[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5339-5340]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO CAROLYN CROWLEY MEUB

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to pay 
tribute to Carolyn Meub, Executive Director of Pure Water for the 
World, a Vermont-based nonprofit organization that brings clean water 
to thousands of families in Honduras and Haiti.
  Last week, the White House honored Carolyn as one of 10 Rotary Club 
members from across the country who are improving the lives of others 
through volunteer work. Carolyn has transformed Pure Water for the 
World from a small Rotary club project into an effective international 
NGO. Under her leadership, the organization is implementing a 
sustainable model for clean water programs by building clean water 
filtration systems, providing hygiene education, and installing 
latrines to improve sanitation. Twenty-thousand Honduran families now 
have access to clean drinking water, and 1,200 schools in Haiti have 
clean water systems and hygiene education curriculums, because of Pure 
Water for the World. That is no small feat.
  As Carolyn points out, clean water is a tap away for most Americans, 
but for more than three-quarters of a billion of the world's people 
accessing safe water is a daily struggle. The United Nations reports 
that 3.5 million people die each year from diseases related to drinking 
contaminated water.
  In February, my wife Marcelle visited Port-au-Prince as part of a 
delegation I led with five other Members of Congress, where she saw 
firsthand the simple, inexpensive household water filtration systems 
being built and donated by Pure Water for the World. Each unit, the 
size of an office water cooler and made of concrete or plastic, is 
filled with layers of sand and gravel that trap microorganisms as the 
water passes through. This process of slow sand filtration is 
inexpensive and produced from local materials, making it ideally suited 
for developing countries.
  Pure Water for the World is doing important and inspiring work, 
providing sustainable sources of safe drinking water and promoting 
habits to improve health and sanitation in poor communities in Honduras 
and Haiti. I am very proud that Carolyn received this well-deserved 
recognition at the White House on behalf of her organization. We all 
appreciate the work they are doing.
  I ask unanimous consent that the Rutland Herald article entitled 
``Hope flows: Vt. nonprofit pours `Pure Water for the World''' be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Rutland Herald, Mar. 18, 2012]

      Hope Flows: Vt. Nonprofit Pours ``Pure Water for the World''

                          (By Kevin O'Connor)

       Rutland resident Carolyn Crowley Meub didn't fret when her 
     hometown turned on its faucets two weeks ago to find, due to 
     a water main break, the usually clean stream down to a dirty 
     trickle. She was flying off to the Caribbean--specifically, 
     to Haiti, where the situation is even worse.
       Meub is one of several prominent Vermonters who've recently 
     witnessed the problems of the earthquake ravaged island--and 
     the solutions of the Green Mountains-based nonprofit Pure 
     Water for the World, which is aiming to pour hope across 
     hemispheres to mark United Nations World Water Day on 
     Thursday.
       For most Americans, clean water is a tap away. But 1 
     billion people worldwide drink from contaminated springs and 
     streams, the United Nations reports, while 3.5 million people 
     die each year from related diseases.
       State Rep. Margaret Cheney, D Norwich, joined her husband, 
     U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., in a February tour of the 
     Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, where, between a 
     congressional delegation's visits with the country's 
     president and actor Sean Penn's relief organization, she saw 
     the water challenge firsthand.
       ``It's the poorest, most chaotic scene in the world,'' 
     Cheney says of crowded slums equipped with little more than 
     rain barrels. ``The water can be the unknown bearer of 
     terrible diseases. Catch them and you can't work, you can't 
     go to school, you can't really function.''
       Organizations like the U.S. Agency for International 
     Development are working to help densely populated areas of 
     the globe that report 75 percent of the problem. But that 
     leaves more than 250 million people without potable water in 
     remote rural settings. Enter Vermont's Pure Water, which is 
     installing simple, inexpensive household filters in 
     developing countries in the Caribbean and Central America.
       Dr. Noelle Thabault, a Burlington native, graduated from 
     the University of Vermont College of Medicine before 
     practicing in Rutland. After a magnitude 7.0 earthquake 
     decimated Haiti in 2010, she flew to Port-au-Prince as a Pure 
     Water volunteer and now serves as its deputy regional 
     director.
       ``I recognized the role that lack of clean water plays in 
     illness,'' Thabault recalls of her knowledge before arriving, 
     ``but I had no understanding of the scope of the problem.''
       Two years in the trenches, Thabault recently hosted Cheney 
     and Marcelle Leahy, wife of U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. 
     The doctor told them that more than 40 percent of Haitians 
     live without clean water, leading to diseases that are the 
     country's second leading cause of death and fill more than 
     half of all hospital beds with patients suffering from 
     bacteria or parasites.
       ``Clean water is so necessary,'' says Marcelle Leahy, 
     herself a nurse. ``But Haiti unfortunately was lacking a lot 
     of the necessities of everyday life even prior to the 
     earthquake.''
       Most U.S. municipalities filter water at central reservoirs 
     and then distribute it through pipes. But that doesn't work 
     in Caribbean and Central American villages with more poverty 
     than plumbing. Cheney and Leahy visited a Pure Water plant 
     that manufactures the kind of ``slow sand'' household filters 
     used in New England for its first 150 years.
       Pure Water taps the sand system because it costs as little 
     as $150 to produce, install

[[Page 5340]]

     and monitor; requires no moving parts or electricity; and can 
     be built with locally available materials. Each unit, shaped 
     of concrete or plastic and sized like an office water cooler, 
     is filled with several layers of sand and gravel. Pour in 
     water, and the mixture traps microorganisms that, in turn, 
     decompose other organic material.
       Water that passes through the filter is clear in color, 
     taste and smell. More importantly, it's rid of up to 90 
     percent of toxins, 97 percent of fecal coliform bacteria and 
     100 percent of worms and parasites.
       ``It's such a clever, simple concept, and it works,'' Leahy 
     says. ``You're employing people, they're earning a living and 
     improving their health.''
       Cheney, for her part, was equally impressed by Pure Water 
     posters written in Creole that explain the importance of 
     proper hand-washing, hygiene and waste disposal.
       ``They're providing really simple tools and educational 
     efforts--the common-sense Vermont way--to help make this 
     sustainable,'' Cheney says. ``They have a great banner that 
     says, `Clean water is medicine.' We take it so for granted, 
     but that's the basic key to recovery.''
       Pure Water bubbled up two decades ago after Brattleboro 
     dentist Peter Abell traveled to El Salvador and saw people 
     drinking dirty water that caused diarrhea, cholera and 
     dysentery. Abell's local Rotary club went on to raise money 
     to provide clean water in El Salvador and later Honduras, 
     then incorporated its volunteer efforts into the Pure Water 
     nonprofit, which Meub has headed from Rutland for the past 10 
     years.
       Pure Water so far has spent at least $5 million on projects 
     to provide safe drinking water--a comparatively small sum 
     compared with the $20 billion a year the United Nations 
     estimates it would cost to provide clean water to everyone on 
     the planet. But as Meub notes, helping one family, one 
     school, one community at a time, ``many drops of water 
     eventually fill a bucket.''
       Americans, for their part, annually spend billions on 
     store-bought bottled water. Consider what Rutlanders were 
     willing to pay after the city's recent main break. As Meub 
     was packing for her trip, husband William Meub fielded calls 
     from fellow residents wondering how many hours they'd lack 
     water. He recalled his own travels to Haiti after the 
     earthquake.
       ``They let me take a shower with a yogurt container full of 
     water,'' the lawyer says. ``It's a whole different experience 
     than anyone here has any familiarity with.
       That's why Pure Water is streaming its message (the latest: 
     Gov. Peter Shumlin will promote World Water Day this week 
     with a proclamation) through Facebook, Twitter and the 
     website purewaterfortheworld.org.
       Says Carolyn Meub: ``Safe drinking water should be a basic 
     human right.''
       And Thabault: ``All other interventions--the rebuilding of 
     roads and schools and hospitals and communities--will not 
     result in a long-term sustainable improvement if people don't 
     have clean water. People need to support organizations that 
     are bringing clean water, hygiene education and sanitation to 
     homes and schools. That's how they can help.''

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