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Thursday, August 28, 2003

Self Help Virginia Brings Running Water to Remote Communities

In a medical lab they measure perspiration by the liter. But in the hills and hollows of far western Virginia, they measure it by the mile.

The Self Help Virginia program uses community volunteers to lay water pipes in remote areas that would otherwise depend on wells and cisterns.

Among the volunteers in Derby was Virginia Governor Mark Warner (right) who pitched in to help local citizens overcome the difficulties of living without running water in their homes.

That's because perspiration -- good, old-fashioned sweat from the good, old-fashioned work of hundreds of volunteers -- is the essential "tool" in connecting almost 2,000 families to a reliable supply of clean, drinkable water.

Started in 1998, the state Department of Housing and Community Development's Self Help Virginia program relies on local volunteers to install public water systems in their communities. Over the past five years, the Virginia agency has invested almost $5 million in HUD Community Development Block Grants and state funds to complete 22 projects, laying 95 miles -- the distance from Philadelphia to New York -- of water pipes in remote areas that would otherwise depend on wells and cisterns. That investment of $5 million has actually saved the state more than $8 million by working with community volunteers versus conventional construction methods.

But muscle, not money, is the key to the success of Self Help Virginia.

Its latest project is in Derby, a little town in Wise County. On a hot Thursday morning in July, more than 25 residents laid pipe that will soon link 90 Derby families to public water. They'd already laid 7,000 feet of pipe in just one month, but still had 5,000 more feet to go.

"That water line is the most important thing," Bueford McNutt, 82, told the Bristol Herald Courier. "The water is so bad that we can't even make coffee with it. We're very happy to get this water line put in."

His wife, Mary, is pleased - make that "very" pleased -- that her white linens no longer will come out yellow in the wash. "We won't have to worry about the water," she said, sitting in a rocker on her front port, a broad smile on her face.

"While there are far too many people in this world looking for the easy way out of most everything," concluded the editorial page of The Coalfield Progress, "many others are ready, even eager, to break a sweat when effort is needed. In recent weeks, motivated hard-working citizens have set good examples in Derby as they dig in, literally, to help get much-needed public water to their community."