University of Guanajuato, and many others, to test and map arsenic and fluoride concentrations throughout our region – two locally acute, and increasingly threatening, water contaminants that are difficult and costly to test for. Arsenic and fluoride are responsible for a host of chronic health conditions like the permanent staining and deterioration of teeth and the weakening and deformation of bones, known as dental and skeletal fluorosis respectively, as well as skin disease, cognitive development and learning disabilities in children, and even worse, several types of cancer.
Today, we have extended our program to not only track rising arsenic and fluoride concentrations, but to also monitor new emerging threats, track trends over time, and to support other partners in understanding risks throughout the country.
Given the growing concern of these contaminants in urban San Miguel de Allende, which now is experiencing arsenic levels close to three times above the World Health Organization limit in some colonias, we began offering private water quality testing to people like you several years ago. This private testing service gives you concrete information on the water that flows out of your tap, while also funding crucial water testing, and other services, to others who otherwise could not afford it.
This program allows us to expand our knowledge and awareness of our water crisis and this effort has helped us understand, document and map outthe sheer size of our water crisis in a comprehensive manner, in turn, creating more effective results at the community level.
When you test your water with us, you do much more than just help yourself. The following is but one example of what you help create through this program. Casa Hogar Santa Julia Don Bosco – a local Social Assistance Center for girls without parental care in San Miguel – recently got access to safe and clean drinking water thanks to people just like you. You can read more about this below or share this message with your friends or family. Alternatively, you can click on this button and make an appointment to test your water now.
Photo: (From the left) Álvaro, Water Monitoring Coordinator at Caminos together with Allie, Director of Technology, pose together with the director and administrator of Casa Hogar Santa Julia Don Bosco.
Casa Hogar Santa Julia Don Bosco: Helping Young Girls Access Clean Water in Urban San Miguel
When you “zoom-in” on our Water Quality Map, you can see how certain places have blue, yellow, orange, or dark red dots, depending on where you look. Blue means that the water quality meets WHO (World Health Organization) standards and the scale increases in risk, up to dark red indicating water unsafe for human consumption and potentially acutely toxic. Looking at this map, the difficult truth pops-out instantly, showing us how our water crisis keeps expanding, changing, and rapidly increasing in urban zones as much as in rural areas.
One such case of extreme water quality issues is the colonia ('neighborhood') of Santa Julia, a mere 10 minute walk from San Miguel’s downtown (centro). This colonia is inhabited by a mix of residents from very different socioeconomic backgrounds but who share the risk of dangerous water quality.
For this reason, Caminos de Agua has not only been monitoring the zone’s water quality, but also has been working directly with residents, partner organizations, and charities that are located in Santa Julia – or that have a personal connection to it – and need access to practical water solutions right now.
One of the places that benefited from our Water Monitoring Program recently is Casa Hogar Santa Julia Don Bosco, an important charitable organization and Social Assistance Center for girls without parental care, working with young girls by providing them with shelter, nutrition, and educational opportunities. Thanks to the efforts of those in charge at the Casa Hogar, one of their donors came forward to help replace an antiquated and ineffective filtration system, which was unable to remove the excessive levels of arsenic and fluoride in their water, to provide a new appropriate solution, in this case two reverse osmosis filtration systems. Today the children, the sisters and the staff at the center have sufficient, safe drinking water.
While the Casa Hogar secured the funds for the reverse osmosis filters, Caminos assured they were properly installed, provided educational programs for the staff, and will now provide follow-up to guarantee that the systems are maintained over time. This effort was made possible through our Water Monitoring Program, largely funded by people like you who pay us to test their water quality, which in turn provides the funding needed to help support organizations like Casa Hogar Santa Julia Don Bosco.
Get Your Water Tested Today!
If you would like to learn more about our water testing program, which includes both an arsenic/fluoride analysis as well as a reverse osmosis system analysis (which checks the efficiency of your filter system), please visit us by clicking the link below. Or contact our Water Monitoring Coordinator, Álvaro Guitierrez, directly to have your questions answered at: alvaro@caminosdeagua.org.
Remember, when you test your water with us, you are also helping local organizations and rural communities whose access to clean, life sustaining drinking water is at serious risk.
