In Haiti, relief agencies rush to meet desperate need for water

A girl dressed in her school uniform is treated for an arm injury at General Hospital in Port-au-Prince. The hospital has been deluged with patients. A critical problem is the lack of fresh water in Haiti, along with dehydration and water-borne illnesses. (Nikki Kahn/the Washington Post)
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Other nations are rushing to provide supplies. In addition to private donations of bottled water, the U.S. Agency for International Development was readying an estimated 100,000 10-liter containers for potable water.

But such efforts will have limited impact, especially given the monumental logistical obstacles of transporting large numbers of heavy water containers over wrecked roads. Each gallon of water weighs about eight pounds. "It's really hard to move around, to say the least," Schwab said.

U.N. agencies and other groups are supplying water treatment chemicals and tablets that people can use to purify small amounts of water. But experts said they are difficult to consistently use correctly and cannot provide large amounts. So rescue efforts also include sending water purification equipment

U.S. officials, for example, plan to send four major purification systems soon by ship, and six more might be brought to Haiti later from elsewhere in the world. Each can produce enough water for 10,000 people a day.

Water Missions International, a Charleston, S.C., charity that provides clean water in Haiti and 39 other countries, sent 10 water filtration systems to Port-au-Prince by plane on Friday and was rushing to assemble as many additional systems as quickly as possible.

The 1,700-pound, $25,000 systems, which can run on diesel fuel or solar power, can purify water from ponds, lakes, streams, springs, wells and other sources to produce 10 gallons of water a minute -- enough to supply up to about 5,000 people a day.

"They're kind of like small municipal water treatment plants," said Patrick Haughney, the group's director of international programs.

Although some water purification systems, including those on ships anchored offshore, could turn seawater into drinking water, such desalination systems tend to be much more complicated and expensive to run.

"If fresh water is available, it's much easier to do that," Haughney said. "We think there's an adequate available supply of fresh water."

The USS Carl Vinson arrived in Haiti on Friday with desalinization equipment able to produce about 35,000 gallons of water a day. Four additional U.S. Navy ships carrying desalinization equipment that can produce 20,000 to 22,000 gallons of water a day are expected to arrive within days.

But even after such systems are operating, many logistical challenges remain, including having enough fuel to power them, personnel to run them and then transporting the clean water long distances to those who need it.

"It's not as straightforward as dropping something off and hoping it will work," Schwab, of the Hopkins center, said.

Even carrying the water to those who need it can be difficult.

"How do people carry it?" Schwab said. "In many cases, it will be in open buckets. But that's not ideal. If someone's hands are contaminated with waste and they put their hands in the bucket, then it's contaminated all over again."

In the long term, workers will need to repair whatever water purification system was in place before the earthquake.

"We need to act very, very fast to make the treatment plant work again so we can distribute water for people in large amounts," Galvao, of PAHO, said.

Staff writer Carol Leonnig contributed to this report.