David Powell

February 6, 2007

Potable drinking water is taken for granted in the United States, and the average home uses 100 gallons per day, according to American Water Works Association statistics.

The luxury of unlimited water and sewer service is due in large measure to people like David Powell and the engineers, planners and contractors with whom he works.

"You really don't think about it," Powell told Putnam Rotarians today, "until you have seen how they live in other places."

Powell has worked on assignments where the sewers drain into reservoirs, and where communities do their washing in a common pool.

"There was water everywhere," he said, "but none that was safe to drink."

He remembers one area where his company, Ferguson Enterprises, was installing a 24-inch polyethelene high density line to a village in central America. "The people were coming to us every day," said Powell, "asking 'Esté listo?' -- -- 'Is it ready?' and then later all we heard was 'Gracias por agua' -- 'Thank you for the water.'"

In another village where the sewage collected in ditches, and where no clean water was available, Powell's team drilled a well and installed a submersable pump to supply a communal tank reservoir.

Among recent challenges in our own continental United States was the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Flood waters had taken out the 13th Street levy. The breach had to be repaired, the foundation stabalized and the break closed before water could be pumped out of the submerged sections of the city.

Once the water was gone, many areas had to be stabliized with tons of gravel before sewers, water, and electrical conduit could be repaired or replaced.

Ferguson employees responded to immediate living needs by raising oveer $2.0 million for disaster relief aid.

"Water usage in the United States is more than 341 billion gallons each day," Powell told the group.

"The average American home uses 69 to 70 gallons a day inside the house for washing machines, showers (12 gallons), and toilets (18 to 19 gallons)."

In West Virginia four out of five homes are on public or private water/sewer utilities. About 45 percent of the homes in the state are served by septic tanks.

In fifteen West Virginia counties, nearly eight percent of the homes have no access to water and sewer systems.

Even in the best situated counties in the state -- Putnam and Berkeley -- 3.2 percent of the homes are without access.

Things may be improving, he said, with recent appropriations by the Putnam County Commission for new service north of the Kanawha River and up US Route 35.

"But there are many places in the county, some within a half-mile of $250,000 homes, which remain without adequate service."

David Powell is Vice President of Specialty Products for Ferguson Waterworks, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ferguson Enterprises, with local offices at 500 Corporate Centre in Scott Depot.