New technology helps Texas town get fresh drinking water — finally
Most people take running water for granted, not thinking twice when they turn on their faucets. But one small Dallas County community has been without drinkable water for decades.
Web Editor: Maggie Brown
Sam branch is a community rich with history founded by freed slaves in 1878. This Friedman Settlement was flourishing. I mean it was thriving, kids were playing in the street, but today it feels stuck in the past. People who live here say they have to burn their garbage and there's no running drinkable water. It's really unbelievable that people are still having to use this water. That's undrinkable. It's horrible, Phyllis gauge owns this house in sand branch and says even the wells are contaminated after being built decades ago. The well is so old that the water has sand so you can't drink this water. So the relying on bottled water to survive. So I have to bring bottled water here to my dad's right now to even because the well is not working, this community deserves better and what I see in this community happening should not happen anywhere in the United States has fema designated sand branch tona bird wanted to do something to help this community. So she partnered with several organizations including Source Global to provide a few Of these hydro panels to help provide water to residents. So this is what these hydro panels look like. They're pretty massive. Each household will have to have two of them and run off of solar power and this is how it works. The hydro panels are ran by fans that are internal fans and extracts water from the atmosphere. They are costly, about $8,000 each. So they're looking at fundraising options for the 100 or so residents who live here. The technology is there. Um, we just have to tap into those resources. The panels are just a temporary option with the goal of having reliable drinking water. It's history here, and we're not treating people right in sand branch nick, Starling Cbs 11 News.
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