LDH awarded a low-interest subsidized loan worth $8 million to the Baton Rouge Water Company.
According to the Louisiana Department of Health’s Office of Public Health, the loan was made "through the State’s Drinking Water Revolving Loan Fund."
The loan was closed on Thursday, April 12 and it will allow the Baton Rouge Water Company to not have to pay back up to $500,000 of the loan.
LDH said the $8 million loan will allow for the installation of "secondary chlorine containment units at 60 sites plus one additional portable unit and a dry chlorine scrubber at a large chlorine holding facility."
If the project is successful, the safety level should be raised around the treatment of water within the Baton Rouge Water System.
According to Dr. Parham Jaberi, assistant secretary for the Office of Public Health, "Access to safe drinking water is critical to all Louisiana residents.
The Drinking Water Revolving Loan Fund helps water systems fund improvement projects, bringing safe and clean drinking water to their customers.”

We can’t live with too much of it, and we can’t live without its life-giving and cleansing powers.
Physical thirst is a symbol of the deepest human desires for eternal life and love in God.
Although 71 percent of Earth is covered with water and the adult human body is at least 60 percent water, there is no law that guarantees access to clean water.
Yet this Earth Day we may not realize how a water crisis impacts at least one in every three people globally and nearly 10 million people in the United States.
The people of Flint, Michigan, are not alone in their struggle for clean, accessible and affordable water.
According to a 2017 study, Michigan State University researchers found that water prices need to increase by 41 percent in the United States over the next five years to cover the costs of replacing aging water infrastructure and adapting to climate change.
Water.org utilizes micro-financing as a way to build local infrastructure, increase water access, and reduce water costs to millions of people throughout the world.
May we find in water our shared vulnerability and humanity.
It is time we extend its affordability and accessibility to all.
[Alex Mikulich is a Catholic social ethicist.]

It remains unclear when the Aberdeen School District will turn drinking faucets back on at four schools the state found to have slightly elevated lead concentrations.
Superintendent Alicia Henderson said state officials are working to expedite final results by next week.
“Once those results are known, we can determine next steps,” said Henderson, who added that more voluntary testing is being done this week before final results come back.
“We’re really working to establish what’s the source of the lead.” In final test results, Henderson said the district would know whether it’s the faucets themselves or water pipes connecting to them that are causing the increased lead and would need to be replaced.
Last week, the district turned off faucets after receiving preliminary results from the Washington Department of Health’s voluntary lead tests.
It found that the Hopkins Building (Harbor High), Central Park, Stevens and A.J.
Bottled water In the meantime, safe drinking water has been made available to students with either bottled water or access to the clean and more newly-built water bottle filling stations.
These schools’ kitchens were also given clean water for cooking.
“We welcome the questions that have been posed by staff and community members and thank everyone for understanding the solution will not occur overnight,” said Henderson.
“We will continue to share information as it becomes available.”

A local activist who helped to expose the water crisis in Flint, Mich., has won a top environmental prize for her efforts.
LeeAnne Walters is one of the winners of the 2018 Goldman Environmental Prize, the organizers of the award announced on Monday.
“LeeAnne Walters led a citizens’ movement that tested the tap water in Flint, Michigan, and exposed the Flint water crisis, compelling the local, state, and federal governments to take action to ensure access to clean drinking water,” the press release stated.
Walters was one of the first people to demand action in 2014 from local officials after discovering a rash on her twins following the city’s switch to a new water source.
Soon Walters and all four of her children began experiencing health issues.
The city then found toxic amounts of lead in the water, and Walters began researching the impact of lead exposure, according to a press release.
Despite city officials saying that Walters was an isolated case, she created a local campaign to warn residents of the risk of contaminated water.
She also began collecting water samples and, with the help of a Virginia Tech professor, began testing the samples.
Soon afterward Gov.
Rick Snyder (R) announced that Flint would stop using the Flint River as a drinking water source.

Share: BATON ROUGE- The Louisiana Department of Health has awarded an $8 million loan to the Baton Rouge Water Company.
The loan was awarded through the state’s drinking water revolving loan fund.
The low-interest subsidized loan will help improve the Baton Rouge water system, according to a release.
The loan also allows the company not to have to pay back up to $500,000 of the loan for this project.
“Access to safe drinking water is critical to all Louisiana residents.
The Drinking Water Revolving Loan Fund helps water systems fund improvement projects, bringing safe and clean drinking water to their customers,” said Dr. Parham Jaberi, assistant secretary for the Office of Public Health.
According to the release, the loan will fund a project to install secondary chlorine containment units at 60 sites plus one additional portable unit and a dry chlorine scrubber at a large chlorine holding facility.
The goal of this project is to maintain a high level of treatment and customer service while significantly raising the level of safety surrounding the treatment of water throughout the system, according to the release.
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"Coachella Valley Water District has been trying for years to deal with these issues of access to safe drinking water that are outside of their system of infrastructure," Garcia said.
With his bill, AB 2060, he is hoping to make it easier for community-led organizations to receive the funds they need to tackle some of these issues locally.
Here’s what happened so far: CVWD pushes for safe water in disadvantaged communities In 2015, the nonprofit Pueblo Unido Community Development Corporation installed water filters throughout Duarte’s park, using reverse osmosis to turn the contaminated groundwater into clean drinking water.
Garcia’s bill proposes a change to the existing legislation, SB 208, which specifies how these funds can be distributed to organizations implementing water and wastewater projects.
These local agencies often have more extensive budgets than many of the small organizations who are now encouraged to participate in finding and implementing solutions to the most pressing water issues in the area they service.
(Photo: Zoe Meyers/The Desert Sun) Garcia’s proposal seeks to increase the amount of funding these organizations are able to receive upfront and streamline the reimbursement process, to ensure organizations with smaller budgets will be able to participate.
"It will assist our disadvantaged communities with the access to clean drinking water," he said.
Pueblo Unido CDC, is a member of the new task force and one of the organizations likely to benefit from the kind of legislation Garcia is proposing.
Pueblo Unido CDC, the Coachella Water District and a number of other local organizations have formed the Disadvantaged Communities Infrastructure Task Force to identify needs in the community, push for legislative solutions and divvy up funds that will help their members improve infrastructure in the area.
According to Assemblymember Garcia, this is only the beginning of the task force’s work to address the persistent infrastructure issues faced by residents in the east valley.

Food insecurity and reduced access to safe water are beginning to take their toll in the 10 worst affected provinces, where 20 to 30 percent of water sources are reportedly dry.
Without adequate nutritious food and safe water for drinking, as well as for hygiene and sanitation, children’s health will only worsen.
The impact of the drought couldn’t come at a worse time, as cases of severe acute malnutrition – seasonal malnutrition – rise on average by about 25 percent each year in the coming summer months.
“Preventing malnutrition is already a priority in Afghanistan,” said Khodr.
The impact of malnutrition can last a lifetime, which is why it’s critical that we identify and treat at risk children now,” Khodr added.
The UNICEF led water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) cluster has indicated that some 875,000 people could need assistance in the next three to six months.
UNICEF and partners are scaling up their operations to respond to the emergency nutrition and WASH needs.
UNICEF Afghanistan is calling for an additional US$10 million to respond to the needs of children and their families.
This includes to: • Provide safe water for 200,000 people and hygiene assistance, including chemicals for water treatment and hygiene kits.
UNICEF also calls on all parties to the conflict to provide safe access for families seeking essential health services and for humanitarian workers to reach children and families in need of lifesaving support.

Poor water quality is the cause of many illnesses, with the annual loss of nearly 315,000 children under the age of five worldwide.
The filters helped 18,000 families, providing three trillion gallons of clean water.
According to Executive Director Sean Kappauf they have built relationships with community leaders in these locations as partners and train those who will distribute water filters to the people with the greatest need in each community.
“There are so many stories of changed lives, children being healed and hope being instilled,” stated Sean Kappauf, Executive Director of ATTA.
“One of the biggest impacts was being a part of both Houston and Puerto Rico in 2017.
In both places we were able to help those most in need of access to clean drinking water just after the hurricane hit.” The Annual Sponsorship Program was launched this week to engage companies, organizations and individuals to help make a difference.
Until now, ATTA has taken donations and will continue to do so, but the growing demand and extremely positive results with the health of the children whose lives they touch are taking the non-profit to a higher level of responsibility across the globe.
Each annual sponsorship is a one-year commitment that can be renewed or changed each year.
Additional sponsorship information and benefits can be found on the website at https://oneattatime.org/sponsorship-program/ About One ATTA Time: One ATTA Time brings healing to children around the world by providing clean water to heal those with preventable illnesses caused by waterborne diseases.
One ATTA Time is a registered 501(c)3 humanitarian non-profit organization dedicated to taking water filtration to communities in desperate need of clean water.

Underneath the major news headlines highlighting the socio economic issues faced by Pakistan, a major water crisis is brewing up silently since years, which is being ignored.
This problem was noted by International Monetary Fund a couple of years and advised Pakistan to employ water management techniques to harness this problem.
Pakistan has unfortunately been included in the 36 most water stressed countries in the world and more recently UNO has placed Pakistan at the 7th position amongst these countries.
The root cause of this calamity is not the shortage of this natural endowment but the poor water policy, rapid urbanisation, corruption and management.
The problem is more pronounced in the cities where the access to clean water to its residents have declined from 97 percent to 94 percent over the period of last three decades, even though the overall access to clean water has increased from 86 percent to 91 percent, majority of this happening in the rural areas.
This downturn in the cities is being compared to war torn countries like Syria and Gaza.
Although it accounts for over 20 percent of the GDP, the taxes from agriculture currently contribute less than 0.1 percent of total tax revenues This is mainly the result of a politically instable management in the country and the growing level of mismanagement and corruption amongst the authorities, which allows the drinking water to be contaminated with sewage and industrial waste.
Adding fuel to the fire is the rapid depletion of the ground water may cause drought like situation in the major cities of Pakistan.
This is mainly important, as Pakistan is an agro-based economy with agricultural products and crops making up to 20 percent of the GDP and making it the biggest consumer of the water.
Although it accounts for over 20 percent of the GDP, the taxes from the agricultural currently contribute less than 0.1 percent of the total tax revenues.

Aberdeen Superintendent Alicia Henderson says precautionary measures to provide safe drinking water to students at four schools will remain in place until water testing results are available from the Washington Department of Health.
The Aberdeen School District participated in a voluntary testing of lead in drinking water offered by the state DOH, which was recommended for Hopkins, Central Park, Stevens, and A.J West.
Preliminary results on Thursday indicated slightly elevated levels.
The drinking faucets at those schools were turned off and students were provided with either bottled water or access to water bottle filling stations.
Precautionary measures will remain in place at those schools.
In addition to safe drinking water being made available to students, water is being brought in for use in the kitchens, Dr. Henderson said.
The superintendent added that she is grateful for the supportive, thoughtful and patient response from staff and the community to the unexpected development.
“The safety of our students and staff remains our primary concern,” Dr. Henderson said.
“We welcome the questions that have been posed by staff and community members and thank everyone for understanding the solution will not occur overnight.
We will continue to share information as it becomes available.” Schools are not currently required to test for lead in their drinking water.