Imagine turning on your water faucet to find that nothing is coming out. Your water supply suddenly dried up, and there just isn’t a drop more. Or imagine turning on your faucet and the water comes out, seemingly just as it always has. It tastes and looks the same, but you later find out that it is laden with arsenic and fluoride, many times above World Health Organization recommendations for human consumption.

Caminos de Agua has been able to develop an innovative new solution: the Groundwater Treatment System. This system has the potential to impact hundreds of communities – and tens of thousands of people – turning their contaminated water into clean drinking water – substantially faster and less expensively than ever before. 

“We could live in San Miguel and lead an insular life, but being in the communities and helping out has made life much richer and much more meaningful. Once you see it, you just have to respond. If you don’t, I think you’ll have just a huge hole in your heart.”

For years, residents of Agustín González, a small rural community located within the Municipality of San Miguel de Allende, have known that there are problems with their water as many of the children began developing dental fluorosis – the deep brown staining of their teeth. More recently, Caminos de Agua tested the community well and found the highest levels of fluoride ever registered in San Miguel – more than four times above the World Health Organization recommended limit. 

In Mexico alone, more than 50% of the population lives in water scarcity conditions. In our region, many of the communities where we work only receive water for a few hours once or twice a week. This is further complicated in these rural areas by slow moving, and often inaccurate, information and a lack of nearby medical facilities equipped to respond to this virus. 

Broadcasting from Tucson, Arizona, Joaquin joins Caminos de Agua technical mentor, Aaron Krupp, for a conversation about what we can all do in our homes, neighborhoods, schools, and communities to work towards the “natural city.”

A talk from Caminos de Agua's Executive Director, Dylan Terrell, on local as well as national and global water quality and scarcity issues. This talk will also focus on water in the time of COVID-19 – illustrating how water scarcity impacts the spread of the infection.