Rural WA towns facing tainted water turn to USDA grant program
In the small town of Brewster, an agricultural community north of Chelan, Washington, residents never know what they will get when they turn on the kitchen faucet. The water might be fine. But these days the water often runs black: the color of ink.
The black color is caused by high levels of manganese, a mineral sediment that clogs pipes and contaminates the water. Misty Ruiz, Brewster’s city clerk, says that growing up in a nearby town, she never heard of problems with manganese in local water. Looking back 20 years ago, black water only came out of taps on a rare occasion when water lines were being worked on and sediment was kicked up. But over the past 10 years, that’s changed dramatically.
Today, the tap water often runs black–in Brewster and other nearby towns.
Brewster is home to around 2,300 people, with more than 80% living under the federal poverty line. Misty explains that local families with young children must live with tainted water running through their faucets until a new water source is established.
“Can you imagine going to the kitchen faucet to fill up a baby bottle and having the water run black?” Misty asks.
Where is the manganese coming from? It’s most likely the result of industrial activities up north. Over the past few years, Misty and city leaders have sought to clean up the water. Their challenge is that it would be impossible to raise local water utility rates high enough to cover the cost of identifying and drilling a new water source. And towns like Brewster aren’t able to secure the sizeable loan needed to complete a project of this scale with only state or private funding sources. Fortunately, a federal Rural Development Water and Wastewater Grants and Loan Program is providing critical funding that can be paired with state funds to solve this problem.
Without federal funding, the people of Brewster would be facing a difficult decision: stretch their limited household budgets to continue purchasing bottled water when contamination gets bad, or move away from Brewster. Fortunately, work is underway to drill and set up a new water source and Misty hopes that this can be accomplished in the next year.
Brewster isn’t the only place in Washington that relies on the Rural Development Water and Wastewater Grants and Loan Program, but it represents the unique challenge that small, rural towns face in providing residents with clean, safe water, and how federal funding has provided new hope for many of them.
