Parkland Kids Camp

Water lies at the center of human life, distributing essential nutrients to cells, removing waste products and regulating body temperature, as well as moistening tissues, lubricating joints and dissolving minerals and nutrients. Yet, nearly half of all Americans fail to drink enough water, with 43 percent of adults drinking less than four cups of water a day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two years ago, Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s newly-formed Health and Fitness Club began tackling this issue with a water filtration project.

Proposed by club president and founder Isaac Hetzroni, the project intended to improve water consumption among students. Over the course of the club’s inaugural year, members sold custom reusable water bottles and smoothies and collected donations, amassing enough funds to purchase three water fountains at $450 each and three water filters at $100 each.

“Before the project, the school fountains expelled water traced with mercury and chlorine,” Hetzroni said. “Also, students were not drinking enough water throughout the day.”

Although minor complications slightly delayed installation, two of the three fountains were successfully installed about a year ago. These fountains are located inside the 1200 freshman building and outside of the 1300 science building, the latter of which is intended to supply athletes with enough water.

“I’m on the volleyball team, and personally, I think they’re great,” senior Sahith Mandala said. “I use the filtered fountains every day, and they keep me feeling refreshed through practice.”

Beyond helping students fill their personal drinking quotas, the filtration project also involved students in environmental protection by reducing waste on campus, as the fountains dispense water with motion sensors at three times the speed of the standard fountain and thus, allowing students to reuse bottles more frequently. Also, the hundreds of reusable water bottles sold by the club – especially the bag-styled Vapur water bottles that fit fantastically inside students’ bags – enable students to use bottles, rather than the standard plastic water bottles that detrimentally impact the environment.

“From the two fountains installed, the tickers add up to about 30,000 bottles saved from landfills, but from all the efforts from the bottle sales and the psychological effect of people seeing the fountains all the time, we estimate the number saved to be about 100,000 bottles from the date of installation,” Hetzroni said.

The Health and Fitness Club’s efforts did not end at the gates of Douglas. They also managed to have similar filtration systems installed at Heron Heights, further promoting increased water consumption within our community. Story by Joanna Zhuang Drink Up Filtering for a Better Future. The Filtered water fountain located outside the 1300 science building rapidly dispenses water using motion sensors, allowing students to reuse water bottles. In combination with the other filtered water fountains, the fountain has saved at least 30,000 bottles from landfills. Photo by Liam Hutton Newly installed filtered water fountains motivate students to increase water intake

The usually quiet Flint, Michigan recently received immense media attention for the toxic water that its citizens have now been consuming for years.

The crisis began in April 2014, when those in charge of Flint’s budget temporarily changed the city’s water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River, an action intended to save money and alleviate Flint’s financial problems.

Officials’ failure to consider the river’s foul reputation for contamination became clear when citizens began complaining of the water’s unpleasant taste and smell. When E. Coli and coliform bacteria were found in their water supply, residents were reportedly told to boil their tap water before drinking it.

As a class-action lawsuit alleges, Michigan’s State Department of Environmental Quality failed to correctly treat the water for corrosion, allowing the water to continue to erode the iron pipes and turn the water brown.

These issues persisted without national attention for about two years until August 2015, when Virginia Tech researchers A State of Emergency found that Flint water contained elevated levels of lead. Officials denied these findings, claiming their research to be more reliable, despite residents’ complaints of skin lesions, hair loss, high levels of lead in their blood, vision loss, memory loss, depression and anxiety.

Flint children are also at risk for behavioral problems and lower IQ, as well as permanent developmental issues.

On Jan. 16, 2016, President Obama declared a state of emergency in Flint and allocated $5 million in relief funds.

A 2011 study of the Flint Flint, Michigan faces water crisis River determined that the river’s chlorine levels are eight times higher than levels in Detroit water. This makes the water from the Flint River highly corrosive to the lead and iron used in the pipes to deliver water to the residents. If the river were treated with the anti-corrosive agent recommended at the time of the study, the city’s water would have been a safe for consumption, and it would have only cost $100 per day to relieve around 90 percent of the problems currently faced by the city’s residents. Story by Taylor Morrison