There are 3.4 million American citizens still facing the devastation of Hurricane Maria that struck Puerto Rico a month ago.
Many Puerto Ricans are struggling to find food or electricity, and most important of all, clean water. Hays Pure Water, an organization founded by Washington resident John Hays, is working to provide water purification systems to the most dire areas in Puerto Rico. Hays says they have sent a team to Puerto Rico to assess the situation, “There is no electricity, no systems that are up in the worst of the worst places and that’s where we are at. People will go to the store and try to buy bottled water, there’s a shortage of bottled water, so it’s rationed. So people are now left to go to the streams and drink out of the streams where the cattle are, or go to the sewage streams where the sewage water runs off. And it’s full of bacteria and they get sick, they get diarrhea, there’s typhoid, there’s cholera, and it’s a very unhealthy situation.”
Hays says he is determining how to arrange a distribution of his Khlor Gen system, a battery powered, solar-charged device which turns salt water into chlorine that is then used to treat contaminated water. For over a decade Hays Pure Water has been giving these systems to 50 countries, and Hays says one system can purify water for a village for 63 years. Those who wish to donate for the purifiers for Puerto Rico, or want to get involved in the relief effort can contact Hays at hayspurewater.com.