Rainwater Harvesting in Puttaparthi

The Rainwater Club team joined members of the Center for Sustainable Living in Puttaparthi on a visit to a village affected by extremely high levels of groundwater fluoride. The permissible limit is 1.5 parts per million, and this village's borewell water records fluoride at 7 parts per million.

Effects of fluorosis were immediately evident in our discussions with the villagers, from browned and cracked teeth in children to bowed legs and joint pain in adults.

Rainwater harvested from rooftops would present a fluoride and salt-free alternative for drinking and cooking water, and we questioned the villagers about their willingness to consider such an option. An interesting response from a villager suggests that some convincing would be needed to bring villagers on board with such a scheme.

We also spoke about the differences between a household RWH approach and a community-level fluoride treatment approach.

Since the community receives regular, yet insufficient, clean water from a scheme started by Sathya Sai Baba, a question was raised about whether families would maintain their RWH systems if the other supply of clean water were to increase.

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Nonprofits & Activism

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