Atlas Copco USA’s Water for All Program Helps Navajo Special Education School Access Clean Water.
ROCK HILL, S.C., May 5, 2017 /3BL Media/ — Atlas Copco USA’s Water for All organization recently donated to human rights non-profit DigDeep to support St. Michaels Association for Special Education (SMASE) in Window Rock, A.Z., the only special needs school on the Navajo Reservation.
The school needs potable water to clean sensitive medical equipment, such as tracheotomy and gastrostomy tubes, but the water contains high amounts of lead and arsenic, ranges from yellow to brown in color, and leaves behind a white, grainy film.
“When I run out of bottled water in my classroom, I’m frantically running from building to building trying to get enough water to give a student her medicine.
It’s very stressful.” SMASE is partnering with DigDeep, a human rights non-profit working to ensure that every American has clean, running water, to build a water treatment system that will supply safe water to sinks, toilets and showers in the school.
Atlas Copco is a world-leading provider of sustainable productivity solutions.
Atlas Copco Compressors LLC is part of the Compressor Technique Business Area, and its headquarters are located in Rock Hill, S.C.
The company manufactures, markets, and services oil-free and oil-injected stationary air compressors, air treatment equipment, and air management systems, including local manufacturing of select products.
DIGDEEP’s focus on both water access and conservation is unique, and DIGDEEP is the only global water non-profit building water projects with marginalized communities here in the U.S. — where more than 1.7 million people still don’t have it.
DIGDEEP is committed to changing the way people think about water, and 100% of all donations support projects in the field.

Woodie, who also works at Saint Michael’s, says the only problem with the school is its water.
Many of the kids at Saint Michael’s are medically fragile.
And at some of the places that do, like Saint Michael’s, people don’t want to drink it because it smells, tastes funny and looks bad.
In another classroom, volunteer Jacob Lundy helps two young girls with autism wash their hands at the sink.
The Navajo Tribal Utility Authority tests the water at Saint Michael’s monthly and says it meets national primary drinking water standards.
"People typically won’t drink water if it tastes bad or if it looks bad or if it stinks," says Adam Bringhurst, who studies water resources at Northern Arizona University.
But those secondary standards are still very important, he says.
George McGraw, Dig Deep’s founder and executive director, is especially concerned for the disabled kids.
And what’s more basic than having access to clean running water?"
It will be something kids and staff actually want to drink.